Set by the Clock? The Impact of Employees’ Chronotype on the Relationship Between Time of Day and Thriving at Work

Abstract Thriving at work has been recognized as an important psychological catalyst for employee health and functioning. In this study, we contribute to the existing predictor categories of thriving at work by introducing employees’ chronotype as a biologically determined factor that may predict the time of day when thriving is most likely to occur. Specifically, drawing on the two-process model of sleep regulation, we posit that within-day variation in the experience of thriving can be attributed to the alignment between time of day and employee chronotype. To test this proposed synchrony effect, we conducted a diary study involving a sample of 80 employees. The findings derived from multilevel analyses indicated that for employees with an earlier chronotype, vitality decreased from an earlier to a later time of day, while the experience of learning remained stable. For employees with a later chronotype, learning increased from an earlier to a later time of day, while the experience of vitality remained stable. Consequently, our results demonstrate that the chronotype and time of day jointly determine employees’ experience of thriving at work. These findings contribute to a more holistic understanding of the antecedents of employee thriving.