Daily Self-Leadership and Playful Work Design: Proactive Approaches of Work in Times of Crisis

This study investigates how employees may use proactive work strategies to satisfy their basic psychological needs during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. We use self-determination theory to hypothesize that daily self-leadership (e.g., goal setting, constructive cognition) and playful work design (PWD;redesigning work to be more fun/challenging) satisfy basic psychological needs and facilitate job performance. We also predict that the use of these proactive strategies is particularly important when individuals ruminate a lot about the COVID-19 crisis. Daily diary data collected among a heterogeneous group of employees largely confirm these theoretical predictions. For organizational practitioners, this study thus suggests that it is important to encourage employees to be proactive. Although this may be challenging during crises, leaders could provide autonomy and feedback to foster self-leadership and PWD. In addition, organizations may offer training interventions so that employees learn to apply these proactive work strategies. AD -, Rotterdam, the Netherlands;, Johannesburg, South Africa ;, Rotterdam, the Netherlands ;, Rotterdam, the Netherlands;, Johannesburg, South Africa

Understanding change in disruptive contexts: The role of the time paradox and locus of control

We examine how the experience of time and locus of control influence organizational change in disruptive contexts. Through the cycles of the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions and their relaxations in Turkey, we found that organizations approached change similarly in the short term but differently in the long term. To unpack the mechanism behind these observations, we analyzed in-depth qualitative data from five organizations from March 2020 to September 2021. We reveal that the change process creates time pressure in disruptive contexts, and a time paradox emerges to the extent that the change outcomes increase the available time under time pressure. Depending on their locus of control, individuals either complement organizational change or resist it even more after triggering events that signal the lastingness of the post-disruption situation. Our framework may enhance organizational resilience to future disruptions by highlighting the requirement for change recipients to make complementary moves to regain control. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Understanding change in disruptive contexts: The role of the time paradox and locus of control

We examine how the experience of time and locus of control influence organizational change in disruptive contexts. Through the cycles of the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions and their relaxations in Turkey, we found that organizations approached change similarly in the short term but differently in the long term. To unpack the mechanism behind these observations, we analyzed in-depth qualitative data from five organizations from March 2020 to September 2021. We reveal that the change process creates time pressure in disruptive contexts, and a time paradox emerges to the extent that the change outcomes increase the available time under time pressure. Depending on their locus of control, individuals either complement organizational change or resist it even more after triggering events that signal the lastingness of the post-disruption situation. Our framework may enhance organizational resilience to future disruptions by highlighting the requirement for change recipients to make complementary moves to regain control.

Job demands-resources theory in times of crises: New propositions

This theoretical paper presents an extended Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) theory aimed at understanding how organizations and their employees can best deal with COVID-19 and other crises in the workplace. The crisis showed that job characteristics alone are insufficient to explain employee health and motivation, i.e., the two focal outcomes of the JD-R theory. Rather, demands and resources of the individual, the family, the job and the organization interact with each other to predict outcomes. Moreover, next to individual regulatory strategies also the regulatory strategies of the family, the leader and organization/team are suggested to modify the impact of demands and resources on outcomes. This was possible by integrating the crisis management literature in JD-R theory. Viewing the crisis from a job design perspective helped us to introduce several new and testable propositions that specify how employee well-being and functioning are impacted by crises and turbulent times. Plain Language Summary Organizations have been struggling to find out how their employees are affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and what they can do to support their well-being and improve their functioning during the pandemic and beyond. The well-being and job performance of individual employees are difficult to predict which becomes even more complicated during times of crisis. The Job Demands-Resources theory is a helpful means because it suggests that employee health and motivation are outcomes of two different processes, i.e., the health impairment process and the motivational process. Job demands, such as work pressure and demanding customers, exhaust the energy of employees and consequently diminish their health, whereas job resources, such as autonomy and social support, help employees to deal with the demands and to develop themselves. The pandemic showed that the interplay between demands and resources of the individual, the job, the family and the organization predict outcomes. Moreover, next to individual regulatory strategies also the regulatory strategies of the family, the leader and organization/team are suggested to modify the impact of demands and resources on outcomes. Viewing the crisis from a job design perspective helped us to introduce in the Job Demands-Resources theory several testable propositions that specify how employee well-being and functioning are impacted by crises and turbulent times.

Daily Self-Leadership and Playful Work Design: Proactive Approaches of Work in Times of Crisis

This study investigates how employees may use proactive work strategies to satisfy their basic psychological needs during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. We use self-determination theory to hypothesize that daily self-leadership (e.g., goal setting, constructive cognition) and playful work design (PWD;redesigning work to be more fun/challenging) satisfy basic psychological needs and facilitate job performance. We also predict that the use of these proactive strategies is particularly important when individuals ruminate a lot about the COVID-19 crisis. Daily diary data collected among a heterogeneous group of employees largely confirm these theoretical predictions. For organizational practitioners, this study thus suggests that it is important to encourage employees to be proactive. Although this may be challenging during crises, leaders could provide autonomy and feedback to foster self-leadership and PWD. In addition, organizations may offer training interventions so that employees learn to apply these proactive work strategies.

Cognitive crafting and work engagement: A study among remote and frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

BACKGROUND: The outbreak of COVID-19 has led to a profound change in the organization of work in the health care sector. As frontline health care workers are essential in battling the pandemic and their work is appreciated in society, we argue that health care workers who are forced to work from home are likely to perceive their jobs as less meaningful, which in turn may negatively affect their engagement at work. Cognitive crafting, or the altering of the perceptions one has about their tasks and relationships with the aim to enhance the meaningfulness of work, may be a fruitful cognitive strategy to counter the problems remote health care workers face. PURPOSE: The primary purpose was to study the relationship between cognitive crafting, working from home (WFH), and work engagement. METHODOLOGY: We collected cross-sectional survey data between May 7 and June 2, 2020, from a single hospital in the Netherlands (n = 278). The central hypothesis was tested using multiple regression analysis. RESULTS: The relationship between cognitive crafting and work engagement was moderated by WFH, such that the relationship is more positive for health care workers who work from home permanently since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic than for frontline workers and workers who work partially from home. CONCLUSION: Our findings are consistent with previous research on cognitive crafting. We conclude that cognitive crafting is an interesting cognitive strategy to stay engaged for health care workers who are mandated into WFH. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: We advise organizations to provide remote workers virtual group trainings that promote cognitive crafting and expose them to testimonies of people who are positively affected by their work. More generally, we recommend organizations to engage in effective top-down work design and foster a climate for cognitive as well as behavioral job crafting strategies.

The role of leisure crafting for emotional exhaustion in telework during the COVID-19 pandemic.

BACKGROUND: After the worldwide outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020, many employees transitioned from in-office work to telework to slow down the spread of the virus. Building on the Job Demands-Resources model, we examined day-level relationships between job demands, home demands and emotional exhaustion during telework. Moreover, we tested if leisure crafting (i.e., the proactive pursuit and enactment of leisure activities targeted at goal setting, socializing, growth and development) is negatively related to emotional exhaustion. We expected that proactive personality would be positively related to leisure crafting. Finally, emotional exhaustion was predicted to relate negatively to job performance. METHODS: We tested our assumptions using a daily diary study on seven consecutive days with 178 employees (964 observations in total). RESULTS: Multilevel path analysis supports the assumptions that daily job demands as well as daily home demands during telework are positively related to emotional exhaustion. As predicted, we found leisure crafting to be negatively related to emotional exhaustion, and proactive personality to be positively related to leisure crafting. Finally, emotional exhaustion was negatively related to job performance. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, our study supports a health-promoting role of leisure crafting above the unfavorable relationships between job demands and home demands with emotional exhaustion.

Rumination about COVID-19 and employee well-being: The role of playful work design

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted normal life and has resulted in considerable stress. One important reason for reduced well-being is rumination about COVID-19. This study used proactivity theory to propose that playful work design (i.e., the process through which employees proactively create conditions within work activities that foster enjoyment and challenge) may buffer the impact of rumination on employee well-being. In May 2020, we collected data at two time points among 501 employees of a large bank cooperation. At Time 1, participants reported about rumination about COVID-19 and playful work design, and 1 week later (Time 2), they reported depressive symptoms, exhaustion, and vigor. Results of hierarchical regression analyses showed that rumination about COVID-19 had a negative relationship with well-being (increased depressive symptoms and exhaustion, decreased vigor). Designing fun was negatively related to exhaustion and positively related to vigor, whereas designing competition was positively related to vigor. As hypothesised, designing fun (not designing competition) moderated the link between rumination and well-being. Rumination was positively related to depressive symptoms and exhaustion and negatively related to vigor when participants scored lower on designing fun. These findings suggest that employees may use playful work design to deal with ruminative thoughts about COVID-19. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved) Abstract (French) La pandemie de COVID-19 a perturbe la vie normale et engendre un stress considerable. Les pensees recurrentes sur la COVID-19 sont l'une des principales raisons de cette reduction du mieux-etre. La presente etude recourait a la theorie de la proactivite pour postuler que le travail ludique (c.-a-d., le processus grace auquel les employes creent, de facon proactive, des conditions qui favorisent le plaisir et le defi pendant les activites de travail) peut attenuer les effets nefastes des pensees recurrentes sur le mieux-etre des employes. En mai 2020, nous avons recueilli des donnees a deux periodes differentes parmi 501 employes d'une grande cooperative bancaire. A la periode 1, les participants devaient donner leur impression sur les pensees recurrentes au sujet de la COVID-19 et sur le travail ludique;une semaine plus tard (periode 2), ils devaient rapporter leurs symptomes depressifs ainsi que leurs niveaux d'epuisement et d'energie. Les resultats des analyses de regression hierarchiques ont demontre que les pensees recurrentes a propos de la COVID-19 avaient une incidence negative sur le mieux-etre (augmentation des symptomes de depression, epuisement accru, moins d'energie). Le travail ludique etait en correlation negative avec l'epuisement et en correlation positive avec l'energie, tandis que le travail competitif etait en correlation positive avec l'energie. Comme il avait ete postule, le travail ludique (et non le travail competitif) attenuait le lien entre les pensees recurrentes et le mieux-etre. Les pensees recurrentes etaient en correlation positive avec les symptomes de depression et avec l'epuisement, et en correlation negative avec l'energie, lorsque les participants affichaient des scores inferieurs relativement au travail ludique. Ces constatations donnent a penser que les employes peuvent utiliser le travail ludique pour gerer les pensees recurrentes au sujet de la COVID-19. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved) Impact Statement Public Significance Statement: COVID-19 has disrupted daily life, and many people ruminate about the impact of the crisis. We argue and show that employees who repeatedly think about COVID-19 and the possible undesirable consequences can redesign their daily work tasks so that these tasks are more fun and employees protect their daily well-being. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)

Healthcare Workers Who Work With COVID-19 Patients Are More Physically Exhausted and Have More Sleep Problems.

In this survey study of 7,208 Dutch healthcare workers, we investigate whether healthcare workers dealing with COVID-19 patients experience lower general health, more physical and mental exhaustion and more sleep problems than other healthcare workers. Additionally, we study whether there are differences in well-being within the group of healthcare workers working with COVID-19 patients, based on personal and work characteristics. We find healthcare workers who are in direct contact with COVID-19 patients report more sleep problems and are more physically exhausted than those who are not in direct contact with COVID-19 patients. Mental exhaustion and general health do not significantly differ between healthcare workers who are in direct contact with COVID-19 patients and those who are not. Among healthcare workers in direct contact with COVID-19 patients, lower well-being on one or more indicators is reported by those who are female, living alone, without leadership role, or without sufficient protective equipment. Regarding age, physical exhaustion is more prevalent under healthcare workers older than 55 years, whereas mental exhaustion is more prevalent under healthcare workers younger than 36 years. These results stress the need of mental and physical support of healthcare workers during a pandemic, catered to the needs of healthcare workers themselves.

COVID-19 and the workplace: Implications, issues, and insights for future research and action.

The impacts of COVID-19 on workers and workplaces across the globe have been dramatic. This broad review of prior research rooted in work and organizational psychology, and related fields, is intended to make sense of the implications for employees, teams, and work organizations. This review and preview of relevant literatures focuses on (a) emergent changes in work practices (e.g., working from home, virtual teamwork) and (b) emergent changes for workers (e.g., social distancing, stress, and unemployment). In addition, potential moderating factors (demographic characteristics, individual differences, and organizational norms) are examined given the likelihood that COVID-19 will generate disparate effects. This broad-scope overview provides an integrative approach for considering the implications of COVID-19 for work, workers, and organizations while also identifying issues for future research and insights to inform solutions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).