Work complaint is one of the most frequent complaint in a psychological demand framework. Fatigue is represented as a normal state of being. Work fatigue can be defined as an « extreme tiredness and reduced functional capacity that is experienced during and at the end of the workday » and that leads to a reduction of capacity of doing work in three dimensions:
- Physical work fatigue has an impact on physical activity
- Mental work fatigue has an impact on cognitive activity
- Emotional work fatigue has an impact on emotional activity
The main fatigue’s predictors are :
- Job demands, in particular role conflict which lead someone to resolve conflict, to be intermediate between some people, situations and/or contradictory demands; and role ambiguity which implies a role not clearly shaped in the organization and lead to uncertainty regarding to the expectations and responsibilities
- Job resources that cover all the resources available to accomplish one’s work, and notably job autonomy which is negatively related to physical and mental work fatigue
- Personality and above all negative emotions and neuroticism trait that are shown to deplete energetic resources when they are chronic and lead to emotional work fatigue (such as higher goals for themselves, inefficient methods for solving problems, self-selection into demanding jobs, etc.).
On the opposite, positive emotionality can renew their resources easily, can create supportive networks, to behave less likely to set unrealistic goals, to be more likely to develop efficient methods to solve problems.
To go further on mental work fatigue, it has been shown that sleep disturbances, high immersion in work, high work demands, being a female and being a supervisor are important predictors and that mental fatigue has a neural-effect on emotional and physical fatigue. More precisely, mental fatigue suppresses activities in the right anterior cingulated cortex during physical fatigue – right anterior cingulate cortex which would be linked with the affects.
Work fatigue has several outcomes in the work sphere (Job unsatisfaction, non commitment in the organization, turnover intentions, etc.) that impacts the after-work life (inability to relax after work, etc.) and leads to a deficit of mental and physical health over the long-term. As the human being is one entity, there is a pattern of interactions between the three dimension of work fatigue that should be taken into account and above all, emotional work fatigue predict higher levels of physical and mental work fatigue.
To conclude, knowing better work fatigue and its correlations with other individual dimensions can help psychologist to consider the importance of assessing work fatigue in order to understand perceptions and coping strategies of an individual and to propose prevention strategies in all dimensions of work fatigue.
Marie Lion Calvel