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Employees have gained increased flexibility in organizing their work in time and space, that is boundaryless work. Managing the boundaries between work and personal life would seem to be crucial if one is to psychologically detach from work during leisure in order to unwind and get sufficient sleep. Drawing from a sample of Swedish professional workers (N = 3,846), a theoretical model was proposed testing the inter-relationships between boundaryless work in time and space, weekly work hours, psychological detachment, sleeping problems and sleep duration using a structural equation modelling (SEM) analysis. Findings showed that working boundlessly in time, that is spread out during the working day and week, was directly associated with both long weekly work hours and lack of psychological detachment. In contrast, working boundlessly in space, that is at several different places, was inversely associated with weekly work hours and had no association with psychological detachment. Psychological detachment, in turn, was directly associated with sleeping problems and inversely associated with sleep duration. Sleeping problems were inversely associated with sleep duration. Employees with long weekly work hours had a low degree of sleeping problems. There was also no association between long weekly work hours and sleep duration. These findings contradict earlier research, however, we interpret these findings as that if one works a great deal but is able to mentally detach from work-related feelings and thoughts during free time, then sleep will not be hampered because perseverative cognitions associated with prolonged biological activation will have been interrupted. As such, psychological detachment can be regarded as the mechanism that mediates the relationships between working ‘anytime’ and long weekly work hours, and sleep. It was concluded working boundlessly in time increases the likelihood for long weekly work hours and lack of psychological detachment. Hence, employees working ‘anytime – all the time’ run the risk of ‘always being on’ resulting in disturbed sleep.

The aim of this chapter is to provide a literature review on daily recovery during non-work time. Specifically, next to discussing theories that help us understand the process of recovery, we will clarify how recovery and its potential outcomes have been conceptualized so far. Consequently, we present empirical findings of diary studies addressing the activities that may facilitate or hinder daily recovery. We will pay special attention to potential mechanisms that may underlie the facilitating or hindering processes. Owing to the limited research on daily recovery, we will review empirical findings on predictors and outcomes of a related construct, namely need for recovery. We conclude with an overall framework from which daily recovery during non-work time can be understood. In this framework, we claim that daily recovery is an important moderator in the process through which job characteristics and their related strain may lead to unfavorable states on a daily basis.

Self-regulation does not only play a pivotal role in coping with job demands and major life events, but also shapes personality development in a way that builds protective resilience, integrative abilities in holistic processing of negative and positive experiences, and autonomous functioning. Therefore, in facing setbacks and failures, intrapsychic self-regulatory mechanisms determine recovery and learning processes, in order to stabilize well-being and ensure psychological functioning. In the present chapter, the author will focus on such self-regulatory mechanisms, which influence coping processes after experiences of failure and setbacks at work. In doing so, the author draw from the Personality–System–Interaction Theory, which provides in-depth insights into different motivational and volitional processes of self-regulation. Firstly, the author elaborates on inter-individual differences in self-regulation, which can be conceptually distinguished into action and state orientation. Whereas state orientation impedes effective coping with setbacks and failures, action orientation enables building resilience and goal-focused self-regulation, especially when employees are confronted with setback experiences. Secondly, the present chapter involves findings on recovery processes and mindsets, which are relevant for the theoretical understanding about the impact of setbacks and failures on employees’ psychological functioning. Thirdly, the author discusses affect modulation as a specific form of self-regulation, which allows for reducing negative affects and increasing positive affects, in order to facilitate holistic and integrative processing of setback experiences. Finally, proceeding from insights into how employees can overcome setback experiences and learn from failure, The author will provide practical implications for human resource management, training, and leadership.

A core concept of work–home interface research is boundary permeability – the frequency with which elements from one domain cross, or permeate, the boundary of another domain. Yet, there remains ambiguity as to what these elements are and how these permeations impact important outcomes such as role satisfaction and role performance. The authors introduce a multidimensional perspective of work–home boundary permeability, identifying five forms of boundary permeation: task, psychological, role referencing, object, and people. Furthermore, based on the notion that employee control over boundary permeability behavior is the key to achieving role satisfaction and role performance, the authors examine how organizations’ HR practices, leadership, and norms impact employee control over boundary permeability in the work and home domains. The authors conclude with an agenda for future research.

Purpose: A psychiatric illness called burnout is caused by emotional tiredness, cynicism, and a decreased sense of personal accomplishment. For police officers to handle and adjust to difficult, stressful, and sometimes traumatic events, resilience or recovery during downtime are considered critical capacities. The study aims to investigate the association between resilience or recovery experiences and job burnout among police officers and to ascertain if recovery experiences during off-job time can lessen the harmful impacts of burnout.

Design/methodology: The data were gathered from police officers in the South zone of Kerala state using a structured questionnaire. The police force may have favourable effects on economic development if it embraces resilience-building concepts and develops into a more resilient enterprise. The study used convenience sampling, and the researchers received 300 responses. Karl Pearson correlation and simple regression analysis are used to test hypotheses.

Findings: Findings suggest an association between burnout and resilience or recovery experience measures during off-job time among police officers in Kerala. It is found that recovery experiences can buffer the adverse effects of job stress and burnout.

Practical implications: The results of this study could guide the design of initiatives and programmes that enhance police officers’ performance and satisfaction while also encouraging their general well-being. To further reduce police burnout, implement a programme that aims to improve occupational stress recovery at the organisational level.

Originality/value: It is crucial to evaluate police officers’ burnout and its relationship to resiliency or recovery in their spare time. This study offers unique insights into certain off-the-job behaviours or activities that link to lower levels of burnout; this information could guide programmes or interventions intended to help police personnel.

This chapter describes methodological issues that are relevant for research on recovery. We aim to provide an overview of methodological approaches that have been or can be used in recovery research, and to provide methodological guidelines that researchers may use in assessing the process of recovery. We argue that studies on recovery must be explicit about recovery settings, recovery processes (i.e., activities and experiences) and recovery outcomes. We describe typical operationalizations of these three perspectives and focus in more detail on potential measures of recovery outcomes. We give an overview of research designs including experiments and quasi-experiments, diary studies, and longitudinal field studies. We conclude by pointing to remaining challenges for researchers in the area of recovery.

In this chapter, we discuss the impact of business trips on travelers and their families from the perspective of respite, thus embedding business trips in stress theories. We begin by reviewing the literature on respite and recovery. Focusing on the role of travelers’ resources, we relate the phenomenon of business trips to conservation of resources (COR) and job demands-resource (JD-R) theories. We then discuss the negative and positive characteristics and outcomes of business trips. We offer evidence from interviews with business travelers regarding the special characteristics and consequences of business trips. We summarize by addressing the question of whether business trips are a special kind of respite.

The COVID-19 pandemic burdens health-care workers (HCWs) worldwide. Amid high-stress conditions and unprecedented needs for crisis management, organizations face the grand challenge of supporting the mental health and well-being of their HCWs. The current literature on mental health and well-being primarily focuses on improving personal resilience among HCWs. However, this puts the responsibility for coping with COVID-19-related stress almost fully on the individual. This chapter discusses an important alternative framing of this issue – how health-care organizations (HCOs) can facilitate recovery from work processes (i.e., returning to a baseline level by engaging in nonwork activities after work) for their workers. Based on a narrative review of the occupational health psychology literature, we provide practical strategies for supporting the four key recovery experiences of detachment, control, mastery, and relaxation, as well as present general recommendations about how to promote recovery. These strategies can help HCOs facing the grand challenge of sustaining worker well-being and functioning during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as during future pandemics and for workers facing high work pressure in general.