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At the dawn of a new decade, as ever more corporations are pursuing sustainable working conditions and advocating employee well-being, employees are increasingly tending to feel fatigued and drained by their work, which compromises their performance. Drawing on the job demands–resources model and social acceleration debate, the authors test a moderated mediation model. Specifically, the authors hypothesise that unreasonable tasks raise perceptions of emotional exhaustion when the pace of work is increased and investigate the moderating role of psychological detachment.

This study used a sample of 245 employees from Europe, all knowledge workers, to test the hypotheses.

Apart from unreasonable tasks being directly related with emotional exhaustion, this relationship was mediated by the perceived work pace. In addition, the authors establish psychological detachment as a relevant moderator for the mediating effect.

Managers and HR practitioners are equipped with a better understanding of the effects of an increasing speed of work, the conditions leading to it and the individual and organizational resources that may help to create healthy and meaningful job positions, which facilitate employee efficiency.

Our study expands the literature on contemporary stressors and adds to what is known about the ‘dark side’ of job demands that affect the organizational bottom-line, as well as the resource-based mechanism that can buffer the negative effects.

This paper examines an employee's recovery process in the remote-working context. It explores which elements of remote work are energy-consuming for employees and what action they can take to instigate the essential recovery strategy of psychological detachment.

The study adopts a qualitative research approach based on 89 semi-structured interviews with employees working from home with six large corporations from multiple industries. The data were interpreted using thematic analysis.

The study identifies a main theme – the energy-consuming elements of remote work – and three sub-themes: extended working hours, intensive working and reduced social support. Each theme incorporates elements controlled by individuals (internal) and those beyond their control (external). Second, the authors identified strategies that helped individuals to detach from work, and devised four sub-themes, the authors labeled cognitive controlling, physical disconnection from work, time-bound routines and non-work activities.

This is the first study to focus on recovery as a process in the context of remote working, and it contributes to the knowledge of psychological detachment and strategies for recovery and to the literature on contemporary remote working.

This study examines the role of Saudi women’s work motivational drivers on work–home conflict (WHC) and work–home enrichment (WHE). It considers the moderating role of psychological detachment from work during the evening between one workday and the next and how it impacts on the mediating role of WHC and WHE on work performance.

Drawing on self-determination theory and enrichment and depletion perspectives on the work–home interface, the study employs a quantitative lagged study over a period of three consecutive working days, with data collected from 358 Saudi women working in academia.

Moderated mediation structural equation modelling (MMSEM) analysis reveals that intrinsic motivation is significantly, positively related to WHE and home–work enrichment (HWE), whereas extrinsic motivation is only significantly and positively related to home–work conflict (HWC). Results show that detaching from work weakens the positive association between intrinsic motivation and HWE. In line with predictions, WHE is significantly, positively related to citizenship behaviour towards both individuals and organizations, whilst HWE is significantly related to citizenship behaviour towards individuals only. HWC is only significantly related to citizenship behaviour towards the organisation.

The research highlights the enriching experiences for Saudi women, who have the opportunity to pursue a career and highlight benefits of their ongoing empowerment.

This research brings a unique motivational perspective to work–life research and addresses a shortcoming of work–life research in considering an understudied culturally distinct population. It emphasises on the enriching experiences of Saudi women who have the opportunity to pursue a career, highlighting the benefits of their ongoing empowerment.

Contemporary workplaces undergo frequent reorganizations in order to stay competitive in a working life characterized by globalization, digitalization, economic uncertainty, and ever-increased complexity. Managers are in the frontline of these challenges, leading themselves, organizations and their employees in high stress environments. This raises questions on how to support managers’ work-life sustainability, which is crucial for organizational sustainability. Mindfulness has been related to enhanced capacities to cope with challenges that are associated with organizational change. The authors evaluated short- and long-term effects of an eight-week mindfulness-based intervention in a company setting, which was going through reorganization.

Forty managers (42.5% males), mean age 54.53 (SD 5.13), were randomized to the mindfulness intervention or a non-active wait-list control. Self-report data were provided on individual sustainability factors in a work context: job demands and resources, psychological detachment, i.e. possibilities for letting go of work-related thoughts during leisure, control over work-nonwork boundaries, work-life balance, and mindfulness at baseline, postintervention, and at 6-month follow-up.

Linear mixed models (LMMs) analysis (all ps < 0.005 to 0.05) showed that the intervention group had a larger decrease in job demands and a smaller decrease in job resources, a larger increase in psychological detachment, work-nonwork boundary control, work-life balance, and mindfulness from baseline to postintervention when compared with the reference group. These initial effects were sustained at 6-month follow-up.

The study provides evidence that mindfulness practice can enhance managers’ long-term capacity to cope with challenging working conditions, and increase their work-life sustainability in times of organizational change and disruption.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of online self-leadership training (OSLT) in promoting leaders’ self-leadership skills and recovery experiences.

A non-randomized controlled trial was conducted under two conditions: a standardized seven-week OSLT (N = 43) and a control without any intervention (N = 42). All participants (N = 85) completed standardized questionnaires measuring self-reported self-leadership skills and recovery experiences. Additionally, participants in the intervention group were assigned to invite one team member each (N = 26) to assess their leaders’ pre-post self-leadership skills and pre-post leader–member exchange.

Significant interaction effects of time and group and increases in the OSLT group (t1 vs t2) in self-leadership skills (cognitive and natural reward strategies) and recovery experiences (detachment and relaxation) indicated the effectiveness of OSLT training. Significant improvements in self-leadership skills and leader–member exchange were reported by team members of leaders in the OSLT group.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study was the first to examine the effectiveness of OSLT for leaders in business contexts in a controlled before-after intervention design. The findings of this study revealed improvements in self-leadership skills and recovery experience because of OSLT.

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.

The purpose of this study was to describe and explain the relationship between job burnout (JB), organisational citizenship behaviours (OCBs) and counterproductive workplace behaviours (CWBs). The job demands-resources theory was applied to test the moderating role of perceived organisational support (POS) in the relationship shared by JB, OCBs and CWBs.

The study was conducted anonymously on a group of 253 telephone customer support services employees from companies operating in Poland. Moderation analyses for statistical verification were conducted with macro PROCESS version 3.3.

The research confirmed a significant statistical relationship between JB and all the studied variables: POS, OCBs and CWBs. It may be concluded that JB increases the probability of CWBs and decreases employee readiness for OCBs. When employees experienced POS, a reduction in tendency for counterproductive behaviours was observed, while citizenship behaviours remained unchanged. Thus, it might be concluded that POS levels off the intensity of the influence of JB on employees’ organisational behaviours.

Individuals who lack enough social resources to perform their job tasks limit their citizenship activity in the workplace within their behavioural strategy (helping, initiative, etc.). In order to protect their resources, they may also display strategies that are destructive for their organisational environment, e.g. incivility or production deviance. In the situations when the organisation and superiors provide employees with support and demonstrate concern for providing comfortable working conditions, such persons, even in the case of perceived emotional exhaustion, maintain a high level of job activity.

The combination of variables presented in the research model explains the significance of the chosen determinants of behaviours that are key from the perspective of the organisation’s effectiveness and market competitiveness. This research extends knowledge pertaining to the relationship between JB and organisational behaviours.

The purpose of this qualitative study is to explore well-being experiences of international business travellers (IBTs) and contribute to our understanding of personal and job characteristics as antecedents of ill- or well-being.

The authors’ insights are based on semi-structured in-depth interviews with 32 IBTs assigned to various destinations ranging from single-country travel to global operation. Participants in this study represent a range of traveller personas (regarding demographics, type of work, travel patterns). Thematic analysis is used to reveal new insights.

The authors’ analysis revealed trip-load (i.e. workload, control, organisational support) and intensity of travel (i.e. frequency, duration and quality) as job characteristics that sit on an energy stimulation continuum, driving work-related outcomes such as stress and burnout or health and well-being. Energy draining and boosting processes are moderated by cognitive flexibility and behavioural characteristics.

Findings represent a framework for managing IBT well-being via adjustments in job and travel characteristics, plus guidance for training and development to help IBTs self-manage.

The insights within this paper contribute to the conversation around how to enhance well-being for IBTs and frequent flyers. The study intends to offer direction as to which specific job, psychological and behavioural characteristics to focus on, introducing a novel framework for understanding and avoiding serious consequences associated with international mobility such as increased stress, burnout and ill-health.