Back to work bang! Difficulties, emotions and adjustment strategies when returning to work after a vacation

Abstract

In our day-to-day lives, we are all confronted with situations that we have to adapt and adjust to. When we return to work after a vacation, we also go through an adjustment process. The aim of this study is to identify the difficulties of adjusting to work after the vacation, the emotions and feelings associated with this transition period and what strategies people use to overcome them. Through 93 semistructured interviews, the results show that the main difficulties can be grouped into four dimensions (work-related difficulties, social-level difficulties, general difficulties and the feeling of dis-identification). The emotions and feelings reported have two facets (positive and negative) and companies do not have any type of strategy to facilitate readjustment to work. Thus, the identification of the main difficulties and emotions felt by the respondents is of extreme importance for the design of intervention practices that facilitate this moment of transition, aiming to enhance motivation, well-being and productivity. On the other hand, the emotions associated with this period of return can act as possible predictors of attitudes toward work, presenting an added value to the enrichment and to an improvement of the processes underlying the management of human resources.