Balancing the energy equation : the interplay of regulatory and emotional resources in sustaining workforce We/I-being

Work energy management is a pivotal strategy for safeguarding employee health within the workplace. The escalating demands of work have resulted in pervasive energy depletion, posing a threat to the sustainable development of the workforce. Yet some fundamental conceptual and theoretical aspects of work energy are still subjects of debate. This study focuses on regulatory and emotional resources, two critical psychological assets that influence immediate work engagement. While both are acknowledged as important, the extent to which they function as distinct forms of work energy is unclear in current literature. We reviewed related articles and proposed some viewpoints on the energy concept system, examining the interplay between personal, emotional, relational, and regulatory energies. Based on this and by drawn on self-depletion theory and the emotion regulation process as a journey theory, we explored a phenomenon where the regulated emotion (which expends regulatory resource) serves to support later emotional work. We thus revealed a way that emotional resource can compensate regulatory resource at task level. This may have interesting implications for thinking about what, why, and when certain things are resources in term of capacity to do work, or can even applied to a more general level.