Examining the Subjective Experience and Correlates of Downtime at Work

In the current paper, we studied the concept of downtime at work. Downtime represents a unique aspect of work time, as employees have low workload and some discretion about their activities, but are still paid to be at work. Despite its prevalence and potentially significant implications for productivity and well- being, the experience of downtime has not been a focus in the literature. A previous qualitative study showed that downtime is distinct from formal work breaks and is generally a negative subjective experience. Based on the results from that study and on relevant literature, we proposed several hypotheses and tested them using an experience sampling method. Results from 86 employees (across 5 days, 689 data points) indicated that length of downtime was negatively related to episode-level vitality and to day-level job satisfaction, job performance, and subjective health. The percentage of relaxation activities during downtime mitigated the negative effects of downtime on vitality and fatigue. The...