工作恢复:重回良好工作状态的必由之路

工作恢复是指工作中精力消耗之后,个体生理和心理状态的恢复过程。工作恢复是个体补充消耗的生理和心理资源的过程,这一过程可用努力—工作恢复模型和资源保存理论加以解释。目前工作恢复研究多采用自我报告的日记研究法,探索心理剥离、放松、掌握经验和控制等工作恢复的心理过程,考察休整、非工作活动、员工所处社会环境等工作恢复的前因变量,并检验工作恢复对幸福感、健康、工作表现等结果变量的正向预测作用。研究表明,工作恢复有助于个体保持积极情感、提高工作业绩。今后需在工作恢复的测量指标和研究方法等方面改进研究设计,并在工作恢复的作用机制及干预等方面着力拓宽研究方向。

Recovery from Work: A Necessary Process Helps Regain the Good Work Condition

Recovery from work is a recovery process when one′s physical and mental energy is consumed after work. Resources theory says that recovery from work is a process that complements physical and psychological resources which have been consumed, and this process can be explained by Effort-Recovery model (ER) and Conservation of Resources theory (COR). Both ER model and COR theory can explain the occurrence of recovery from work, and they are mutually complementary. Based on ER model, if one want to gain recovery from work, he/she ought to be aloof from job demands, i.e., not to do something which consumes the same internal resources with the same functional system. However, in the view of COR, the reduced resources will be recovered as to the newly-gained internal resources such as energy, self-efficacy or positive emotions.Recovery from work concerns the transition from workday to nonworkday, thus previous studies tend to use the method of self-report diary. The elementary procedure is as the following. The psychological and behavioral instruments are sent to the subjects by post or web. The subjects are required to fill in a general demographic form. Afterwards, every subject should fill in the other questionnaires at specific time and place according to the instruction. In the end of the study, the subjects send all the questionnaires to the researchers. In order to enhance the stability and accuracy of self-report, researchers have developed recovery from work instruments with high reliability and validity, including ‘the recovery experiences measures’, ‘state of being recovered in the morning’, ‘Recovery opportunities’ and so on.What’s the most important is not the behavior of recovery from work, but the latent psychological process. Researchers distinguished four psychological processes such as psychological detachment, relaxation, mastery experiences and control. The four processes help recover the emotion and control resources, thereby improve the level of recovery from work.As to the outcomes of recovery from work, it not only helps reduce work pressure, but also improves happiness, health and performance. While those influence recovery from work include respite, nonwork activities and social environment. Many studies show that, proper respite makes people enjoy positive emotions and performances during work. Nonwork activities influence recovery from work, but the influence depends on the level of responsibility. Nonwork activities with low responsibility make individuals recover from work through relaxation and psychological detachment. On the contrary, those with high responsibility will reduce individuals’ vigor, because those activities reduce relaxation and psychological detachment. As far as the social environment is concerned, researchers pay increasing attention upon the effect on recovery from works of significant others, job demands, job resources, et al.This paper indicates that future researches on recovery from work will break through in the following ways. Firstly, researchers can use the index of rating and physical signs combined with self report. Secondly, researchers are welcome to use the method covering short and long period of time. Thirdly, research designs of recovery from work can be broaden in aspects like its mediating or moderating effects. Finally, China researches of recovery from work should take the cultural, social, and economic backgrounds into account.