The Furr-Recovery Method: Interacting with Furry Co-Workers during Work Time Is a Micro-Break That Recovers Workers’ Regulatory Resources and Contributes to Their Performance

Ana Junça-Silva ()
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Ana Junça-Silva: Business Research Unit (BRU-IUL), ISCTE—Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, 1649-026 Lisboa, Portugal

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 20, 1-12

Abstract: Drawing on the conservation of resources theory and the recovery step model our research expands on a cognitive (regulatory resources) mechanism that links human–animal interactions and employee performance. This study aimed to explore whether daily human–animal interactions during worktime would be conceived as a daily-recovery process that restores the individual’s daily regulatory resources and, as a result, improves daily adaptive and task performance. To test this, a daily diary study during 10 working days, with 105 teleworkers was performed ( N = 105 × 10 = 1050). Multilevel results demonstrated that daily interactions between human and their pets served to recover their daily regulatory resources that, in turn, improved daily task-and-adaptive performance. This research not only expands our theoretical understanding of regulatory resources as a cognitive mechanism that links human-animal interactions to employee effectiveness but also offers practical implications by highlighting the recovery role of interacting with pets during the working day, as a way to restore resources needed to be more effective at work.

Keywords: recovery; micro-breaks; performance; pets; human-animal interactions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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