Identifying Restorative Environments for Employees’ Recovery: An Interdisciplinary Mixed Methods Approach

In this paper, we developed an environmental demands-resources (ED-R) model to explain which environments are restorative for employees during leisure based on the job demands-resources model. We used a mixed methods approach combining semi-structured interviews built upon the critical incident technique and psychometric questionnaires. In total, we gathered 100 different incidents in restorative and stressful environments from 29 participants. Following Mayring's qualitative content analysis, we identified natural, residential, and attractive artificial environments as restorative. Logistic multilevel modeling and Fisher's exact tests revealed that restorative environments contain fewer environmental demands (e.g., noise) and more environmental resources (e.g., water elements) than stressful environments. In addition, restorative environments were related to higher psychological detachment from work and relaxation compared to stressful environments. The results support our ED-R model and have practical implications for spatial design at the public, organizational, and individual level. Further theoretical extensions of our ED-R model were discussed.