158 Chapter 6 regular work demands. Even though studies involving chronically ill employees are relatively scarce, scholars have provided relevant insights into how organizations may support employees dealing with a chronic medical condition through top-down approaches. For example, organizations may invest in empowering interventions that address the psychosocial aspects of working with a chronic disease (Varekamp et al., 2006, 2011) and coaching interventions aimed at personal resources to deal with work challenges (McGonagle et al., 2014). In addition, organizations may aim to establish a climate of psychological safety where chronically ill employees feel valued and respected (Kirk-Brown & Van Dijk, 2016) or redesign elements of the job to better suit the employees’ needs, such as providing themwith more autonomy. While JD-R theory focuses on physical and mental health outcomes, only few studies in the context of JD-R theory have included the health status of employees as a factor. However, Kirk-Brown and Van Dijk (2016) showed that the relationship between job resources and affective commitment was more pronounced for chronically ill employees. Moreover, Cook and Zill (2021) suggest that health status may function as a personal resource in the JD-R framework, with their study showing that chronic illness predicted lower engagement and higher burnout over and above job characteristics. In addition, the value of personal resources for employees dealing with health andmedical conditions has been evidenced in earlier studies. For example, Hakanen and Lindbohm (2008) showed that optimism was strongly related to work engagement for cancer survivors, and could even buffer against the negative impact of avoidance behavior by supervisors on work engagement. Moreover, a coaching intervention among chronically ill employees positively impacted work ability and burnout complaints through an increase in personal resources, such as core self-evaluations, mental resources, and resilience (McGonagle et al., 2014). Our current investigation focused on a proactive behavioral strategy aimed at a specific type of personal resources individuals need to function effectively at work – namely physical and mental energy. Chronically ill employees may use this proactive strategy themselves to promote their occupational health and performance. Earlier studies among employees from various occupational sectors have evidenced the value of proactive vitality management for several indicators of well-being, such as vigor and fatigue - and for several indicators of job performance, such as in-role performance and creativity (Bakker et al., 2020; Op den Kamp et al., 2018, 2020). A principal aim of the current research was to refine and broaden our understanding of proactive vitality
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