Occupational self-efficacy and work engagement as moderators in the stress or detachment model

Psychological detachment from work is crucial for employees to replenish resources and maintain well-being. In this study, we tested the stressor detachment model (Sonnentag & Fritz, 2015. Recovery from job stress: The stressor-detachment model as an integrative framework. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 36(S1), S72–S103. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.1924) by examining the mediation of psychological detachment between workload and emotional exhaustion. Furthermore, we investigated work engagement and occupational self-efficacy as moderators in the stressor-detachment model Our study comprised a 3-wave lagged design with 257 participants with flexible working hours. The results show that psychological detachment mediated the workload-exhaustion relationship and that work engagement buffered the negative effect of workload on psychological detachment. We found no moderated mediation for occupational self-efficacy; however, occupational self-efficacy significantly predicted psychological detachment. Our findings suggest that research should conceive a broader stressor-detachment model that considers different paths (i.e. moderators, mediators, and predictors). Moreover, organisations should support engagement and resource replenishment to ensure detachment from work.