Energy Loss After Daily Role Stress and Work Incivility: Caring for Oneself with Emotional Wellness

Abstract The present study seeks to build on burnout research by examining daily fluctuations of role stress and work incivility, and their impact on employees’ energy loss. Optimism and recovery (i.e., psychological detachment and relaxation), two mechanisms that allow workers’ self-care and self-defence from these toxic conditions when faced by these job stressors, were included. In a daily study, 117 service sector workers completed surveys three times a day, over a period of one working week. Hierarchical linear modeling revealed work incivility as predictor of daily emotional exhaustion. Optimism and recovery play different roles in protecting workers from daily energy loss. Daily optimism increased employees’energy and decreased emotional exhaustion and negative affect at night. It also moderated the relationship between work incivility and positive affect at night. The results on psychological detachment supported the stressor-detachment model (Sonnentag, 2010), in which psychological detachment from work during nonworking time is not only a direct predictor of increased energy, but could similarly buffer the negative impact of role stress and work incivility. Relaxation basically showed main effects in predicting emotional exhaustion (inversely) and positive affect (directly). Our findings suggest two main implications: (1) the necessity for implemention of workplace policies to prevent role stress and work incivility in reducing daily loss of energy. (2) Training workers in self-care programmes focusing on optimism and recovery can provide early steps toward organizational change and employee daily well-being.