12 Chapter 1 Summing up, scholars have provided valuable insights on the importance of employee vitality for performance at work. However, these studies have predominantly focused on physical, affective, and cognitive states, and how they relate to outcomes, and not as much on individual proactive behaviors to manage, mobilize, or promote physical and mental energy for work purposes. Indeed, when it comes to factors that may activate or inhibit physical, affective, and cognitive states, studies often point towards contextual variables that may be influenced through top-down processes. For example, a wellestablished theory that is based on how elements of job design may impact employee health and motivation, and subsequent performance outcomes, is job demandsresources (JD-R) theory (Bakker & Demerouti, 2017; Demerouti et al., 2001). In the socalled ‘health impairment process’, physical and mental resources may be exhausted by job demands, leading to strain and health problems. In contrast, a ‘motivational process’ may be instigated by job resources that satisfy basic psychological needs, and foster work engagement and performance. Accordingly, these processes suggest that organizations may aim to impact employee health and motivation through top-down processes that involve job redesign (e.g., Holman et al., 2010; Holman & Axtell, 2016). Moreover, the studies that do focus on individual behavior in relation to well-being usually involve processes that are rather reactive in nature. For example, scholars have studied how employees may recover and unwind after work through evening activities that facilitate the experience of relaxation, psychological detachment, or mastery (Sonnentag et al., 2017). Others have focused on how employees may recover during the workday, for example by taking micro-breaks, such as having a snack (Fritz et al., 2011; Trougakos & Hideg, 2009; Zacher et al., 2014). While the importance of replenishing energy reservoirs after (periods of) work is undisputed, recovery involves a reaction to strain from work. In order to promote optimal functioning at work, and especially in the context of preventing work-related physical and mental health issues in the long run, a bottom-up and proactive approach from the individual is key.
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