The impact of furloughs on emotional exhaustion, self-rated performance, and recovery experiences.

The notion that strain can result as employees' resources are threatened or lost is well established. However, the transition from resource threats to resource losses is an important but understudied aspect of employee strain. We argue that the threat-to-loss transition triggers accelerated resource loss and a shift in how employees utilize their remaining resources unless employees engage in recovery experiences during the transition. Using a discontinuous change framework, we examine employee furloughs-the placement of employees on leave with no salary of any kind-in terms of the transition from resource threat to loss: Resources may be threatened when the furlough is announced and lost when the furlough occurs. Using 4 data collections with 180 state government employees, we found mean levels of emotional exhaustion increased and mean levels of self-reported performance decreased following the furlough. The discontinuous changes in exhaustion and performance were significantly impacted by employees' recovery experiences during the furlough. We discuss the implications of these findings for other threat-to-loss and recovery research as well as for organizations implementing furloughs.