The Flipside of Work Engagement: A Qualitative Evaluation of a Stress Management Intervention in the Workplace

Studies on the effectiveness of stress management interventions (SMIs) currently lack long-term evaluations. Accordingly, this article addresses questions of how workers who experience SMIs evaluate change after the intervention as well as how SMIs’ implementation can be improved. By processing 50 semi-structured interviews by a qualitative analysis, results indicate that participants perceive themselves as highly engaged and motivated at work. Attributing their engagement at work as a positive coping strategy, the in-depth qualitative analysis reveals forms of over-engagement: temporary over-engagement is considered a positive reaction to an increased work demand in the past, and it fails to work for the new cumulative stress that workers face. Additionally, identifying four different groups of SMI utilizers, we conclude that specific groups of participants benefit from individualized intervention strategies. SMI effectiveness increases, both for the individual productivity and for the corporate productivity, when focusing on the individual work engagement and providing individualized interventions.