Mitigating Emotional Exhaustion Across the Workday

Faith C. Lee, PhD, James M. Diefendorff, PhD, Megan T. Nolan, PhD, and John P. Trougakos, PhD

As humans, we tend to limit our perception of exhaustion to physical exhaustion, focusing on tired and sore bodies. However, the state of our minds, our mental health, is a significant concern when it comes to our everyday activities as we navigate families, communities, and workplaces. This is where the idea of emotional exhaustion (EE) comes into play. EE is when you feel completely drained or worn out—not just physically but also emotionally. Being emotionally exhausted is like running on empty, where even simple tasks or interactions feel overwhelming and exhausting. It is easily apparent that such feelings can intrude into and touch all aspects of our lives. Although the effects of EE on our home and social life are important to understand, we chose to focus on the workplace and how EE increases or is mitigated throughout the workday. For our study, our definition of EE is the experience of being emotionally overexerted and exhausted by one’s work. With this in mind, we examined how EE varies throughout the workday for individuals and varies from one person to another. We also examine how different factors can mitigate or escalate EE.

The Workplace with Exhaustion in Mind

Emotional exhaustion (EE) in the workplace is an increasingly prevalent concern. This state often emerges from lengthy exposure to job stressors, such as high workloads, tight deadlines, interpersonal conflicts, and the persistent need to manage personal emotions while adhering to job demands. It's a core component of burnout, reflecting a significant mismatch between an individual’s resources and the demands placed upon them. EE is a critical concern for firms and employees alike—it not only affects the mental health and well-being of employees but also impacts job performance, creativity, and overall productivity. It leads to a multitude of negative outcomes, including increased absenteeism, higher turnover rates, diminished job satisfaction, and deteriorating physical health, which collectively impose substantial costs on both individuals and organizations. 

The significance of addressing EE extends beyond mitigating personal distress; it's about fostering a sustainable, healthy, and productive work environment. In a world where work-life balance is increasingly blurred, recognizing and mitigating the sources of EE has become paramount. Organizations that prioritize employee mental health and emotional well-being not only enhance the quality of life of their workforce but also secure a competitive edge by preserving their most valuable asset—engaged, motivated, and healthy employees. In this light, understanding EE is not just about preventing burnout but also about unlocking the full potential of the workforce in a compassionate and strategic manner. The value to be gained by addressing the challenge of EE is our main motivation for our study. We wanted to understand the levels of EE change throughout the workday, the relationship between the level of detachment from workplace (i.e. lack of connectedness) felt at the beginning of the workday and EE, workplace socializing and EE, how supervisor support can affect EE, and whether autonomous (intrinsic, or internally driven) versus controlled (extrinsic, or externally driven) occupation-related motivation in relation affects EE. 

Our Findings

To study the relationship between EE and the various variables of interest, we conducted daily surveys at the start, middle, and end of study participants’ shifts across (up to) 16 workdays per participant. Following completion of the surveys by all participants, we analyzed the data. Our results supported our initial predictions about EE in the workplace and found that EE does grow across the workday, starting at a minimum at the beginning and ending the workday at a maximum. 

Work detachment played a role in the level of EE an employee feels at the start of a workday. The more detached from work the employee is the evening prior, the less EE the employee feels at the beginning of the workday (but the faster their perceived EE grew throughout their workday). Alternatively, employees with less detachment the evening prior started the following day with a higher level of EE that remained elevated throughout the day. 

Then, in line with commonly held beliefs, increased amounts of workplace-socializing had a slowing effect on the increase in EE during the day. Negative interactions with customers exacerbated EE throughout the day. Supervisor support decreased the rate at which EE grew throughout day but did not affect the initial load of EE with which a person started the day. Lastly, our study demonstrates that autonomous motivation mitigated EE at the start of the day while controlled motivation was associated with higher EE at the start of the day.

 Real Estate Implications

Emotional exhaustion (EE) can be a significant problem in the workforce; this is especially true for service workers and customer service personnel. Using our findings, managers can focus resources and strategies to mitigate EE. Managers can encourage employees to detach from work in the evening to decrease EE at the start of the day, but also understand that additional within-day buffers may be needed to mitigate daily EE. These buffers can include providing a comfortable place at work for daily breaks or stress-relieving activities. Supporting socialization between employees is a valuable method of addressing EE, as it builds a strong support system between employees and contributes to an overall positive workplace environment. Supervisor training in how to support employees is recommended, as well as changes in employee policies that allow for less-controlled motivation (e.g., emphasizing personal rather than external control at work).

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Recommended Reading 

Lee, Faith C., James M. Diefendorff, Megan T. Nolan, and John P. Trougakos (2023), “Emotional Exhaustion Across the Workday: Person-Level and Day-Level Predictors of Workday Emotional Exhaustion Growth Curves,” Journal of Applied Psychology, 108, 1662-1679. 

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

About the Authors

Faith C. Lee, PhD
Senior Fellow, Department of the Navy Office of Force Resiliency
Dr. Faith C. Lee (PhD – University of Akron) has research interests in work motivation, emotion regulation, and emotional labor. She has published in leading journals such as Journal of Applied Psychology, as well as in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Psychology and Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Business and Management.

James M. Diefendorff,, PhD
Professor of Psychology, University of Akron
Dr. James M. Diefendorff (PhD – University of Akron) has research interests in in the self-regulatory process, work motivation, emotional labor, job satisfaction, and performance. He has published in leading journals such as Journal of Applied Psychology, Personnel Psychology, Academy of Management Journal, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Social Science and Medicine, and Organizational Research Methods, among others. Dr. Diefendorff is a fellow of the Society for Industrial/Organizational Psychology and is currently or has been on the editorial boards of the Journal of Applied Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Personnel Psychology, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Journal of Organizational Behavior, and Journal of Business and Psychology. 

Megan T. Nolan, PhD
Assistant Professor of Psychology, West Chester University
Dr. Megan T. Nolan (PhD – University of Akron) focuses on the reasons why people are unhappy at work and how psychological theory and methods can be used to improve employee well-being. In studying predictors of employee well-being, she distinguishes between “stable/longer term” predictors that are not likely to change over time (e.g., contextual factors, demands, individual differences), and “event/day-level” factors that are likely to vary from day-to-day (e.g., demands, self-regulatory processes).  Her publications have appeared in leading journals such as Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Vocational Behavior, and Organizational Psychology Review.  She regularly teaches Introduction to Industrial-Organizational Psychology (undergraduate), Organizational Psychology (graduate), and Stress and Health in the Workplace (graduate). 

John P. Trougakos, PhD
Professor of Management, University of Toronto Scarborough
Dr. John P. Trougakos’ (PhD – Purdue University) research focuses on the dynamics of employees’ daily organizational life, seeking to provide insights into current organizational challenges as well as those of the rapidly evolving workplaces of the future. He specializes in issues related to leadership, group dynamics, employee well-being and productivity, work breaks and recovery, as well as implementation of novel work methods (e.g., hybrid models, shortened work weeks, etc.). Dr. Trougakos’s award-winning research has been published in numerous leading academic journals and has been featured widely by a variety of media outlets. Some of his industry collaborations include Staples Canada, Bell Canada, the U.S. Department of Labor, the U.S. Department of Defense, the Canadian Securities Trader Association, the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer, and the Work Time Reduction Centre of Excellence, among many others.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Download this Article

KCRR 2025 March  - Mitigating Emotional Exhaustion Across the Workday (Lee)