144 Chapter 6 limitations in work – such as cognitive or physical difficulties in performing work tasks – and the number of days missed work (i.e., absenteeism). Notwithstanding the importance of the health impairment process among healthy employees (e.g., Bakker et al., 2003a, 2003b; De Beer et al., 2016; Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004), we expect that this process may be even more pronounced for chronically ill employees. Working individuals who suffer from a chronic illness are hindered by the additional burden of their condition (Kirk-Brown & Van Dijk, 2016; McGonagle et al., 2014), which may limit their working effort reserves. They may therefore experience more difficulty dealing with demanding situations (cf. Hockey, 1997). Nonetheless, the aforementioned reason-to motivation may impact the cost-benefit decisions of chronically ill employees about the expenditure of increased effort relative to the value of their goals, swaying them to invest the additional resources needed to remain functional (Hockey, 1997; Parker et al., 2010). Accordingly, theymay be driven to find and implement effective strategies to manage their physical and mental energy, which may protect or even expand their working effort reserves (cf. Hockey, 1997). For example, they may try to organize their work tasks in time blocks that are manageable and seek out their colleagues for energizing social interaction in between those blocks. Gathering the personal resources they need to become better equipped to deal withworkmay lower their exhaustion levels and associated functional limitations over time (see also Figure 1). Hypothesis 1: Time 1 (T1) proactive vitality management is negatively related to (a) T3 functional limitations and (b) T3 absenteeism, through T2 exhaustion. The Motivational Process Parallel to the health impairment process, proactive vitality management may activate a motivational process in which work engagement plays a pivotal role. The motivational process in JD-R theory describes how job resources ignite individuals’ feelings of commitment and dedication to their work, which lead to positive outcomes for them and the organizations they work for (Bakker & Demerouti, 2017). We consider proactive vitality management as a behavioral strategy that individuals can deploy to directly influence the motivational process by impacting work engagement and, subsequently, performance at work.
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