Job demands drive exhaustion and job resources drive engagement, through two distinct processes that can run at once.
The model's contribution is the separation: reducing demands and adding resources are not the same intervention and do not substitute for each other. A demanding job with strong resources produces engaged and tired people; a job light in both produces neither. Resources also buffer demands, which is why autonomy and support change the effect of workload rather than merely offsetting it.
In practice
- A team given more autonomy and the same workload reports higher engagement and the same exhaustion.
- Cutting hours without changing how little control people have removes the tiredness and not the disengagement.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Creativity & Work
- Essay
- Protecting the conditions for good work