Workdays are not created equal: Job satisfaction and job stressors across the workweek

Abstract

Are your workdays created equal? Common wisdom suggests that employees experience Mondays differently from Fridays. However, few studies distinguish among workdays, inherently assuming that the employee experience is uniform across the workweek. In the current study, we examined the trajectories of employees’ experiences of job satisfaction and job stressors across the workweek. We proposed two competing theoretical perspectives that result in opposite predictions as to whether job dissatisfaction and perceived job stressors will be higher (“Monday blues”) or lower (“rested and recharged”) at the beginning of the workweek rather than later in the week. Employing a daily diary design with 139 employees (681 matched daily observations) working the traditional workweek, we found that employees reported experiencing lower levels of job satisfaction and perceived more job stressors (i.e., incivility and organizational constraints) at the beginning of the workweek as opposed to later in the week. Additionally, the relationship between perceived incivility and job satisfaction was stronger at the beginning of the workweek. Our findings were consistent with the “Monday blues” perspective and suggest that workdays are not created equal.