A systematic review of at-work recovery and a framework for future research

Abstract

Over the last 20 years, the importance of work recovery has been well-documented in the organizational behavior field, with accumulated findings demonstrating the significant implications of recovery for employee work attitudes, behaviors, and wellbeing. However, this line of research has primarily focused on investigating the implications of recovery outside of work hours, overlooking the need for recovery at-work to maintain energy for daily work demands. To advance the overall work recovery research, it is timely to conduct a systematic review of at-work recovery research. The goal of the systematic review is to address several emerging issues that have hampered the development, both practical and theoretical, of at-work recovery by (1) clarifying how at-work recovery fits within the broader recovery field, (2) organizing and aligning the inconsistent terminology and constructs used within at-work recovery, (3) detailing the nomological network of constructs surrounding at-work recovery, and (4) presenting a novel framework to guide future research. In doing so, we bring together the organizational behavior and ergonomics disciplines in this comprehensive review of recovery at work.