Abstract
This study examined whether particular recovery activities after work have a positive or negative effect on employee recovery from work (i.e., cognitive, emotional, and physical detachment) and sleep quality. We used a two-wave panel study of 230 health care employees which enabled looking at both short-term and long-term effects (i.e., two-year time interval). Gender, age, marital status, children at home, education level, management position, and working hours were used as control variables. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed that work-related off-job activities were negatively associated with cognitive and emotional detachment in both the short and long run, whereas low-effort off-job activities were positively related to cognitive detachment in the short run. Moreover, household/care off-job activities were positively related to sleep quality in the long run, whereas physical off-job activities were negatively associated with sleep quality in the long run. The long-term findings existed beyond the strong effects of baseline detachment and sleep quality. This study highlights the importance of off-job recovery activities for health care employees’ detachment from work and sleep quality. Practical implications and avenues for further research are discussed.
Highlights
Health care employees are facing increasingly high demands at work, which may cause job strain and burnout [1], and even reduced work performance [2]
Employees are better able to deal with future job demands
This study examined whether particular off-job recovery activities have a positive or negative effect on employee recovery from work and sleep quality
Summary
Health care employees are facing increasingly high demands at work, which may cause job strain and burnout [1], and even reduced work performance [2]. While there is mounting evidence on the consequences of high job demands, less attention has been paid to the role of off-job recovery from job strain and the opportunity to engage in different types of off-job recovery activities [3]. Examples of the latter are household and care activities (e.g., child), social activities, physical activities, and even work-related activities. It should be noted that overall empirical evidence is mixed, and the jury is still out on this issue For this reason, the present study examined whether
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