Investigating the nature of psychological reattachment to work in the morning: A qualitative study
通过访谈35名员工，研究了心理重新投入工作的构成、过程及影响因素，发现员工会预期工作需求并提前规划应对，需求越多则重新投入所需时间越长。
Psychological reattachment to work means mentally reconnecting with one’s work before or upon returning to work in the morning. Recent studies revealed its potential to boost daily work engagement, demonstrating its relevance to research and practice. Despite this, no studies have explored the components of psychological reattachment and why and how employees reattach to their work. Yet, to expand the theoretical understanding of psychological reattachment and to apply its potential in practice, it is crucial to dive deeper into the details around this process. Therefore, this study employs a qualitative approach to test existing theoretical assumptions on psychological reattachment, uncover additional manifestations of psychological reattachment, examine its unfolding process, and identify potential predictors, benefits, and drawbacks. Our methodological procedure comprises the multi-coding of qualitative material from 35 employees with diverse backgrounds. One of our main findings is that when anticipating upcoming demands during the workday, employees also anticipate how to meet those demands. Furthermore, the more demands are expected, the longer it takes employees to mentally reattach to their work. This hints at how psychological reattachment might resemble a preventive coping mechanism for job demands during the day.