Is it bad because it is boring? Effects of idle time on employee outcomes

ABSTRACTIdle time is a period during which employees cannot complete their work tasks for reasons beyond their control. It has previously been shown to have negative consequences for employees’ performance and well-being. To shed light on the mechanisms underlying these effects, we argue based on affective events theory and action regulation theory that idle time is an event that leads to boredom. Since boredom is a negative affective experience that motivates employees to do something about their situation, it may reduce job satisfaction and increase extra-role behaviour (i.e., prosocial and counterproductive) and turnover intentions. We tested our hypotheses using a sample of 1,036 employees who participated in a five-wave longitudinal study across 12 months. Results showed that, at both the within-person and between-person levels, idle time was positively associated with boredom, which, in turn, was associated with lower job satisfaction, higher counterproductive work behaviour, and higher turnover intentions, but not with prosocial work behaviour. These associations were robust when additionally controlling for work environment features (e.g., working from home), dispositions (e.g., personality), and demographic characteristics. Thus, idle time seems to be a boring and mostly negative experience for employees. Employees and managers should organize work to avoid boredom whenever possible.KEYWORDS: Idle timeboredomjob satisfactionaffective events theoryemployee outcomes Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.Supplementary materialSupplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/1359432X.2023.2261661Additional informationFundingThis study was conducted as part of the research project “Idle Time at Work” funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation, #437707385).