Recovery: the new challenge in PSR prevention
This content was written for Congrès RH 2026 in Québec City.
What if the next challenge in psychosocial risk prevention were recovery?
Discover why it is becoming a strategic lever for HR and how the Organizational Recovery Radar can guide concrete actions.
For a long time, psychosocial risk prevention focused primarily on well-known factors: high workload, lack of autonomy, conflict, low recognition, or harassment. These risks remain critical, but changes in the way we work now require organizations to monitor another issue: difficulty recovering.
Hybrid work, collaborative tools, artificial intelligence, notifications, and expectations of availability are transforming the way we work, but also our ability to disconnect. The workday may be over without the work truly being over: a message is checked, a meeting is anticipated, or a file continues to occupy our thoughts. Paradoxically, our devices recover better than we do.
Yet recovery is far from a luxury. It refers to the process through which the physical, cognitive, and emotional resources mobilized at work are gradually restored (Sonnentag & Fritz, 2007). When recovery is insufficient, fatigue accumulates, concentration decreases, and performance becomes more difficult to sustain over time (Sonnentag, 2018).
Recognizing the signs of insufficient recovery
For HR, the first challenge is recognizing the signs. They do not always take the form of absences or explicit complaints. They can also appear as:
- Days filled with meetings and no time to focus;
- Messages sent or handled in the evening;
- Breaks that are regularly postponed;
- Difficulty distinguishing urgent requests from those that are simply important;
- People who continue working despite fatigue, distress, or a health problem.
This last behaviour may resemble presenteeism: people try to maintain their contribution despite diminished resources (Karanika-Murray & Biron, 2020). It does not depend solely on their individual ability to manage stress. It is also influenced by workload, autonomy, expectations, and the support available.
Moving from awareness to action
Encouraging people to sleep better, take breaks, or build their resilience can be useful. However, these measures will have little effect if organizational practices continue to limit opportunities for recovery.
Recent research on the organizational climate for recovery highlights, in particular, the importance of workload management, autonomy, manager support, and organizational practices that support recovery (Toscano et al., 2026).
In practical terms, HR can begin the discussion with an Organizational Recovery Radar built around five questions:
- Availability: Are expected response times clearly defined?
- Workload: Do teams have enough capacity to absorb unexpected demands?
- Management: Do managers protect breaks, vacation time, and periods of focused work?
- Technology: Do digital tools simplify work or multiply interruptions?
- Culture: Is the focus on results or constant availability?
The goal is not to transform everything at once, but to identify the main obstacles to recovery, choose one realistic action, and monitor its effects. This could mean, for example, reducing low-value meetings, protecting certain periods for focused work, clarifying levels of urgency, or using scheduled email delivery.
Preventing psychosocial risks therefore no longer means only reducing what causes exhaustion. It also means addressing the practices, norms, and tools that prevent people from truly recovering.
At Congrès RH 2026, I will present the Organizational Recovery Radar, a concrete tool for identifying risk areas, targeting priorities, and taking action. Because recovery is an essential condition for sustainable health and performance.
References
Karanika-Murray, M., & Biron, C. (2020). The health-performance framework of presenteeism: Towards understanding an adaptive behaviour. Human Relations, 73(2), 242–261.
Sonnentag, S. (2018). The recovery paradox: Portraying the complex interplay between job stressors, lack of recovery, and poor well-being. Research in Organizational Behavior, 38, 169–185.
Sonnentag, S., & Fritz, C. (2007). The Recovery Experience Questionnaire: Development and validation of a measure for assessing recuperation and unwinding from work. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 12(3), 204–221.
Toscano, F., Zappalà, S., & Donati, S. (2026). Recovery from Work in a Broader Perspective: Conceptualizing the Organizational Climate for Recovery. Australian Journal of Career Development, 35, 119–129.
To learn more about the conference that inspired this content.
Sandra Salvoni is Vice-President and Scientific Director – Organizational Health and Wellness at inpowr.
