Although calls for pay transparency in the workplace are growing, it remains unclear which factors determine when and why employees exchange pay information. We use a social comparison theory lens to identify the pay transparency dilemma, wherein pay information exchange can create benefits by reducing uncertainty and verifying equitable pay, but simultaneously risks straining interpersonal relationships and damaging reputations. To examine individual differences in employee sensitivity to the risks and benefits presented in this dilemma, our research develops a measure of pay information exchange preferences with two facets: information sharing preferences and information seeking preferences. Across eight samples, we present evidence that supports the content, construct, and criterion validity of these measures. Overall, these findings support the idea that social comparison processes play a key role in shaping employee pay information exchange preferences and behaviors. This new instrument has the potential to catalyze future theoretical development and research to aid practitioners in making evidence-based decisions about pay communication policies.

Detaching from workdefined as mentally and physically disengaging from work during off-hoursis an important prerequisite to effective daily recovery and psychological wellbeing. However, the extant literature has yet to articulate exactly why some employees fail to detach from work and, furthermore, offers few concrete recommendations on how to increase detachment on a daily basis. I illustrate how both of these limitations may be resolved by extending the definition of psychological detachment to more clearly specify from what employees are failing to detach. Drawing from self-regulation research, the theoretical framework developed in this study proposes that employees' minds continue to linger over goal-related content after the workday is finished. This proposition was supported in a longitudinal sample of 103 employees pursuing 1,127 goals. Consistent with a self-regulatory perspective, employees had more difficulty detaching from incomplete (vs. completed) work goals later in the day, especially when these goals possessed high valence. Furthermore, an experimental manipulation demonstrated that creating plans to resolve incomplete goals increased psychological detachment among employees with traits that chronically inhibit detachment. I discuss how this refined conceptualization of psychological detachment catalyses future theoretical development and provides groundwork for evidence-based interventions. Practitioner pointsCreating plans at the end of the day that describe where, when, and how unfulfilled work goals will be completed is an effective, low-cost intervention that enhances psychological detachment among employees, which will ultimately improve occupational health and performance. The planning intervention was primarily effective among employees who typically have difficulty detaching from work during leisure time, indicating that intervention efforts should be targeted at specific types of employees. When setting daily work goals, employees should be encouraged to focus on smaller, concrete goals at the end of the day in order to reduce unfulfilled work goals and facilitate psychological detachment.Although most individuals transition between the work and home domains on a daily basis, they do not necessarily mentally disengage from their professional role simply because the workday has ended. Work-related issues have the ability to linger on employees' minds and, in some cases, prevent their ability to enjoy leisure and family time.In fact, 72% of workers report spending some time after work worrying about their job, Hypothesis 2: Goal valence moderates the relationship between goal type (i.e., incomplete vs. complete) and goal-level detachment, where goal valence is negatively related to goal-level detachment among incomplete goals.Successfully leaving work at work 497

A widely-cited proposition in boundary theory states that it is difficult for individuals to transition between roles, especially when these roles are highly segmented. Surprisingly, this hypothesis has not been directly tested. We provide an empirical test of these propositions and draw from the self-regulation literature to expand boundary theory in exploring how episodes of cognitive role transitions impact job performance. We propose that cognitive role transitioning is cognitively demanding, which consumes the limited executive control resources that facilitate effective job performance. In a multilevel study of 619 employees providing 4371 episodes, we observed that work-to-family cognitive role transitioning was negatively related to job performance, and this effect was mediated by self-regulatory depletion. Although individuals with greater role integration were somewhat more likely to experience cognitive role transitions than those with segmented roles, these individuals were also buffered from the self-regulatory depletion that impairs effective job performance. Overall, these findings suggest that integration, rather than segmentation, may be a better long-term boundary management strategy for minimizing self-regulatory depletion and maintaining higher levels of job performance during inevitable work–family role transitions.

Although pay secrecy continues to garner attention in human resource management, little research examines how these policies impact employees. Research inconsistently links secretive pay policies to unfavourable outcomes but has yet to consider that employees may have varying attitudes toward these policies. We examine how employee preferences modify the effect that organisational pay secrecy policies have on employee attitudes in a sample of 431 employed adults. To accomplish this goal, we create measures of pay secrecy policies and pay secrecy preferences that each differentiate two facets of pay secrecy: distributive pay non‐disclosure and communication restriction. Polynomial and moderated regression analyses indicated that disparities between employee preferences and organisational pay secrecy policies can reduce job satisfaction and perceptions of informational, interpersonal, and procedural justice under certain circumstances. These results simultaneously highlight the importance of employee attitudes toward pay secrecy policies and the challenges human resource practitioners face in managing employees with diverse preferences.

Although psychologically detaching from work is beneficial for employee well-being and productivity, heavy workloads can interfere with detachment. Drawing from the self-regulation literature, we expand the stressor-detachment model to explore 2 attentional factors that shape the workload-detachment relationship: dispositional self-control-defined as a trait ability to regulate thoughts and behavior-and a daily planning intervention designed to direct attention away from incomplete work goals. Overall, we hypothesized that the ability to control and redirect attention is crucial for detaching from high workloads. Using an experimental daily diary design with 103 employees, we replicated previous results that daily workload is negatively associated with daily psychological detachment. However, this relationship was nonsignificant for individuals high on dispositional self-control and those that completed the planning intervention. We also observed a 3-way interaction, where the planning intervention was only effective for individuals low on dispositional self-control because employees high on self-control were naturally better at detaching from high workloads. Overall, these results illustrate the theoretical and practical utility of an attention-based perspective on detachment processes, including a simple intervention for helping individuals detach at home despite high workloads. (PsycINFO Database Record