Work, family life and recovery: An exploratory study of “the third shift”

BACKGROUND: Using 24-hour narratives as a starting-point, the present study examines conditions for recovery from work. The third shift concept forms the explorative starting point for highlighting the interplay between work, family responsibilities, leisure time and recovery. OBJECTIVE: The aim of the study is to explore how the third shift affects possibilities for recovery. METHOD: The material was gathered by group interviews and diaries. Thirty employees participated in the study. Ten participants where women between 30 and 45 years of age with children living at home. RESULTS: Being solely responsible for the third shift reduced the chances of recovery from during work-free time. The material showed that women aged 30–45 years had to a greater extent than others the main responsibility in a complex third shift. CONCLUSION: As a precondition for external recovery, this study show how theoretically beneficial the breakdown of the second shift and development of the third shift is for understanding different preconditions and the way they affect the possibility of recovery.

How Do Teleworkers and Organizations Manage the COVID-19 Crisis in Brazil? The Role of Flexibility I-Deals and Work Recovery in Maintaining Sustainable Well-Being at Work

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the economic market and labor contexts worldwide. Brazil has suffered one of the worst social and governmental managements of the COVID-19 crisis, forcing workers and organizations to develop coping strategies. This environment can affect both well-being and performance at work. Sustainable well-being at work refers to different patterns of relationships between performance and well-being. It may include eudaimonic (e.g., Meaning of Work—MOW) or hedonic (e.g., emotions) forms of well-being. This study tests the moderating role of recovery from work stress in the relationship between flexibility i-deals and patterns of sustainable well-being at work in Brazilian teleworkers. We relied on two studies to achieve this objective. In Study 1, conducted during the pandemic’s first outbreak in Brazil (N = 386), recovery experiences moderated the relationship between i-deals and clusters formed by performance and MOW (eudaimonic happiness). In Study 2, conducted during the second outbreak (N = 281), we identified relationships between clusters of emotions (hedonic happiness) and MOW (eudaimonic) with performance. The results supported the idea that recovery experiences moderated the relationship between i-deals and patterns of sustainable well-being at work differently. Our findings have implications for Human Resource Management and teleworkers, especially for employee behaviors to deal with stress.

Patterns of Teachers’ Occupational Well-Being During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Relations to Experiences of Exhaustion, Recovery, and Interactional Styles of Teaching

This study examined profiles of teachers’ occupational well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. The data were collected from 279 Finnish primary school teachers during the spring of 2020. Four groups of teachers were identified by using Latent Profile Analysis: 1) teachers with mediocre stress and work engagement (34.4%); 2) teachers with mediocre stress and lowest work engagement (11.5%); 3) teachers with highest stress and work engagement (26.5%); and 4) teachers with lowest stress and highest work engagement (27.6%). The findings indicated that teachers’ occupational well-being was individually constructed, and there was a diversity with ways how negative and positive aspects of occupational well-being were drawn into patterns. The profile groups were further analyzed with respect to teachers’ experiences of emotional exhaustion, recovery from work, and interactional styles of teaching. The results revealed that during the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic many teachers experienced occupational stress as well as some increase in stress due to the pandemic. In addition, the findings provided new insights concerning how teachers’ work engagement was perhaps not severely affected during the first few months of the pandemic, and on how different teaching styles were associated specifically with different aspects of occupational well-being.

Always on, never done? How the mind recovers after a stressful workday?

Many workers experience their jobs as effortful or even stressful, which can result in strain. Although recovery from work would be an adaptive strategy to prevent the adverse effects of work-related strain, many workers face problems finding enough time to rest and to mentally disconnect from work during nonwork time. What goes on in workers’ minds after a stressful workday? What is it about their jobs that makes them think about their work? This special issue aims to bridge the gap between research on recovery processes mainly examined in Occupational Health Psychology, and research on work stress and working hours, often investigated in the field of Human Resource Management. We first summarize conceptual and theoretical streams from both fields of research. In the following, we discuss the contributions of the five special issue papers and conclude with key messages and directions for further research.

Daily Mindfulness Is Associated With Recovery Processes Among Coaches—A 4-Week Diary Study

Sport coaching is a profession that is often demanding and one in which psychological burnout is problematic. Recovery from work demands is known to be important in preventing burnout, but research has paid little attention to short-term recovery for coaches. The present study therefore focused on day-to-day recovery. Specifically, the authors investigated the role of mindfulness in recovery, given previously established empirical relationships between mindfulness and recovery processes. The authors used an intensive diary study design to gather daily data from a sample of 46 sport coaches, over a period of 28 consecutive days. Multilevel modeling allowed data analysis at the intraindividual level, providing insights into daily recovery processes for individual coaches. The results showed that increases in daily mindfulness, relative to coaches’ individual mean levels, were predictive of higher levels of recovery-related variables (energy and mood) through mechanisms of reduced rumination and improved sleep. The present study highlights mindfulness as a potential path to daily recovery and the prevention of burnout among coaches. The study lays groundwork for the investigation of mindfulness training as a recovery-promoting intervention for coaches, potentially through easily accessible means, such as app-based training delivery and the incorporation of informal mindfulness practice into daily activities.

Self-Rated Health (SRH), Recovery From Work, Fatigue, and Insomnia Among Commercial Pilots in Relation to Occupational and Non-Occupational Factors

Background: This study investigates associations between self-rated health (SRH), recovery from work, fatigue, and insomnia and work conditions, psychosocial work environment, lifestyle and sense of coherence (SOC) among commercial pilots. Methods: A standardized questionnaire was sent to all pilots in an airline company, 354 (61%) participated. Associations were analysed by ordinal and logistic regression with mutual adjustment. Results: Totally 21.8% reported low SRH, 13.0% did not recover from work during free time, 61.9% had fatigue and 70.6% had insomnia symptoms. SRH was associated with high work demands, SOC, exercise, and overweight/obesity. Recovery from work was associated with part-time work, being a co-pilot, low social support at work and SOC. Fatigue was associated with female gender, high work demands, SOC, and younger age. Insomnia was associated with low social support, SOC, and free hours after work. Moreover, insomnia was associated with flying MD80 and intercontinental flights with Airbus 330/340, using Boeing 737 as reference. Conclusion: The psychosocial environment at work is important for health among pilots and a high sense of coherence can be protective. Occupational conditions may have an influence on recovery from work, fatigue, and insomnia. Moreover exercise, being fit, working part-time and having more free hours after work could improve health.