ABSTRACT

Particularly in knowledge-intensive jobs, employees are increasingly challenged by complex and dynamically changing work tasks. These developments make it difficult for employees to anticipate a day's upcoming work tasks and associated activities including methods, time requirements, and potential problems arising in the work process. We present three arguments why this work unpredictability represents a contemporary occupational stressor causing that affects employees until beyond working hours and is thus associated with lower daily wellbeing in the evening: Work unpredictability can be perceived as a lack of control at work, as a lack of mastery expectancies, and it might add high-effort planning and self-regulation demands to employees’ daily psychological workload. In a diary study with 105 employees, we collected 666 observations at three daily measurement occasions over two weeks. The results supported our hypotheses and demonstrated that work unpredictability relates negatively to evening serenity via employees’ elevated strain levels after work. These relationships were also found when controlling for time pressure as a representative of an established daily work stressor. We conclude that work unpredictability is a so far neglected work stressor that should receive more research attention in the future.

摘要

特别是在知识密集型工作中，员工越来越受到复杂且动态变化的工作任务的挑战。这些发展使员工难以预测一天即将到来的工作任务和相关活动，包括方法、时间要求和工作过程中出现的潜在问题。我们提出了三个论点，为什么这种工作不可预测性代表了当代职业压力源，它会影响员工直到工作时间以外，因此与晚上的日常幸福感降低有关： 工作不可预测性可以被视为工作中缺乏控制，缺乏掌握预期，可能会给员工的日常心理工作量增加高强度的计划和自我调节需求。在一项针对 105 名员工的日记研究中，我们在两周内的三个日常测量场合收集了 666 次观察结果。结果支持了我们的假设，并表明工作的不可预测性通过员工下班后的压力水平升高与晚上的宁静负相关。当控制时间压力作为已建立的日常工作压力源的代表时，也发现了这些关系。我们得出结论，工作不可预测性是迄今为止被忽视的工作压力源，未来应该受到更多的研究关注。当控制时间压力作为已建立的日常工作压力源的代表时，也发现了这些关系。我们得出结论，工作不可预测性是迄今为止被忽视的工作压力源，未来应该受到更多的研究关注。当控制时间压力作为已建立的日常工作压力源的代表时，也发现了这些关系。我们得出结论，工作不可预测性是迄今为止被忽视的工作压力源，未来应该受到更多的研究关注。