In the wake of covid-19, the challenge of how to best recover from work has never been more important. Recovery involves a process of unwinding after exerting effort on work. Putting effort into work is often cast as an aversive and draining experience, as something that employees must recover from during their leisure time. However, it is possible that for some employees, on some workdays, effort is not experienced in this negative way. We aimed to understand employee motives for investing effort into work. We expected that daily fluctuations in work motivation can shape the affective, cognitive, and regulatory experiences of putting effort into work that day, which in turn, has consequences for one’s recovery potential that evening. Thus, this research sought to uncover if not all effort expenditure is bad, that is, if certain motivations can shape experiences that actually enable recovery. Results from a daily diary study with full-time workers largely supported these notions, in particular via affective and regulatory experiences of effort investment. These insights are important, as research on the nature of effort is limited. Our findings suggest that best practice advice on how to support recovery would benefit from understanding unique experiences of effort expenditure.

By the conclusion of this presentation, attendees will:
• Have new knowledge on effort-recovery theorising, which has implications for work-related health, well-being, and stress prevention.
• Understand how employee motivation and experiences of effort expenditure can shape recovery potential during the working week.
• Gain insights into the ways to intervene, on a daily basis, to improve the experience of exerting effort into one's work, so that this is more stimulating and productive rather than depleting and counter-productive.

Attendees will be expected to engage with a series of polls and questions during the presentation, which will also provide the opportunity to collectively share insights and learnings.

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