10 Chapter 1 While recent years have continuously brought innovative technological developments that changed the nature of work, human capital remains key in determining organizational success. However, human beings are not robots: delivering high quality work takes effort and requires physical and mental energy. Many individuals seem to deal with a substandard quality of their work life, accompanied by physical and mental health issues with high personal and societal costs. For example, recent statistics indicate that approximately 1 in 6 to 7 employees in the Netherlands suffer from burnout related complaints (CBS, 2021). While individuals need physical and mental energy to perform their work, such resources are volatile and deplete easily. Accordingly, most organizations and individuals recognize the need to recover from exerted effort, to deal with strain, and to remedy exhaustion and other physical and psychological issues. Organizations may aim to impact employee health and performance through various ways, such as HR strategies, leadership, job design, organizational climate, formal policies or other forms of workplace health promotion. While such ‘topdown’ approaches may be valuable, they cannot accommodate every situational need and personal preference. In addition, people are not passive recipients of their environment, they may take control and exert influence on their own experiences and outcomes. Perhaps nowadays more than ever, it may be important to focus on the role of the individual in this process – that is, adopting a ‘bottom-up’ approach. Technological developments and corresponding changes in the nature of work (e.g., virtual teams, flex work) bring additional challenges to regulate occupational health and performance. Moreover, organizations increasingly deal with employees working remotely – making it even more difficult for managers to reach and support them. In this new way of working, people are more dependent on themselves and are required to take responsibility and manage their own work, work-life balance, and well-being. Especially when it comes to managing personal and volatile resources like physical and mental energy on a daily basis, I argue that an individual, proactive approach is key. Accordingly, the main purpose of the present dissertation is to introduce and explore a phenomenon I call ‘proactive vitality management’ – defined as ‘individual, goal-oriented behavior aimed at managing physical and mental energy to promote optimal functioning at work’.
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