Rise and shine: Recovery experiences of workaholic and nonworkaholic employees

Abstract

Due to their excessive drive to work hard, workaholics may face difficulties with recovering from work. The present study examines the role of negative emotions in recovery from work among a selected group of workaholics and nonworkaholics. Data were collected among 118 employees who completed a survey and participated in a 5-day diary study. Based on Effort-Recovery theory, we expected and found that negative emotions at the end of the workday hamper employees' recovery during the evening. Interestingly, this effect was stronger for workaholics than for nonworkaholics. It was also found that workaholics spend more time on work-related activities during the evening than nonworkaholics when feeling negative emotions at the end of the workday. Finally, it was expected and found that a lack of recovery experiences during the evening influences negative and positive emotions the next morning. Together, these findings suggest that, especially for workaholics, negative emotions play a crucial role in recovery from work. This insight may contribute to the design of interventions that stimulate recovery from work for workaholics.

Keywords:

• Diary study
• Effort-Recovery Model
• Emotions
• Recovery experiences
• Workaholism

Acknowledgments

We thank Prof. Dr Toon Taris for his constructive comments on an earlier draft of this article.

Notes

¹ In all four analyses, the previous day's level of the outcome variable showed significant negative effects on the respective outcome variable. This seems to be indicative of a slight negative suppressor effect that should not be interpreted theoretically.