Abstract
Recovery during yesterday’s leisure time is beneficial for morning recovery, and morning recovery fosters employees’ work engagement, a positive, motivational state associated with job performance. We extended existing research by assuming that both, morning recovery (considered a resource) and anticipated leisure time (considered an anticipated resource gain), relate to work engagement. Anticipated leisure time comprises two constructs: general anticipation of leisure time, which refers to employees’ cognitive evaluation of their entire upcoming leisure time, and pleasant anticipation of a planned leisure activity, which describes a positive affective reaction because of one specific, upcoming leisure activity. We suggested that employees with high pleasant anticipation generate more thoughts of a planned leisure activity (ToPLA), which may distract them from their work, reducing their work engagement. A diary study over five days showed that morning recovery and general anticipation of leisure time were positively related to work engagement. Furthermore, employees with higher pleasant anticipation of a planned leisure activity reported more ToPLA. In contrast to our expectations, neither pleasant anticipation nor ToPLA was related to work engagement. In sum, this study introduced anticipated leisure time as a novel antecedent of work engagement and demonstrated that anticipated resource gains are important for high work engagement.
Highlights
In Hypothesis 2, we suggested that daily general anticipation of leisure time is positively related to daily work engagement
We assumed that day-level pleasant anticipation of a planned leisure activity is related either positively or negatively to work engagement and that the negative relationship is mediated through thoughts of a planned leisure activity (ToPLA)
Apart from the positive relationship between pleasant anticipation of a planned leisure activity and work engagement, we argued that this relationship might be negative and mediated by employees’ ToPLA
Summary
Employees must deal with many different job demands and stressors, which drain their resources and exhaust their energy [1,2]. Recovery after the working day is essential for employees (for a meta-analysis, see [3]), and research has shown that leisure activities are critical to a successful recovery process (for a review, see [4]). One indicator of job performance is employees’ work engagement [6,7], a positive, motivational, work-related state [8]. Work engagement is related to employees’ job performance and health (for a meta-analysis, see [9]); it is relevant for organizations and employees
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