Working overtime hours: relations with fatigue, work motivation, and the quality of work.

OBJECTIVES We sought to better understand the relationship between overtime and mental fatigue by taking into account work motivation and the quality of overtime work and studying theoretically derived subgroups. METHODS We conducted a survey-study among a representative sample of the Dutch full-time workforce (n = 1807). The prevalence of overtime work and the associations between overtime and job demands, job variety, decision latitude, fatigue, and work motivation was studied through descriptive statistics. We used MANCOVA (covariates: age, gender, salary level) to compare six overtime-fatigue subgroups with respect to work motivation and job characteristics. RESULTS A total of 67% of the respondents worked overtime (mean, 3.5 hours). Overtime workers appeared to be nonfatigued, motivated workers with favorable work characteristics. MANCOVA revealed no significant overtime-fatigue interaction. CONCLUSIONS Moderate overtime is common among Dutch workers, who seem to be happy workers with attractive jobs rather than fatigued employees.