160 Chapter 6 mechanisms as well as important personal and work-related outcomes over time. Our findings indicate that chronically ill employees who used proactive vitality management (i.e., changing aspects of the self) reported lower levels of exhaustion three months later, which subsequently related to fewer functional limitations and reduced absenteeism two years later (i.e., a different future). In parallel, proactive vitality management was positively related to work engagement and, subsequently, to creative work performance across the same time span. These findings address the call for research on the consequential processes of proactive behavior (Parker et al., 2010), and contribute to the literature by presenting a detailed and long-term picture of how chronically ill individuals feel and function over time spurred by proactive vitality management. In addition, our longitudinal examination of JD-R’s two core processes among a sample of chronically ill employees also provides additional support for JD-R theory. More specifically, our findings contribute to the JD-R literature by showing how a proactive behavioral strategy that employees with chronic health conditions may employ seems to play a role in the two proposed psychological processes in this theory. A core assumption in JD-R theory is that job demands influence fatigue, and may have a negative indirect impact on functional capacity (‘health impairment process’). In contrast, job resources influence employee work engagement, and have an indirect impact on job performance (‘motivational process’). Accordingly, previous research has shown that organizations and their managers can play an important role in mitigating or instigating the two processes through job redesign (e.g., Holman et al., 2010; Holman & Axtell, 2016). However, such a top-down approach cannot take all individual differences in needs and abilities into account. As noted by Bakker and Demerouti (2017), individuals may also use bottom-up, proactive behavioral strategies to influence the processes described in JD-R theory. Our findings suggest that employees with a chronic illness may impact their own occupational health and performance by using proactive vitality management strategies that are in accordance with their personal needs, preferences, and restrictions. Our research thus emphasizes the perspective of the individual and how they may trigger the JD-R processes themselves. This bottom-up approach may be contrasted with – but also complement – the top-down perspective in which the organization influences occupational health and performance through job redesign.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTk4NDMw