Research in occupational health and safety is increasingly incorporating interventions and outcomes that overlap with those of interest to the career development field. Van Eerde et al.’s study of planning and employee wellbeing exemplifies this trend. The researchers knew that employees who can “turn off” work at the end of the workday, compared to those who cannot, experience greater wellbeing, greater general satisfaction, less emotional exhaustion, and fewer symptoms of psychological strain such as poor sleep and fatigue. They also knew there were interventions (e.g., mindfulness, volunteering) to help employees detach from the day’s work.
One often recommended but poorly researched intervention was behavioural planning: i.e., making plans for the next day or few days. The idea is that an employee setting the next day’s goals or making a to-do list at the end of the workday will transfer worries from their minds to the list. However, Van Eerde et al. noted that some research showed that setting goals can lead to more rumination rather than less. They then thought that creating “implementation intentions” (i.e., specifying not only the goals but the how, where, and when of achieving them) might be the way to calm the roused mind. Two more ideas complicated matters further. What about people who have a tendency to plan? Van Eerde et al. reasoned that implementation intentions would not help them (a) detach from work or (b) experience less fatigue the next day because their minds are already setting goals and planning.
Van Eerde et al. studied 114 full-time non-shift workers randomly assigned to one of three groups (control, goal-setting only, implementation intention). Instructed in what they needed to do and assessed on their planning tendency, they were surveyed on two key variables related to wellbeing for two weeks: detachment and fatigue. [1]
Almost none of the results supported the researchers’ predictions. Overall, neither goal-setting nor implementation intentions produced more detachment from work or less fatigue than doing nothing. The only predictor of better detachment was employees’ tendency to plan. Two findings were opposite to their expectation:
- Individuals low on planning tendency were not found to better detach using goal-setting or implementation intentions whereas those scoring high did benefit from implementation intentions. In other words, “planners” detach even better when creating implementation intentions.
- Parallel to the above finding, increases in detachment led to less fatigue the next day more with “non-planners” than “planners.”
There are many takeaways from this study for practitioners. Three are highlighted, the first two of which are about science as a process:
- Someone claims intervention X or Y works, others starting using the intervention, and soon the sentiment emerges, “It must be effective – everyone’s using it.” Van Eerde et al.’s study is an actual test of interventions in which assumptions are scrutinized.
- When the possibility of individual differences is used to tease apart broad-based findings (e.g., planning is helpful), new, more useful results almost always emerge.
- It’s always important to know the evidence regarding an intervention AND attend to the unique nature and circumstances of the person being served.
[1] “Fatigue” is defined as a “psychological state characterized by low levels of energy and lack of motivation to exert further effort” in this study.
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