Non-work Time Research Articles

TRANSFORMATION OF THE FORMAT OF STUDY AND WORK IN THE CONTEXT OF THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC

TRANSFORMATION OF THE FORMAT OF STUDY AND WORK IN THE CONTEXT OF THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC

Comparative Study between the Overall Production Time of Digitally Versus Conventionally Produced Indirect Orthodontic Bonding Trays.

The purpose of this study was to compare the production time for indirect digitally and laboratory-produced orthodontic bonding trays. Orthodontic study casts were used in this study (n=40). The specimens were equally and randomly divided. In the digitally produced indirect bonding tray (DIBT) group (n=20), the brackets were set virtually using the Orthoanalyzer program (3Shape, Copenhagen, Denmark) to produce an indirect bonding tray that was virtually designed and 3D printed using VarseoWax® Splint material with a Varseo S 3D printer (Bego, Bremen, Germany). In the laboratory-produced indirect bonding tray (LIBT) group, the brackets were adhesively bonded to the study casts in the dental laboratory (Danube Private University, Krems, Austria), and a transfer bonding silicone tray was manufactured. The t-test results showed a significant difference between the passive time during the production of DIBTs (153.8±32.8 min) and LIBTs (7 min). However, the active production time was 13.6±0.8 min for DIBTs and 17.7±1.9 min for LIBTs. Every individual process step in both groups was measured in minutes, and statistical analysis was performed. The total production time, including active working and passive non-working time, was higher for DIBTs than for LIBTs. However, the actual active production time for DIBTs was shorter than that for LIBTs. Within the study limitations, the digital planning and production of indirect orthodontic trays can be considered a time-efficient production method.

Development and validation of Work-Related Activities during Non-Work Time Scale (WANTS) for doctors.

Work-related activities during non-work time may influence the intershift recovery of post-work fatigue. Currently there is no valid and reliable scale available to measure the frequency for such activities among doctors. Therefore, this study aims to develop and validate ‘Work-Related Activities during Non-Work Time Scale’ (WANTS) that measure the frequency of work-related activities during non-work time for doctors. This was a scale development and validation study among doctors involving item generation, content and construct validation, and reliability assessment. 23-item seven-point Likert-type scale was developed through deductive (literature search) and inductive (interview with source population, authors’ experiences, and expert opinion) methods. The content-validated scale was pre-tested, and the improved scale was subsequently administered to randomly-selected 460 doctors working at public hospital setting. Response rate was 77.76% (n = 382). Initial exploratory factor analysis (EFA) with principal axis factoring (PAF) using varimax rotation revealed unstable six-factor structure consisting of 17 variables; thus, we tested one- to six-factor model, and found that four-factor model is the most stable. Further analysis with principal component analysis (PCA) with a single component on each factor found that 17-variables four-factor model is stable. These factors were labelled as ‘work-related thought’, ‘work-to-home conversation’, ‘task spillover’ and ‘superior-subordinate communication’. It showed good internal consistency with overall alpha value of 0.837. The scale is thus valid and reliable for measuring the frequency of each construct of work-related activities during non-work time among doctors.

Time Use, Unemployment, and Well-Being: An Empirical Analysis Using British Time-Use Data

We use nationally representative data from the UK Time-Use Survey 2014/2015 to investigate how a person’s employment status is related to time use and cognitive and affective dimensions of subjective well-being. We do not find clear indications that employed and unemployed persons experience different average levels of emotional well-being when they engage in the same kinds of activities. For the employed, working belongs to one of the least enjoyable activities of their day. They also spend a large share of their time at work and on work-related activities. The unemployed, instead, spend more time on leisure and more enjoyable activities. When looking at duration-weighted average affective well-being over the entire waking time of the day, the unemployed experience, on average, more enjoyment than the employed. For the employed, the more hours they have to work on a specific day, the lower the average enjoyment they experience on that day. Differentiating the analyses by weekdays and weekends supports the finding that being able to freely allocate one’s non-work time is associated with higher levels of affective well-being. In line with previous studies on cognitive well-being, we find that the unemployed report substantially lower levels of life satisfaction than the employed.

Controlling or Channeling Demands? How Schedule Control Influences the Link Between Job Pressure and the Work-Family Interface

Schedule control is theorized as a job resource that should reduce the extent to which work demands bleed into nonwork time and decrease work-to-family conflict. However, schedule control might also come with greater expectations that workers fully devote themselves to work even during non-conventional work times; in this scenario, schedule control might act as a channel through which job demands can more easily permeate nonwork roles and generate conflict. Drawing on four waves of panel data from the Canadian Work, Stress, and Health Study (2011–2017), the authors use fixed effects regression techniques to discover some contradictions in the resource functions of schedule control. The authors find that schedule control exacerbates the effect of job pressure on role blurring, and these observed downsides of schedule control are stronger for women. By discovering gendered effects in the moderating role of schedule control, this study sharpens prevailing knowledge about its functions as a resource and the ways that it might channel stressful work-related demands.

To Detach or Not to Detach? Two Experimental Studies on the Affective Consequences of Detaching From Work During Non-work Time.

Previous correlational studies have shown that both psychological detachment from work and positively thinking about work during non-work time are associated with favorable affective states. In our research we integrate these contradictory findings and add more rigor to detachment research by using an experimental design. In two experimental studies conducted in the laboratory, we manipulated two different kinds of detachment from work (thinking about a hobby; explicit detachment instruction) and three different kinds of thinking about work (thinking negatively, thinking positively, thinking in an unspecific way) by short written instructions. Results show that both detachment strategies lead to a reduction in negative affect (in both studies) and to an increase in positive affect (in one study). The effect of detachment was particularly strong when it was contrasted with thinking negatively about work and when end-of-workday negative affect was high. In some of the comparisons, the affective benefits of positively thinking about work were stronger than those of psychological detachment from work. Taken together, our studies demonstrate that detachment from work as well as positive thinking improves subsequent affect, highlighting the causality underlying the association between psychological detachment from work – as a core recovery experience – and subsequent affective states.

Fatigue and recovery among Malaysian doctors: the role of work-related activities during non-work time.

ObjectivesThis paper aims to estimate the level of acute fatigue, chronic fatigue and intershift recovery among doctors working at public hospitals in Malaysia and determine their inter-relationship and their association with work-related activities during non-work time.DesignCross-sectional.SettingSeven core clinical disciplines from seven tertiary public hospitals in Malaysia.ParticipantsStudy was conducted among 330 randomly-sampled doctors. Response rate was 80.61% (n=266).ResultsThe mean score of acute fatigue, chronic fatigue and intershift recovery were 68.51 (SD=16.549), 54.60 (SD=21.259) and 37.29 (SD=19.540), respectively. All these scores were out of 100 points each. Acute and chronic fatigue were correlated (r=0.663), and both were negatively correlated with intershift recovery (r=−0.704 and r=−0.670, respectively). Among the work-related activities done during non-work time, work-related ruminations dominated both the more frequent activities and the association with poorer fatigue and recovery outcomes. Rumination on being scolded/violated was found to be positively associated with both acute fatigue (adjusted regression coefficient (Adj.b)=2.190, 95% CI=1.139 to 3.240) and chronic fatigue (Adj.b=5.089, 95% CI=3.876 to 6.303), and negatively associated with recovery (Adj.b=−3.316, 95% CI=–4.516 to –2.117). Doing work task at workplace or attending extra work-related activities such as locum and attending training were found to have negative associations with fatigue and positive associations with recovery. Nevertheless, doing work-related activities at home was positively associated with acute fatigue. In terms of communication, it was found that face-to-face conversation with partner did associate with higher recovery but virtual conversation with partner associated with higher acute fatigue and lower recovery.ConclusionsWork-related ruminations during non-work time were common and associated with poor fatigue and recovery outcomes while overt work activities done at workplace during non-work time were associated with better fatigue and recovery levels. There is a need for future studies with design that allow causal inference to address these relationships.

How the type of working day affects work–life balance and mealtime balance: A study based on the time use survey

How people balance work and personal or family life has been widely examined, showing gender inequalities that put women at a disadvantage relative to men. However, although this is a question of time compatibility, there has been no research on whether the type of working day (continuous or split) has different effects on this balance for men and women. The Time Use Survey enables us to examine this balance in two areas that are key to understanding the difficulty of reconciling timetables. On the one hand, there is the relationship between the type of working day and housework or family care (balance between paid and unpaid work). On the other hand, there is the relationship between the type of working day and eating (mealtime balance). The data indicate that the type of working day affects the balance between paid and unpaid work less than might be expected, since in all cases, it is women who do more unpaid work, while men’s involvement in housework changes little, whether they have a continuous or a split working day. However, the continuous working day is more favourable to balancing work and family life. In contrast, work–mealtime balance is a cultural feature that equalises both sexes in relation to an established habit that encourages sharing time outside work. We can thus speak of shared (non-work) time and unshared (unpaid) work.

Transformational Leadership and Emotional Exhaustion: A Conservation of Resources Perspective

In this study, we draw upon conservation of resources theory to suggest that transformational leaders’ capacity to encourage extra effort might both energize and exhaust followers depending on their ability to replenish energy reserves. Specifically, we argue that the indirect relationship between transformational leadership and emotional exhaustion via extra effort varies depending on followers’ levels of psychological detachment from work during nonwork time. We tested the hypothesized conditional indirect effect model using three-wave data from 214 employees working in various industries. The results showed that transformational leadership was positively related to extra effort. Furthermore, we found that psychological detachment moderated the relationship between extra effort and emotional exhaustion such that extra effort was negatively related to exhaustion with high psychological detachment and positively related to exhaustion with low psychological detachment. The indirect relationship between transformational leadership and exhaustion via extra effort was negative with high psychological detachment and positive with low psychological detachment. The findings of this study indicate the importance of recognizing that the beneficial effects of transformational leadership in reducing emotional exhaustion may not hold for all followers but are dependent on followers’ levels of psychological detachment. Returning to one of the original premises of the transformational leadership model that transformational leaders bring about extra effort is helpful in further understanding the dark side of transformational leadership for employee well-being.

The Effects of Boundary Management Strategies on Employees’ Recovery and Well-Being

Building on the pioneering work of Kreiner, Hollensbe and Sheep (2009) this study examines five specific boundary management tactics: a) Setting nonwork times and b) banking work times as two temporal boundary management tactics, c) physical boundary management, d) communicative boundary management, and e) behavioral boundary management as predictors of employees’ recovery experiences (psychological detachment, relaxation, control, and mastery experiences) and psychological well-being (work-nonwork conflict and emotional exhaustion). We conducted two studies: Study 1, a cross- sectional study including three different samples from different organizations and occupations with a total of 889 employees, and Study 2, a field intervention on boundary management tactics with a randomized pre-post waitlist-control group design including 74 participants (35 in the intervention group and 39 in the control group) from diverse occupations. Concerning Study 1, results of multiple hierarchical regression analyses showed that boundary management tactics in general positively predicted psychological detachment, relaxation and mastery experiences. Behavioral boundary management was unexpectedly negatively related to mastery experiences. Control during nonwork time, work-nonwork conflict and emotional exhaustion were only associated as predicted with the temporal tactic banking work times. Communicative tactics were unexpectedly related to increased work-nonwork conflict and emotional exhaustion. Study 2 showed all hypotheses confirmed with an increase in psychological detachment, relaxation, control during nonwork time, and a decrease in work-nonwork conflict and emotional exhaustion for participants of our boundary management training. In sum, our study contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of employee boundary management by integrating boundary and recovery research.

The Effects of Uncompensated-Telework Fairness on Work Withdrawal and Personal Initiative via Energy

Research has given conflicting results regarding the relationship between the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) for work-related tasks during non-work time and the outcomes for employees and organizations. In this study, I use self-determination theory to examine the effects of uncompensated-telework fairness on potential positive and negative work behaviors – work withdrawal and personal initiative; and whether human energy mediates these linkages. I argue that when employees perceive uncompensated-telework is unfair, they will subsequently report losing energy when using ICTs to work outside of the work domain. Furthermore, these perceptions of energy loss can initiate undesirable coping strategies in which employees with low level of energy begin to withdraw from work in the work domain. In addition, I demonstrate that perception of energy gain lead to personal initiative in the work domain. Data collected in three phases over six weeks from more than 700 US employees provide support for these hypotheses.

Evaluating the impact of 20 hours free early childhood education on mothers’ labour force participation and earnings

New Zealand introduced a substantial childcare subsidy just over a decade ago, providing 20 hours free early childhood education (ECE) to all three- and four-year-olds. We evaluate the impact of this policy shift on mothers’ labour market participation and earnings. Using a difference-in-differences strategy and population-wide administrative panel data, we follow mothers’ quarterly earnings from pre-pregnancy to six years post-childbirth. The estimated impact of the ECE reform varies depending on the number of children eligible. For mothers with one child, there is some evidence of a drop in labour market participation and earnings, which potentially indicates this group is using the savings in ECE expenditure, a gain in real income, to consume more non-work time. For mothers with two eligible children, there is an increase in labour market participation, potentially because these households find it more worthwhile to increase ECE consumption and return to work when there are two children who benefit from the policy.

Novel Route Planning System for Machinery Selection. Case: Slurry Application

The problem of finding an optimal solution for the slurry application process is casted as a capacitated vehicle routing problem (CVRP) in which by considering the vehicle’s capacity, it is required to visit all the tracks only once to fully cover the field, as well as complying with a specified targeted application rate. A key objective in this study was to determine an optimized coverage plan in order to minimize the driving distance in the field, while at the same time allowing for varying the application rate. The coverage plan includes the optimal sequence of tracks with a specified application rate for each track. Two algorithms were developed for optimization and simulation of the slurry application cast as capacitated operations. In order to validate the proposed algorithms, a slurry application operation was recorded, and the results of the optimization algorithm were compared with the conventional non-optimized method. The comparison showed that applying the proposed new method reduces the non-working distance by 18.6% and the non-working time by 28.1%.

Benefits of Psychological Detachment From Work: Does Autonomous Work Motivation Play a Role?

Research has shown that psychological detachment from work during non-work time is beneficial for various aspects of employee well-being and job performance. However, it is uncertain whether psychological detachment is equally important to all. The purpose of the current study was to examine whether psychological detachment is less important for employees who experience autonomous motivation for their job. The study was conducted in two different samples of knowledge workers in Norway. Latent profile analysis was used to identify different subgroups within the samples. In addition, the BCH method was used to examine possible differences between the profiles on distal outcomes. In both samples, two distinct profiles were found: “Lower involvement employees” (Low-IE; higher detachment and lower autonomous regulation) and “Higher involvement employees” (High-IE; lower detachment and higher autonomous regulation). The results revealed that the High-IE profile was significantly higher in positive affect, life satisfaction, work effort, and work quality, while significantly lower on emotional exhaustion compared with Low-IE. These results indicate that being low in detachment from work does not seem to be detrimental when combined with high levels of autonomous motivation. The study contributes to knowledge about the benefits of unwinding from work for employees with different motivational profiles.

A hybrid neuro-fuzzy inference system-based algorithm for time series forecasting applied to energy consumption prediction

The accuracy of the prediction of buildings’ energy consumption is being tackled using existing artificial intelligence techniques. However, there is a lack of effort on the development of new techniques for solving that problem and, therefore, achieving higher performance, which is important for the efficient management of energy in many levels. This study addresses this gap by proposing a new hybrid machine learning algorithm that incorporates the adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system model with a new version of the firefly algorithm denominated as the gender-difference firefly algorithm. We expanded the search space diversification to increase the accuracy on the prediction and adopted the autoregressive process in order to approximate the chaotic behavior of the consumption time series. A new layer, denominated as non-working time adaptation was also integrated so as to decrease the fast variability of the predictions during non-working periods of time. We have applied our algorithm for the consumption prediction on 1 h, 2 h and 3 h ahead horizons. We have obtained improvements on the MAPE and R coefficient when compared with state-of-the-art publications in both a private dataset from the Faculty of Chemistry, located in the city of Murcia, Spain and a public dataset of the consumption of a Retail building located in California, United States. We also show our method’s performance in five more buildings. Our results demonstrate the robustness and the accuracy of our proposal when compared to the traditional adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system models and also to the different predictive techniques implemented in several pieces of literature.

A Comprehensive Multi-Scenario Routing Algorithm Based on Fuzzy Control Theory in Opportunistic Social Network

With the flourishing of big data and the 5G era, the amount of data to be transmitted in the communication process is increasing, and end-to-end communication in traditional social networks has been unable to meet the current communication needs. Therefore, in order to improve the success rate of data forwarding, social networks propose that the sender of the message should reasonably choose the next hop node. However, existing routing and forwarding algorithms do not take into account nodes that are live in different scenarios, and the applicable next hop node metrics are also different. These algorithms only consider the forwarding preferences of the nodes during working hours and do not consider the forwarding preferences of the nodes during non-working hours. We propose a routing algorithm based on fuzzy decision theory, which aims at a more accurate decision on selecting the next hop. A routing and forwarding algorithm based on fuzzy decision is proposed in this paper. This algorithm symmetrical divides scenes in opportunistic social networks into working time and non-working time according to real human activity. In addition, metrics are designed symmetrically for these two scenarios. Simulation results demonstrate that, in the best case, the proposed scheme presents an average delivery ratio of 0.95 and reduces the average end-to-end delay and average overhead compared with the epidemic routing algorithm, the EIMSTalgorithm, the ICMT algorithm, and the FCNSalgorithm.

Examining the interplay of micro-break durations and activities for employee recovery: A mixed-methods investigation.

On a given workday, employees spend time at work doing tasks that are not work-related, potentially using these micro-breaks (i.e., short breaks that are less than 10 min) to attempt to recover depleted psychological resources such as energy and attention. However, most work break and recovery research has focused on how individuals recover from work during formal nonwork time with longer or unspecified time durations (e.g., lunch breaks, evenings, vacations), limiting theoretical and empirical understanding of whether employees can experience recovery within the workday via brief micro-breaks. In the current investigation, we first conducted interviews from 16 shift workers at a Fortune 500 company to develop research questions about how micro-breaks impact psychological resources and recovery experiences. We then used a randomized experiment with a sample of undergraduate students (n = 232) to test the impact of micro-break durations and activities on the recovery of psychological resources (i.e., energy and attention) and recovery experiences. Results show that some, but not all, micro-break conditions can help employees recover back to their baseline (i.e., prework task) levels of psychological resources following a micro-break. Overall, this experiment provides stronger levels of causal inference about the recovery process and presents new ideas regarding how micro-break durations influence well-being via psychological resource recovery. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

An Examination of Athletic Trainers' Occupational Recovery Experiences During Time After Work.

Although researchers have directed scholars toward investigating the effectiveness of the nonwork personal time of athletic trainers (ATs), no one has characterized the occupational recovery experiences of ATs. To examine the reliability and validity of the Recovery Experience Questionnaire (REQ) for use in AT populations. Cross-sectional study. Web-based survey. A total of 144 ATs (71 men, 73 women) working in a variety of National Collegiate Athletic Association sports across all levels of competition. The REQ was administered to assess the AT recovery experience. Preliminary evidence emerged for the reliability (ω = 0.80-0.90) and validity of the REQ for use in AT populations. Weak linear relationships were identified between stress and perceptions of psychological detachment (r = -0.314, P < .001), mastery (r = -0.179, P = .32), control (r = -0.284, P = .001), and relaxation (r = -0.157, P = .06). Our results support measuring and applying occupational recovery for AT stress and work-life balance. Given that occupational recovery as a construct was only weakly related to stress, it is clearly a unique and distinct variable worth considering within the work-life balance line of inquiry.

A New Online Dynamic Testing Method for Nonlinear Distortion of Broadcast Transmitter

The traditional method for measuring the parameters of the transmitter is that the tester measures the parameters according to the test standard and records the test results manually in the case of non-work time. It has some shortcomings, such as low efficiency, inconvenient data storage and higher requirements for testers. In view of the shortcomings, an automatic online method of measuring harmonic distortion of transmitter is proposed. The method calculates parameter values by collecting transmitter data in real time. It is based on the histogram algorithm. According to the cumulative distribution function, discrete distribution of transmitter input and output signal amplitude values are obtained, and then the least squares algorithm is applied to the nonlinear polynomial fitting of discrete values. The feasibility of the method is verified by experimental simulation, and the residual value and test accuracy of different test methods are given.

Time biases: exploring the work–life balance of single Nigerian managers and professionals

PurposeThis study investigates the overarching ideology of work–life balance (WLB) or conflict as predominantly being a work–family affair. Based on a Nigerian study, and using organisational justice as a theoretical lens, it explores perceived fairness in accessing family-friendly policies by managers and professionals who are single and do not have children – a workgroup conventionally ignored in research on WLB.Design/methodology/approachRelying on an interpretivist approach, the data set comprises of interviews with 24 bank managers and 20 medical doctors working in Nigeria.FindingsThe authors’ findings highlight employers' misconceptions concerning the non-work preferences and commitments of singles as well as an undervaluation by employers of their non-work time. Conceptualised as “time biases”, such time is routinely invaded by the organisation, with profound implications for perceptions of fairness. This fosters backlash behaviours with potential detrimental effects in terms of organisational effectiveness.Research limitations/implicationsThe study is limited to investigating the WLB of singles in high-status roles, namely banking and medical careers. Future research may examine the experiences of a more diverse range of occupations. The sample comprises heterosexual, never-married professionals, whose experiences may differ from other categories of single workers, such as childless divorced people, widows, non-heterosexual singles and partners who have no children.Practical implicationsIn order to avoid counterproductive behaviours in the workplace, WLB policies should not only focus on those with childcare concerns. Inclusive work–life policies for other household structures, such as single-persons, are necessary for improving overall organisational well-being.Originality/valueThe majority of WLB studies have been undertaken in Western and Asian contexts, to the neglect of the Sub-Saharan African experience. Additionally, research tends to focus on WLB issues on the part of working parents, overlooking the difficulties faced by singles.