Boundary Management and Burnout

Work-home boundary management and burnout

Permanent accessibility and blurring boundaries between work and private life have become inevitable characteristics of today’s working life for many employees. At the same time, employee reports of work-related stress and burnout are on the rise. Therefore, the research project "Work-home boundary management and burnout" investigates which factors encourage employees to perform work tasks during their leisure time and to what extent such behaviour is related to states of exhaustion, such as job burnout.

Performing work during what should be off-work time may adversely affect recovery. If recovery is hampered, acute or chronic stress reactions may result that ultimately lead to exhaustion. Considering these potentially negative effects of work-related activities in leisure time, the question arises which factors encourage such behaviour. The research project examines whether unfinished work tasks are associated with more frequent work activities during leisure time, and whether this is even more likely the more people tend to have negative thinking patterns.

Furthermore, the correlation between work-home boundary management and job burnout will be examined. In order to gain a deeper understanding of the burnout process and to help workers to better cope with work-related stress, an intervention will be conducted. Based on cognitive-behavioural therapy and mindfulness research workers will be trained to separate work and private life in order to promote recovery during non-working time.