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Employee engagement has recently garnered vast interest from both the academic and practitioner communities, likely due to its link with numerous positive individual and organizational outcomes. Here, we introduce a new concept, unexpected work, which occurs when more resources (e.g., time, energy) from an individual are required than the individual originally anticipated. Findings from two lab experiments suggest that unexpected work has a generally negative relationship with engagement, with a particularly strong impact on the engagement subfactor of absorption. Further, our findings suggest changes in engagement may have a delayed relationship with performance. Findings are discussed along with limitations and implications for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]