Daily Microbreaks in a Self-Regulatory Resources Lens: Perceived Health Climate as a Contextual Moderator via Microbreak Autonomy

Grounded in self-regulatory resources and conservation of resources theories, the current research examinespoor self-regulatory capacity as a precursor to microbreaks and their possible outcomes at work. Full-timeemployees completed multiple online surveys for 10 (n1 = 779 daily observations) and 5 workdays(n2 = 1,024 daily observations). In Study 1, multilevel path analysis results showed that on days whenemployees had poorer recovery at home (i.e., poor sleep quality), they experienced higher fatigue in the nextmorning (low self-regulatory capacity) and thus took microbreaks more frequently at work. In turn, theirengagement in microbreaks was related to higher work engagement during the day and lower end-of-workfatigue. Furthermore, perceived health climate was found to moderate the path from morning fatigue tomicrobreaks. In Study 2, we replicated and confirmed the serial mediation paths found in Study 1 (poor sleepquality → morning fatigue → microbreaks → work engagement and end-of-work fatigue). Building onStudy 1, Study 2 also identified microbreak autonomy as a mechanism by which perceived health climatemoderates the path between morning fatigue and microbreaks (i.e., mediated moderation effect). Exploratory analyses discovered intriguing patterns of socialization microbreaks versus other microbreaks,providing further implications for the theoretical perspective.