Daily associations between basic psychological need satisfaction and well-being at work: The moderating role of need strength

With this paper, we aim to enhance insight in the daily relationships between the satisfaction of basic psychological needs (i.e., the needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness) at work and employee well-being (as indicated by positive energy), by examining the moderating role of the strengths of these needs. We collected data by means of a 2-week diary study with two daily measurements (in the morning before work and at the end of the workday) among 109 fulltime working interns. Multi-level analyses showed that the positive relationship between daily satisfaction of the need for relatedness at work and employee well-being at the end of the workday was stronger for participants who expressed a high strength of this need. Furthermore, on workdays when participants experienced higher satisfaction of the needs for competence and autonomy, they experienced higher well-being. Although we did not find moderating effects of need strength for these two needs, results did indicate between-individual variance in the strength of the associations between satisfaction of these needs and employee well-being. Practitioner points Daily satisfaction of the basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness at work should be supported, because this relates positively to employee well-being. Enabling work-related satisfaction of the need for relatedness is especially important for employees who exhibit a strong strength of this need.