Management priority to psychological health and safety, psychological detachment, and insomnia: A three-wave longitudinal study

• Management priority to psychological health and safety may foster employee recovery. • Statistical method isolated within-person changes from between-person differences. • Increased management priority was followed by increased psychological detachment. • Increased psychological detachment was followed by decreased insomnia. Restorative sleep is crucial for human functioning, and organizations have both incentive and responsibility for preventing and mitigating work-related sleep problems. This study addresses the need to better understand the interplay between management priority to psychological health and safety at work, a core component of an organization’s psychosocial safety climate, and employees’ recovery experiences off work. Using a random intercept cross-lagged panel model (RI-CLPM), we examined forward and reverse associations between employees’ perceptions of management priority to psychological health and safety, psychological detachment, and insomnia, differentiating between stable differences at the between-person level and temporal changes at the within-person level. Data came from a three-wave longitudinal survey conducted among child welfare workers in Norway (N = 944), with a six-month interval between survey waves. Results at the between-person level indicated that individuals who experienced more insomnia in general, tended to also experience less management priority to psychological health and safety and psychological detachment in general. Results at the within-person level indicated statistically significant spillover effects from management priority to psychological detachment and from psychological detachment to insomnia. The spillover effect from management priority to insomnia was moderate but not statistically significant. Results did not indicate any statistically significant reverse effects from insomnia to the other constructs. In sum, our findings suggest it may be easier to mentally disengage from work if you experience that the organization prioritizes psychological health and safety of employees, and that this may be important for later sleep quantity and quality.