Mind the misalignment: The moderating role of daily social sleep lag in employees' recovery processes

Abstract

Circadian processes are important for employees and organizations yet have been relatively underexplored in recovery research. Thus, we embed the concept of circadian misalignment into the recovery literature by investigating the moderating role of employees' daily social sleep lag (i.e., a discrepancy between employees' actual and biologically preferred sleep–wake times) in their recovery processes. Building on the effort-recovery model and a circadian perspective on recovery, we propose that low relaxation and mastery experiences explain the relationship between workplace interpersonal conflicts and low next-morning vigor. Concerning circadian misalignment, we investigated whether daily social sleep lag impedes the occurrence and effectiveness of after-work recovery experiences (i.e., moderates the relationships with interpersonal conflicts and vigor, respectively). Results of a daily diary study with 274 employees (1926 days) demonstrated that low mastery experiences, but not relaxation, explained the negative association between interpersonal conflicts and next-morning vigor. Additionally, mastery experiences translated less to next-morning vigor on days with high (vs. low) social sleep lag. Investigating circadian misalignment can thus help determine under which circumstances employees best recover from work, highlighting the need to take circadian processes into account in recovery research.