137 Proactive Vitality Management Among Employees with Chronic Liver Disease INTRODUCTION Work provides people with income, promotes social interaction, and contributes to feelings of self-worth – perhaps especially when living with a chronic medical condition (Beatty & Joffe, 2006). Due to medical advancement, population aging, and the rise in retirement age, the number of chronically ill individuals within the labor force continues to rise (Beatty 2012; Brzykcy et al., 2019). As energetic resources are essential to perform well (Beal et al., 2005; Hockey, 1997), these individuals, who experience relatively intense drops in energy more regularly due to their medical condition, are subjected to a disadvantage regarding occupational health and performance. Governments and organizations may support employees with chronic health conditions by implementing formal policies and facilities – for example, opportunities for reduced work hours, job task modifications, or sick leave. However, such a top-down approach cannot take all individual differences in needs and abilities into account. Based on job demands-resources (JD-R; Bakker & Demerouti, 2017) and proactive motivation (Parker et al., 2010) theories, we propose that chronically ill employees can be proactive agents who take initiatives to shape their own work-related well-being and outcomes to some extent, in accordance with their personal needs and health restrictions (Grant & Parker, 2009). More specifically, we suggest that chronically ill employees may use proactive vitality management, i.e., “goal-oriented behavior aimed at managing physical and mental energy to promote optimal functioning at work” (Op den Kamp et al., 2018, p. 493) to influence their own occupational health and performance. People with chronic illness form an understudied population in general (Beatty, 2012), and, thus far, the value of proactive vitality management has been evidenced only in studies among the healthy working population (Bakker et al., 2020; Op den Kamp et al., 2018, 2020). Proactive behavior involves undertaking self-initiated actions to change the status quo. This may seem especially challenging for individuals dealing with chronic illness, limiting their ‘can-do’ motivation (Parker et al., 2010). Yet precisely for individuals who need to deal with physical limitations, like employees with a chronic health condition, it is important to adopt a proactive approach towards their vitality to remain functional. 6
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