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Cohabiting dual-earner couples are increasingly common. However, previous recovery research mainly focused on employees independently of others, thereby overlooking an essential part of their life. Therefore, we take a closer look at dual-earner couples’ recovery processes and link this research to a circadian perspective. We assumed that unfinished tasks impede engagement in time with the partner (absorption in joint activities, directing attention toward the partner) as well as recovery experiences (detachment, relaxation), whereas engagement in time with the partner should boost recovery experiences. Integrating a circadian perspective, we proposed that employees from couples with matching circadian preferences (chronotype) benefit more from engagement in time with their partner (i.e., stronger relationships with recovery experiences). Additionally, we explored whether a match between partners’ chronotypes buffers the negative relationship between unfinished tasks and engagement in joint time. We conducted a daily diary study with 143 employees from 79 dual-earner couples, providing data on 1,052 days. A three-level path model showed that unfinished tasks were negatively related to absorption in joint activities and detachment, whereas absorption positively predicted recovery experiences. Furthermore, the couples’ chronotype match mattered in the interplay with engagement in joint time: for couples with higher (vs. lower) chronotype match, experiencing detachment depended on absorption while for couples with lower (vs. higher) chronotype match, attention was even harmful for experiencing relaxation. Thus, it is crucial to consider employees’ partners when investigating their recovery processes because employees cannot act independently if they also need to take their partner’s circadian rhythms into account.

Studies suggest a mutual influence between work and health behaviors (physical exercise, healthy eating). To advance research on this phenomenon, we developed and validated short scales that capture enrichment and conflict experiences between work and health behaviors. Building on the work-family literature, we developed items assessing enrichment and conflict between (1) work and physical exercise and (2) work and healthy eating. In Study 1, we examined construct validity of the new scales, using confirmatory factor analysis. In Study 2, we refined the items, relying on expert ratings. In Study 3, we tested construct validity of the revised measures and examined their nomological net. We replicated the factor structure across Study 1 and Study 3. Analysis of the nomological net showed that enrichment experiences mainly correlate with job rewards, organizational health behavior climate, high exercise identity, high healthy-eater identity, physical exercise behavior, consumption of fruits and vegetables, and low body mass index (BMI). Conflict experiences mainly correlate with a high amount of effort invested into work, low exercise identity, low healthy-eater identity, no or limited physical exercise behavior, and the consumption of less fruits and vegetables.

Health behaviors (physical activity and healthy eating) can be an essential part of everyday work life and are relevant for employees' affective states. Many worksite interventions, including goal‐striving approaches, have been developed to promote health behavior at work. However, these approaches often neglect that making progress with respect to health‐behavior goals necessarily takes place during workday episodes, so that work tasks are accomplished simultaneously. In our study, we aim to advance the understanding of how health‐behavior goal progress is facilitated and how reflecting on it evokes affective states—taking into account simultaneous pursuit of work‐task progress. We collected daily diary data from 205 employees on 1399 days. Analyses showed that goal importance positively predicted health‐behavior goal progress, which in turn positively predicted pride and negatively predicted shame at the end of the workday. The negative relation between health‐behavior goal progress and shame was stronger on days with low work‐task progress, implying compensatory effects. Work‐task progress did not moderate the relation between health‐behavior goal progress and pride. We discuss the theoretical and practical relevance of integrating research on multiple goal striving when promoting health behavior in daily work life by means of goal‐striving techniques.

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