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Remote Working and Work-Life Balance
Abstract
A substantial proportion of the workforce in many European countries and the United States works remotely (e.g., at home), and this has implications for ethical organizational practice. Work-life balance influences quality of working life, and employees have rights in relation to the balancing of work and family responsibilities. However, organizational ethics involves balancing the protection of employees’ rights and well-being with the fulfillment of organizational goals. Research suggests that remote working may enhance work-life balance without reducing productivity under certain circumstances, but while doing so can reinforce patterns that reduce gender equity. Questions remain about the specific circumstances under which remote working’s potential to be flexible, productive, and gender equitable can be maximized and its diverse nature must be acknowledged in research and practice.
... Il contributo sostiene che sia necessario contestualizzare il lavoro da remoto, in quanto non permette necessariamente di ridurre le disuguaglianze e di migliorare le condizioni lavorative delle donne. Al contrario, in un regime di genere asimmetrico 4 , come quello italiano, nel quale il welfare rimane di tipo familistico e il lavoro domestico e di cura ricade principalmente sulle spalle delle donne (Lyon, 2006), il lavoro da remoto può rafforzare la divisione tradizionale del lavoro in base al genere (Sullivan, 2012). ...
... portando a nuovi "modelli di sfruttamento" (Sullivan e Lewis, 2001). In modo analogo, Sullivan (2012) conclude che il lavoro da remoto tende a rinforzare i modelli tradizionali di divisione del lavoro retribuito e non retribuito in base al genere. Per la ricercatrice, il lavoro da remoto può facilitare la conciliazione tra i diversi tempi di vita ma solo se vengono messe in discussione l'ideologia e la struttura sulle quali è costruita l'asimmetria di genere nella società. ...
... Partendo dagli studi recenti (King et al., 2020), si può ipotizzare che la sovrapposizione tra diversi ambiti di vita eroda la qualità del tempo assegnato sia al lavoro retribuito sia alla cura delle persone a carico, creando malessere e frustrazione. Infine, la rassegna della letteratura ha messo in evidenza che il lavoro da remoto può comunque permettere di ridurre le disuguaglianze di genere, ma solo in contesti istituzionali ed organizzativi specifici (Sullivan, 2012) dei quali proponiamo di enfatizzare alcuni aspetti. Le ricercatrici Elson (2017) e Power (2020) propongono di prendere in considerazione cinque "R" che caratterizzano contesti istituzionali nei quali viene promossa la partecipazione equa delle donne al mercato del lavoro, incluso quando lavorano da remoto. ...
Un numero crescente di pubblicazioni in lingua italiana studia il lavoro da remoto, in particolare dopo che il lockdown ha costretto migliaia di lavoratrici e lavoratori a ricorrere a questa modalità lavorativa. Tuttavia, sono poche le ricerche che analizzano l'argomento con una prospettiva di genere. Attraverso la revisione della letteratura, il contributo mette in discussione l'idea secondo la quale il lavoro da remoto permetta di migliorare la conciliazione tra i diversi tempi di vita, riducendo le disuguaglianze in base al genere. L'articolo sostiene che sia necessario contestualizzare il lavoro da remoto, in quanto in un regime di genere asimmetrico come quello italiano, questa modalità può rafforzare la divisione tradizionale del lavoro in base al genere. Si rivisitano inoltre in una prospettiva di genere le nozioni utilizzate nella letteratura per riferirsi al lavoro da remoto e alla conciliazione tra vita e lavoro. Quindi l'articolo studia, contestualizzandolo, l'impatto del lavoro da remoto sulla conciliazione tra tempi di vita. Infine, nelle conclusioni ci soffermiamo sugli ambiti nei quali potrebbero essere svolte ulteriori ricerche.
... Email: abid.hasan@deakin.edu.au workplace in the normal course of business, teleworking, and mobile or nomadic working (Sullivan 2012). By contrast, informal working is working from home during nonwork hours or after hours; it is over and above the designated time of work and is different from homeworking or remote working (Nätti et al. 2011;Ojala 2011). ...
... By contrast, informal working is working from home during nonwork hours or after hours; it is over and above the designated time of work and is different from homeworking or remote working (Nätti et al. 2011;Ojala 2011). Informal work usually takes place beyond agreements and regulations to supplement and continue work already done at the employer's designated workplace (Ojala et al. 2014;Sullivan 2012). ...
... Interviewees confirmed that participation in work-related communication when they were at home or with their family or on holiday blurred the boundaries between work and personal life. Previous studies have also found that informal work at home is likely to increase negative emotions concerning work and may disrupt the family life of an employee due to simultaneous demands from both work and home (Sullivan 2012;Ojala et al. 2014). Although the severity of work-life spillover and interruptions to personal life varied depending on CMPs' usage behavior, most interviewees agreed that they experienced adverse effects of using mICT during nonwork hours on their work-life balance. ...
A healthy work-life balance is paramount for all employees in today's fiercely competitive and stressful work environments. However, work-life balance can be a challenging goal to achieve for construction management professionals (CMPs), who often work long hours on construction projects. Many recent studies have reported that the adoption of mobile information and communication technologies (mICT) can increase informal work (i.e., during nonwork hours, or after-hours work). However, this topic has not been adequately researched in the context of the construction industry despite a significant increase in the uptake and use of mICT in construction projects in recent years. This paper reports on findings from 27 in-depth semistructured interviews conducted to examine CMPs' use of mICT in the Australian construction industry. The interview data on work-related non-work-hours use of mICT were analyzed focusing on how CMPs manage boundaries between work and life, given that the use of mICT has added to the amount of informal work. The findings showed that there is a lack of consensus among CMPs as to how to view informal work induced by mICT. The analysis also found that, in the absence of relevant organizational policies and guidelines, work-life boundary management approaches taken by individual CMPs vary substantially and largely determine the extent of their mICT usage for work during nonwork hours and its implications for their work and life. In addition, this study explains variability in the permeability of work-life boundaries based on three factors: individual behavioral characteristics, work attitude, and job factors. Understanding the different factors that determine CMPs' use of mICT during nonwork hours and associated informal work can provide valuable insights into how to address its negative implications at the individual, team, company, and industry levels.
... Above all, there has been a lack of comprehensive academic literature regarding the solutions in implementing remote working practices in SMEs. In this regard, Nickson and Siddons (2012), Sullivan (2012) and Nash and Churchill (2020) have called for further studies relating to the remote working practices from a different perspective. To achieve the aim of this study, the research questions underpinning this article include: ...
... Remote working practices have been found not only effective for the accomplishment of various jobs remotely i.e., from home but also identified as beneficial to development work-balance of employees (Sullivan, 2012;Volini et al., 2020). Furthermore, remote working practices can also develop the employees' productivity, engagement and retention in the organisations (Haddon and Brynin, 2005;Anderson and Kelliher, 2009;Hunter, 2019;Ojeda and Simpson, 2020). ...
... On the other hand, the career prospects of those working remotely may suffer due to reduced workplace presence, therefore, getting employees for remote working is also challenging. Moreover, Sullivan (2012) argued meeting ethical standards is also challenging in implementing remote working for many organisations. ...
The impact of global COVID-19 pandemic, both in health and economic terms is becoming clearer. This article critically explores the
challenges in implementing remote working practices in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and the solutions during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in Bangladesh. Based on the qualitative approach, interviewing 14 participants from SME owners, consultants, government officials and professors, we found several challenges such as financial constraints, bureaucracy, lack of knowledge and interest, communication problem, high employee turnover and difficulty to find trustworthy employee implementing remote working practices. The study also advanced some solutions such as convincing the benefits of remote working practices, government rules, financial incentives, training and IT courses, remote (online) classes in universities, and in implementing remote working practices in the SMEs not only during COVID-19 pandemic but also for the long-term. These have several implications regarding SMEs performances and worker benefits.
... Remote working, an alternative work arrangement, refers to working at home, working at local satellite offices, mobile working, and teleworking, which involves the use of information and communication technologies (Sullivan, 2012). Work-life balance, an important indicator of the quality of life, is defined as the ability to accomplish the goals or meet the demands of one's work and personal life and achieve satisfaction in all life domains. ...
... Hence, remote working is helpful to employees to successfully manage responsibilities and accomplish goals in multiple life domains (Sullivan, 2012). In terms of saving time, remote working is attractive for those who have long commutes to the workplace. ...
... Employees are thus likely facing a series of unmet needs when it comes to their remote workplace and resources to work effectively, especially in terms of work-life balance. 8 Failure to achieve work-life balance has harmful effects on employees at home and at work, as well as on families and the organizations that employ these individuals (Sullivan, 2012). ...
Workplaces have a major influence on people’s quality of life and the ability to impact employee wellbeing. The COVID-19 has created a challenging environment for human resource management (HRM) by causing employees who formerly spent all or most of their time working inside their organization’s physical boundaries now have to adjust to remote work environments. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic is having profound socio-psychological, physical, and technical implications for employees as they attempt to adjust to their drastically altered work environments. The altered working conditions resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic are adversely affecting employees’ wellbeing. The effect of remote working on work-family interconnections, and particularly for employees with children, is becoming evident. It is also affecting single, childless, and older employees alike. The dominant models within HRM theory and research continue to focus largely on ways to improve performance, with employee concerns very much a secondary consideration. However, there is a strong ethical and biblical case for focusing on employee’s wellbeing. Therefore, in this unprecedented time, HRM should focus on the wellbeing of employees and devise an alternative route that enhances employee wellbeing and at the same time improve performance. A Servant Leadership Human Resource Management (SLHRM) is HRM approach that is associated with higher levels of job satisfaction, commitment, and lower rates of absenteeism, turnover, grievances, and a higher level of performance and employee wellbeing. The power to change organizational culture begins with committed SLHRM leaders who love their employees and take pleasure in their wellbeing. Thus, the unprecedented time demands a shift from the current HRM approach to SLHRM approach.
... At the same time, O'Neill et al. (2009), and Grant et al. (2013) warn of different psychological and environmental factors that can have a negative effect on productivity when work is carried out at a distance. The discrepancies found between results of various studies may be based on different variables that eventually moderate telework effects (Sullivan, 2012). For this reason, some researchers emphasize the need to have information about the circumstances that lead telework to have positive effects for teleworkers, and which circumstances lead telework to have negative effects on different response variables (Madsen, 2011;Sullivan, 2012;Shockley and Allen, 2007). ...
... The discrepancies found between results of various studies may be based on different variables that eventually moderate telework effects (Sullivan, 2012). For this reason, some researchers emphasize the need to have information about the circumstances that lead telework to have positive effects for teleworkers, and which circumstances lead telework to have negative effects on different response variables (Madsen, 2011;Sullivan, 2012;Shockley and Allen, 2007). ...
... Malhotra et al. (2007) even mention that one of the most common reasons for failures of telework programs is the perception of directors that employees must be constantly supervised to assure that they are always busy. In addition, Sullivan (2012) states that one of the challenges for telework to continue growing is changing supervisors' fear of losing control of their workers if they cannot oversee them visually. ...
Purpose
The relations telework-work interference with the family (WIF), telework-family interference with work (FIW), and telework-performance have been widely studied; however, results of different investigations are contradictory. This may be related to third variables that moderate the effect of relations. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the moderating effect of worker responsibilities outside of the work environment on telework-FIW and telework-WIF relations, as well as the moderating effect of control by the supervisor on teleworkers in the telework-performance relation.
Design/methodology/approach
A total of 92 teleworkers were interviewed, and 72 non-teleworkers who work in four public institutions. Non-teleworkers work in the same departments as teleworkers, and carry out similar functions. In addition, 33 supervisors were interviewed who evaluated performance of both groups. Hierarchical lineal regression analysis models were used to evaluate the influence of telework on the dependent variables.
Findings
The results obtained reveal that where there are low-responsibility levels, teleworkers present a lower FIW than non-teleworkers; however, with high levels of responsibility, teleworkers show higher FIW. Additionally, supervisors’ control of teleworkers was found to have a negative effect on their pro-activity and adaptability to tasks.
Originality/value
The findings provide new empirical evidence about the effect of moderating variables in the relation between telework-work-family conflict and telework-performance. Besides the results provide practical and useful implications to organizations that implement telework programs.
... A few studies have shown that remote work enhances quality of life by allowing employees to take work-family dual roles simultaneously (for example, Azarbouyeh and Naini 2014;Wight and Raley 2009). Contradicting evidence, however, indicates that blending personal and professional life increases negotiation in families (Baines and Gelder 2003) and leads to a higher level of stress (Sullivan 2012;Weinert et al. 2015). Second, telework may increase SWB by giving employees more flexibility and autonomy, which could allow them to better manage and organize their time and work more productively (Kemerling 2002). ...
... A recent study also finds that telework has no effect on supervisor-rated productivity by conducting a quasi-field experiment (van der Meulen et al. 2014). Another concern regarding telework is that it can intensify work-family conflicts and increase stress because it blurs the boundaries between home and workplaces (Hardill and Green 2003;Mann and Holdsworth 2003;Russell et al. 2009;Standen et al. 1999;Sullivan 2012;Wheatley et al. 2008). Mirchandani (2000) argues that homeworking is a cause of anxiety and stress because homeworkers have to integrate their work and family activities. ...
With the expansion of high-speed internet during the recent decades, a growing number of people are working from home. Yet there is no consensus on how working from home affects workers’ well-being in the literature. Using data from the 2010, 2012, and 2013 American Time Use Survey Well-Being Modules, this paper examines how subjective well-being varies among wage/salary workers between working at home and working in the workplace using individual fixed-effects models. We find that compared to working in the workplace, bringing work home on weekdays is associated with less happiness, and telework on weekdays or weekends/holidays is associated with more stress. The effect of working at home on subjective well-being also varies by parental status and gender. Parents, especially fathers, report a lower level of subjective well-being when working at home on weekdays but a higher level of subjective well-being when working at home on weekends/holidays. Non-parents’ subjective well-being does not vary much by where they work on weekdays, but on weekends/holidays childless males feel less painful whereas childless females feel more stressed when teleworking instead of working in the workplace. This paper provides new evidence on the impact of working at home and sheds lights for policy makers and employers to re-evaluate the benefits of telework.
... Personal aspirations as well as household and family issues are indeed important aspects in everyday work practices (Nätti et al., 2011;Vilhelmson and Thulin, 2016). For example, the outcomes (well-being, work-family balance) of such practices for employees have been widely analysed (ter Hoeven and van Zoonen, 2015;Ojala et al., 2014;Sullivan, 2012). At the organisational/occupational level, the theoretical discussion has recognised different, partly overlapping frameworks for flexibility. ...
... Furthermore, home-based telework is typical for knowledge workers (Ojala and Pyöriä, 2015). We expect to see that knowledge workers work from home more often than traditional workers (Hypothesis 3) for personal and professional reasons, due to the increased availability of ICTs as well as emerging organisational practices supporting employee flexibility and work-family balance (Ojala et al., 2014;Peters et al., 2004;Sullivan, 2012). From earlier studies, we know that job characteristics -for example, the need or desire to work long hours due to low pay or professional esteem -play the most important role in work-family conflicts rather than the family as such (Crosbie and Moore, 2004), although teleworking is somewhat more prevalent among employees with children (Ojala et al., 2014). ...
This article contributes to the discussion on flexible working by assessing empirically the prevalence of mobile, multi-locational work in Europe (EU-28, Norway and Switzerland). Drawing on data from the Sixth European Working Conditions Survey, the prevalence of multi-locational work across Europe is examined in terms of the knowledge intensity of the work. Knowledge-intensive occupations are characterised by a high level of individual skills, typically acquired through tertiary-level education, and a high degree of autonomy combined with frequent use of ICT. According to the results, working on mobile sites – a practice that augments working in the primary workplace – is most common in northern European countries, where the proportion of knowledge-intensive occupations is high. However, even in the Nordic region, knowledge workers predominantly work at their employers’ premises. This finding is in marked contrast with the hyperbole and expectations which assume that ICT allows knowledge workers to work free from the constraints of time and space. Agriculture, construction and transport workers still represent the largest proportion of the mobile workforce. Knowledge-intensive job features, however, predict the adoption of working at home. The analysis adds to the literature on flexible working by taking into account both traditional and knowledge-intensive forms of multi-locational work as well as providing a cross-national comparison.
... However, contradictory arguments are also present. Working from home may interfere with relationships between employees with their personal time, family relationships (Such as, relationship with partner) and relationships with children (Anttila et al., 2015;Maruyama & Tietze, 2012;Sullivan, 2012). ...
This research aims to identify if and how individual and organizational Work Life Balance (WLB) strategies are associated with the perception of Subjective wellbeing (SWB) of Readymade Garments (RMG) workers in Bangladesh. For this study, 241 samples from the RMG sector of the country have been selected and data was collected through structured questionnaire. Ordinary Least Square (OLS) regression has been conducted to investigate the relationship among the perception of work life balance and subjective wellbeing of the target group. Results show that Timing, Tempo, Role Conflict, and interaction between individual and organizational WLB positively enhance WLB of Bangladeshi RMG workers. The study also found significant positive relationship among (a) workers' beliefs about his/her own satisfaction with life, and (b) autonomy to set his/her own roster with affective Subjective Wellbeing (SWB) of the RMG workers of the country. On the contrary, role conflict was found to have a negative effect on SWB. Interestingly though, the effect of WLB has been found to have no significant effect on the SWB in the RMG workers of Bangladesh. Moreover, composite scores of WLB and SWB show that the workers' work and life are moderately balanced and overall, they are dissatisfied with their lives. Wide scale adoption of relevant WLB supportive activities, building awareness to develop effective individual as well as organizational WLB strategies by both the corporates and the Government, and rigorous psychological training will ensure collective wellbeing of the workers in Bangladesh ensuring an environment of 'decent work' in this sector catalyzing Bangladesh's efforts to go one step closer towards achieving SDG 8 (Decent work for all). This research also offers an extensive guideline about the most relevant individual and organizational WLB strategies to improve WLB status as well as the happiness of the RMG workers of the country. This study also offers a wide range of future research opportunities and policy directions to both the RMG managers and the Government of Bangladesh.
... The period of forced transition to the remote form of labor in Kazakhstan revealed plenty of positive and negative aspects. Among the positive aspects are traffic reduction and therefore benefits for the environment, cost-effectiveness in terms of transportation costs, the need to ensure working conditions, the reduced risk of the transmission of viral diseases, the possibility of combining work with household duties and more opportunities to achieve a work-life balance (Sullivan 2012;Shirmohammadi et al. 2022). Besides the positive aspects, there are also hidden negative ones, which to a greater extent impact the rights of workers and include the unequal treatment of remote and traditional-work-format workers; moreover, the combination of a workplace and personal space at home leads to the violation of privacy rights and the lack of legal protection (Juchnowicz and Kinowska 2021;Ferreira et al. 2021;Van Zoonen and Sivunen 2022). ...
Remote work displays the flexibility of labor relations and expands the possibilities of conducting professional activities balanced with fulfilling personal needs. Simultaneously, when implementing the telework mode of labor relations, the problems of ensuring the equality and confidentiality of employees require special attention. Given the current global and internal threats, the effective organization of teleworking is an issue to the fore, even in countries where it was not previously given the attention it deserves. This study aims to explore the labor legislation norms of the Republic of Kazakhstan as far as remote work is concerned from the viewpoint of effectiveness. This paper includes a sociological survey among Kazakhstani organizations to determine the conditions of employees working remotely and to use it for conclusions about the effectiveness of the legislation in preventing violations of workers’ rights. The study proposes mechanisms and rules aimed at the effective regulation of remote work to address the problems of confidentiality and the equal treatment of the employee, regardless of the mode of conducting his/her professional activities. This research advances knowledge in the field of legal and ethical aspects of the regulation of remote work, demonstrating the experience of developing countries with the study of the experience of Kazakhstan.
... Prior to the pandemic, research into the link between stress and remote employment had yielded conflicting results, with small effect sizes [6][7][8][9]. Known mediators of remote work-induced stress were job autonomy, work-life conflict, and work-life balance [7,8]. Working remotely during the pandemic, however, differs radically from prior remote work arrangements, in that it is involuntary; independent of employees' wishes, personal characteristics, and circumstances; independent of organizational culture; and coinciding with the staying at home of other members of the household. ...
Background:
The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly boosted working from home as a way of working, which is likely to continue for most companies in the future, either in fully remote or hybrid form. To manage stress levels in employees working from home, insights into the stressors and de-stressors in a home office first need to be studied. We present an international remote study with employees working from home by making use of state-of-the-art technology, i.e. smartwatches and questionnaires through smartphones.
Objective:
Firstly, to determine stressors and de-stressors in people working from home. Secondly, to identify smartwatch measurements that could represent these stressors and de-stressors.
Methods:
Employees working from home from three regions of the world (United States, United Kingdom, and Hong Kong) were asked to wear a smartwatch continuously for seven days, fill in five questionnaires each day and two additional questionnaires before and after the measurement week. The entire study was done remotely. Univariate statistical analyses comparing variable distributions between low and high stress levels were followed by multivariate analysis using logistic regression, considering multicollinearity by using Variance Inflation Factor filtering.
Results:
A total of 202 people participated, with 198 participants finishing the experiment. Stressors found are other people and daily life getting in the way of work (P=.05), job intensity (P=.007), a history of burn-out (P=.03), anxiety towards the pandemic (P=.04) and environmental noise (P=.008). De-stressors found are access to sunlight (P=.02) and fresh air (P<.001) during the workday and going outdoors (P<.001), having breaks (P<.001), exercising (P<.001), and having social interactions (P<.001). The smartwatch measurements positively related to stress were number of active intensity periods (P<.001), number of highly active intensity periods (P=.04), steps (P<.001) and the standard deviation in heart rate (P<.001). In a multivariate setting only history of burn-out (P<.001) and family and daily life getting in way of work (P<.001) were positively associated with stress, while self-reports of social activities (P<.001) and going outdoors (P=.03) were negatively associated with stress. Stress prediction models based on questionnaire data had similar performance (F1=.51) compared to models based on automatic measurable data alone (F1=.47).
Conclusions:
The results show that there are stressors and de-stressors when working from home that should be considered when managing stress in employees. Some of these stressors and de-stressors are (in)directly measurable with unobtrusive sensors, and prediction models based on this data show promising results for the future of automatic stress detection and management.
Clinicaltrial:
This study is registered under Registration ID NL9378 in the Dutch Trial Register (NTR).
... Certain other work arrangements such as telecommuting, teleworking and remote working are also referred to as alternate work arrangements (e.g. Allen et al., 2015;Ansong et al., 2017;Sullivan, 2003Sullivan, , 2012. However, these forms of work arrangements are slightly different from BW as they primarily emphasize remote working such as WFH (Allen et al., 2015) and not so much on WFO. ...
Dynamic changes in business environment due to unforeseen factors such as COVID-19 pandemic may pose a threat to business continuity of an organization and challenge traditional ways of working. Blended working arrangement could be a possible alternative under such situations. This study examines the role of perceived usefulness of digitalization (PUD), workforce agility (WA) and perceived organizational support (POS) in task performance (TPBW) and explains the underlying process. Survey results of 201 managers of Indian public section organizations show that PUD, WA and TPBW are positively related to each other. However, POS neither plays a direct nor a moderating role in their relationships. WA partially mediates the relationship of PUD and TPBW. Theoretical contributions and managerial implications have been discussed.
... Since the introduction of the term "telework" in the 1970s [1], the use of flexible working arrangements by organizations has grown in popularity due to improvements in technology [2,3], in support of greater work-life balance [4], and as a means of staying competitive at attracting new generations of workers. Of these flexible work arrangements, work-from-home (WFH), remote work and telework (terms often used interchangeably) have become an increasingly adopted practice across the globe. ...
Work-from-home has become an increasingly adopted practice globally. Given the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, such arrangements have risen substantially in a short timeframe. Work-from-home has been associated with several physical and mental health outcomes. This relationship has been supported by previous research; however, these health and safety issues often receive little resources and attention from business perspectives compared to organizational and worker performance and productivity. Therefore, aligning work-from-home practices with business goals may help catalyze awareness from decision makers and serve to effectively implement work-from-home policies. We conducted a review to synthesize current knowledge on the impact of work-from-home arrangements on personal and organizational performance and productivity. Four large databases including Scopus, PubMed, PsychInfo, and Business Source Complete were systematically searched. Through a two-step screening process, we selected and extracted data from 37 relevant articles. Key search terms surrounded two core concepts: work-from-home and productivity/performance. Of the articles published prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, 79% (n = 19) demonstrated that work-from-home increased productivity and performance whereas 21% (n = 5) showed mixed or no effects. Of the articles published during the pandemic, 23% (n = 3) showed positive effects, 38% (n = 5) revealed mixed results, and 38% (n = 5) showed negative effects. Findings suggest that non-mandatory work-from-home arrangements can have positive impacts on productivity and performance. When work-from-home becomes mandatory and full-time, or external factors (i.e., COVID-19 pandemic) are at play, the overall impacts are less positive and can be detrimental to productivity and performance. Results will help foster an understanding of the impact of work-from-home on productivity and performance and inform the development of organizational strategies to create an effective, resilient, and inclusive work-from-home workplace by helping to effectively implement work-from-home policies that are aligned with business goals.
... Remote working lets employees finish their job tasks without being constrained by designated working hours and specified workplaces [15]. It thus allows employees to be flexible in terms of task arrangement [16]. On the other hand, it also creates overlaps between job tasks and family activities [17]. ...
While remote working has been applied as an emerging flexible modern work arrangement and as an effective way to maintain social distancing during pandemics, it may result in negative workplace outcomes. Despite the eulogy on remote working, more research is needed to examine its possible negative effects on employees in the workplace. This study aims to fill these gaps by examining the effects of remote working on work-family conflict and workplace wellbeing during pandemics, and how such effects are moderated by employees’ general self-efficacy and job autonomy. Survey data was collected from 399 Chinese employees during COVID-19. The results show that remote working has a positive effect on work-family conflict, which in turn decreases workplace wellbeing. Further analyses show that while the work-family conflict dimension of family interfering with work (FIW) has a negative effect on wellbeing, the effect of the work-family conflict dimension of work interfering with family (WIF) on wellbeing is not significant. Besides, the effect of remote working on FIW is positively moderated by general self-efficacy and job autonomy. Lastly, the effect of remote working differs depending on the extent to which remote working is implemented. Our study contributes to the literature by explaining the negative effect of remote working on workplace wellbeing during pandemics and clarifying its boundary conditions. Our results provide managers useful guidelines regarding how to implement remote working.
... The rami cations of telecommuting and remote employment on the balance of life and work are being examined in the literature, contending that telecommuting probably increases the versatility of working operations, which enhances balance in work and life (Sullivan, 2012). However, it is stressed that the merits of working from home are questionable (Bloom et al., 2015) since they solely rely on social and economic factors (Aguilera et al., 2016). ...
The Covid-19 pandemic has forced many workers to telecommute, and the public sector is no exception to it. Working from home has resulted in a work overload in personal places. This has eroded the line between personal and professional life, increasing the risk of conflict. The impact of remote working on the balance between life and work is unknown. This article reviews the existing research on work-life balance. It further examines the impact of remote work and telecommuting on work-life balance. The study found that work-life interaction and workplace factors influence employee engagement and exhaustion. Work-related expectations, such as emotional and time demands, must be addressed to decrease work-family conflict and create a good work-life balance. Human resource managers in the sector should develop work-life balance policies and practices. This review adds to the body of knowledge by establishing the importance of work-family conflict and work-life balance for remote employees. This review produced two scholarly contributions to work-life balance. Beginning with an overview of existing research topics and organized work-life balance concepts, second, it identified crucial study areas to understand distant work-life balance better. Implications for practice and future research directions are discussed as well.
... Teleworking, while not a new phenomenon, has increased significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic (Milasi et al., 2021). Teleworking has multiple benefits for workers and organisations, e.g., greater work-life balance (Sullivan, 2012), increased flexibility and autonomy (Dambrin, 2004), and reduced overheads (Ferreira et al., 2021). Pre-pandemic, large-scale industry surveys (Global Workplace Analytics, 2015; Chartered Institute of Personnel Development [CIPD], 2020), and real estate research (Harris, 2016) indicated workers' preference to telework more frequently. ...
Organisations have implemented intensive home-based teleworking in response to global COVID-19 lockdowns and other pandemic-related restrictions. Financial pressures are driving organisations to continue intensive teleworking after the pandemic. Understanding employees’ teleworking inclinations post COVID-19, and how these inclinations are influenced by different factors, is important to ensure any future, more permanent changes to teleworking policies are sustainable for both employees and organisations. This study, therefore, investigated the relationships between the context of home-based teleworking during the pandemic (pandemic-teleworking conditions), productivity perceptions during home-based teleworking, and employees’ future teleworking inclinations (FTI) beyond the pandemic. Specifically, the study examined whether pandemic-teleworking conditions related to the job, and the physical and social environments at home, influenced employees’ FTI, and if perceptions of improved or reduced productivity mediated these relationships. Data were collected during April and May 2020 with a cross-sectional online survey of teleworkers ( n = 184) in Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and other countries during the first COVID-19 lockdowns. Reported FTI were mixed. Most participants (61%) reported wanting to telework more post-pandemic compared to before the pandemic; however, 18% wanted to telework less. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis revealed that some teleworking conditions (job demands and work privacy fit) were positively associated with FTI. Other teleworking conditions (specifically, job change, job control, home office adequacy, and childcare) were not associated with FTI. Perceived changes in productivity mediated the relationship between work privacy fit and FTI. Findings highlight the role of work privacy fit and job demands in influencing pandemic productivity perceptions and teleworking inclinations post-pandemic. Results raise questions about the suitability and sustainability of home-based teleworking for all staff. As organisations plan to increase the proportion of teleworking post-pandemic, this study suggests there is a need to support employees who perceived their productivity to be poor while home-working during the pandemic.
... De ce fait, de nombreuses é tudes se sont inté ressé es à la maniè re dont le té lé travail peut induire une meilleure performance au travail (Beauregard et al., 2019) ; Golden et al., 2008 ;Vayre, 2019). D'autres recherches ont souligné la complexité de cette relation du fait d'un manque d'inté gration des caracté ristiques du té lé travail dans les é tudes sur la performance telles qu'entre autres le soutien et le style de leadership des superviseurs ainsi que les systè mes de communications organisationnels (Solís, 2017 ;Sullivan, 2012). ...
Résumé
L’objectif de cette étude est d’examiner comment le recours généralisé au télétravail durant la pandémie de la COVID-19 a pu créer un contexte de travail spécifique influençant la santé psychologique et la performance des employés. Les résultats des analyses menées sur un échantillon de 3771 télétravailleurs canadiens ont révélé que le travail à distance a engendré des demandes additionnelles telles que l’interdépendance des tâches et l’isolement professionnel. Ces demandes ont eu des effets négatifs sur la performance en télétravail en augmentant la fréquence du stress perçu. Toutefois, la présence de ressources telles que le soutien organisationnel semble jouer un rôle tampon en modérant l’effet direct de l’isolement professionnel sur la performance en télétravail.
... If wage and hours adjustments fully compensate for the utility gains, WfH need not raise job satisfaction. Moreover, WfH need not facilitate the reconciliation of family and job needs, but may also generate new sources of conflict and stress at home, thereby potentially reducing job satisfaction (Baines and Gelder, 2003;Sullivan, 2012;Song and Gao, 2018). ...
Working from home (WfH) has been widely adopted since the Covid-19 pandemic. Pre-pandemic evidence on how hybrid work arrangements relate to labour market outcomes is a scarce and valuable benchmark. We exploit the German Socio-Economic Panel between 1997 and 2014 to investigate how such a work arrangement relates to working hours, wages and job satisfaction for different demographic groups. We find that childless employees work an extra hour of unpaid overtime per week and report higher job satisfaction after taking up WfH. Among parents, gender differences in working hours and monthly earnings are lower after WfH take-up. However, hourly wage increases with WfH take-up are limited to fathers, unless mothers change employers. We discuss the role of career changes, commuting and working-time flexibility in explaining these findings.
... The COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent period changed the attitude to remote work, which became a necessity for many organisations [24][25][26][27]. This arrangement is currently used by many enterprises, also with the aim of ensuring a proper work-life balance for their employees [28][29][30][31], improving the organisation's performance and reducing employee absenteeism [32,33]. The decision that was made by mid-level managers to adopt remote work as a form of employment was dictated furthermore by their convictions about the efficiency of the work that is performed by their employees and about information security measures having become more reliable [34]. ...
Remote work has been of interest to managers since the implementation of new information and communication technologies (ICTs). During the initial period, it was treated as an em-ployee's privilege or even a luxury and as such it was not a popular practice. The COVID-19 pandemic and the intervening period have changed attitudes toward remote work, as it became a necessity for many organisations. However, in connection with its use, many new, previously unknown problems have arisen, such as: the organisation of remote work, the supervision and monitoring of work performance, and employee support. The present research was conducted using a standardised questionnaire computer-assisted telephone interview (CATI) method in May-June 2021 on a population of 248 enterprises, divided into micro, small, medium-sized and large entities. The research data were collected during the COVID-19 pandemic which, on the one hand, provided an exceptional opportunity to fill in the theoretical gaps that were existing in this field; however, on the other hand, it could be burdened with certain flaws due to the context of the pandemic. An enterprise's attitude to remote work has a positive influence on the efficiency of the remote work, the control of the remote work and the remote work support, with the strongest impact exerted on the last of the factors mentioned. A better attitude to remote work influences, to the largest degree, an enterprise's support for performing work from remote locations outside of corporate offices. Among the enterprises that were surveyed, the following were most frequently indicated as elements of such support: additional office equipment provided to an employee, remote work training, and the installation of additional computer programs. Financial support was declared by about 11% of the enterprises and it usually took the form of a remote work allowance or funds to cover the costs of purchasing equipment or paying for the Internet.
... Many manufacturing and service sector organisations have suggested the possibility of remote work for their non-production-related staff (Hazan et al., 2020). While there are many insightful reviews on remote work, most of them focus on individual aspects of remote working (Park and Cho, 2020), like the well-being of workers (Elshaiekh et al., 2018;Charalampous et al., 2019), work-life balance (Tietze et al., 2009;Sullivan, 2012), employees' performance (Felstead and Henseke, 2017), technology adoption (Dey et al., 2020), employee's engagement (Felstead and Henseke, 2017) and leadership (Neufeld et al., 2010). Some of the other notable past reviews on remote working have included the impact of emerging technologies on remote working. ...
Purpose
Remote work (RW) literature is a megatrend in HRM literature, and the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of RW as a concept and an organisational practice. Given the large number of papers being published on remote work, there is a need for a critical review of the extant literature using bibliometric analysis. This paper examines the literature on remote working to identify the factors crucial for managing a remote workforce. This study uses the complex adaptive systems theory as a foundation to build a framework that organisations can use to manage their remote workforce, focusing on three outcomes: employee engagement, collaboration and organisational agility.
Design/methodology/approach
Bibliometric analysis was conducted on the research published in Scopus journal in the area of remote work, followed by critical literature analysis.
Findings
The bibliometric analysis identified five clusters that reflect five organisational factors which the management can align to achieve the desired outcomes of engagement, collaboration and agility: technology orientation, leadership, HRM practices, external processes and organisational culture. The present findings have important implications for managing the remote workforce.
Originality/value
The five factors were mapped to propose a conceptual model on engaging individual employees, fostering team collaboration and building organisational agility while working remotely. We also propose an application model for using technology to achieve the outcomes of engagement, collaboration and agility in the organisation. Practitioners could use this framework to focus on the factors that can create a conducive environment to improve work efficiency in a remote workforce.
... According to a study by Anderson and Kelliher [22], 59% of interviewees declared that working remotely had a positive effect on job stress, 32% said that working remotely had no impact, while 9% revealed that working remotely had a negative impact on the degree of job stress. Additionally, some other studies revealed that a higher level of autonomy caused by remote working has a positive impact on reducing job stress, thought here are also conclusions that suggest that remote working negatively affects work-life balance and consequently increases job stress [23,24]. Managers have to pay special attention to the side effects of remote working. ...
Remote working became a widespread business practice during the COVID-19 pandemic as an organizational response to protect employees’ health and maintain business continuity. The aim of this paper is to reveal the role of social support in the relationship among NWHI, NHWI and loneliness, and work engagement and job performance. The study respondents were employees with a remote working status in Serbian companies, and a total of 226 valid surveys were collected. The PLS-SEM approach was deployed to test the hypothesized relationship between named variables. A standard bootstrapping procedure was used to reveal direct and indirect effects among latent variables. Results indicate a strong and positive direct association between social support and work engagement and job performance, while mediation and moderation of the role of social support were mostly confirmed but with some results opposite to what was expected. Social support was not able to buffer a negative home–work interaction and loneliness within remote working. The study offers insight into the role of social support and recommendations for managing the antecedents and consequences of remote working, with the aim to determine a sustainable model for extensive application, not only during the COVID-19 pandemic, but in regular times.
... The possibility of reconciling work with personal life (Sullivan 2012), i.e. achieving work-life balance, which is extremely difficult in times when the world creates so many opportunities, but also limitations, and a person performs many tasks at the same time, each of which seems important and urgent. In such a dynamic reality, it is easy to lose balance, and WFH offers a potential opportunity to take care of one's well-being. ...
Before the pandemic, only 2.13% of the Poles worked remotely. COVID-19 made many Polish employees perform work from home (WFH), which was something completely new and unexpected for them. It could be assumed that the lack of previous experience and the sudden introduction of this change would cause a number of difficulties. One could suppose-based on the experience of other economies-that it would also bring some benefits for them. The purpose of the paper was to present the results of a pilot study which identified the difficulties and benefits of remote working reported by Polish employees implementing WFH due to pandemic constraints. The research was carried out in April 2021, i.e. a year after the outbreak of the disease, and the proprietary questionnaire and the survey was used. The data obtained in the research were analyzed with the use of descriptive statistics methods. The analysis allowed building rankings of the benefits and difficulties of WFH and relate them to those experienced by authors from other countries, where remote working has been more common and known for years. The paper is part of the research challenges identified by researchers after the COVID-19 outbreak. The conclusions can be used as a starting point to create motivation and support tools for employees, based on the diagnosis of both their needs and concerns. They can also be applied in comparative studies, both with the opinions of employees from other countries, and with the opinions of employers who implemented WFH as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
... One of the most predominant benefits of remote working is directly associated with work-life balance (Sullivan, 2012). This is important for employees and organizations because it offers better handling of tasks and time management. ...
Purpose:This research seeks to investigate whether a remote working model has become a key factor influencing talent retention strategies during the covid-19 pandemic. Research Methodology:A mixed research methodology was applied following the grounded theory of conceptualization to assess data associations and explain their relationships. A situational analysis of relevant research related to the topic was conducted. Primary data collection included a total of 12 interviews issued to Human Resource personnel in the service industry and a survey to 115 people aged between 20-30 years who due to the covid-19 pandemic remain working remotely. Findings: We found out that 45% of people consider remote working as key when deciding on a new job. However much remote working has rapidly picked up momentum, managers still need to work on their management skills to enhance high-quality talent retention strategies and competitive advantage. Research limitations: We only focused on 17.47% of the labor force in the service industry who are between 20-30 years and due to covid-19 pandemic remain working remotely. However, most service industries had already implemented remote working models before the pandemic. Future research should include these companies as well and expand on the population scope. Practical Implications: The results could be used by managers to optimize productivity, efficiency and improve company talent retention strategies. Additionally, it offers employees work-balance benefits to consider for future jobs. Originality/Value: Remote working, talent retention strategies, and the service industry have been extensively researched. However, covid-19 influences a lot of these models and applicability especially in the service industry, unfortunately, it has been less explored.
... In particular, under a telecommuting arrangement, the boundaries across different domains 'become more psychological than physical, as employees take their work home and transform part of their home into part of the company's workplace' (McQuarrie, 1994, p. 79). One difficulty in boundary management within the WLB and telecommuting discourse concerns undertaking childcare responsibilities while working, which is associated with higher work-to-family and family-to-work conflict (Sullivan, 2012;Zhang et al., 2020). Apart from this, workers on telecommute are more vulnerable to demands from domestic responsibilities. ...
The purpose of this study is to explore the work-life balance (WLB) crafting strategies of employees with telecommuting work arrangements during the COVID-19 pandemic. Qualitative data from 112 employees in the Philippines were collected through online surveys. Deductive thematic analysis was then conducted to identify the physical, cognitive and relational WLB crafting strategies that they practice. Results suggest that employees utilized a variety of WLB crafting strategies to be able to balance demands in both work and non-work domains while telecommuting during the COVID-19 pandemic. Physical crafting strategies include managing time, managing work tasks and managing the workspace. Cognitive crafting strategies include enforcing health-related self-care practices, and embracing the fluidity between work, rest and leisure. Relational crafting
strategies include spending time with family and virtually connecting with co-workers. Results suggest that the strategies used by employees to achieve WLB during the COVID-19 pandemic are reflective of the physical, relational and cognitive WLB crafting strategies found in earlier literature, albeit nuanced by the effects of the pandemic in the work and family/life domains. Findings may help inform the design of WLB programs and initiatives that will enhance employee WLB during the COVID-19 pandemic and in future crisis situations.
... Working overtime may have adverse effects on family dynamics as individuals harbor guilt for neglecting their families. Rising family disputes may then cause additional stress to these individuals (Ojala 2011;Sullivan 2012). ...
Circuit Breaker measures were implemented in Singapore on 7 April 2020, and work from home arrangements were officially made compulsory for most due to COVID-19. This study assessed the effects of prolonged telecommuting within the Singapore Police. Items on productivity, satisfaction with telecommuting, work-life effectiveness, feelings of safety, stress levels, connectedness to and support by colleagues, and supervisors were included. The study found that while prolonged telecommuting did not have any impact on levels of satisfaction with telecommuting, individuals with caregiving duties were significantly less satisfied with telecommuting than non-caregivers. Implications of the findings were discussed with respect to the necessary support required by officers while telecommuting. Recommendations on how individuals can practice self-care while telecommuting for prolonged periods were also proposed.
... At the same time, the studies showed that reduction in the stress was mediated by an increase in job autonomy: the more autonomy the teleworker had, the lower the stress. On the other hand, there are those that found that telework is related to higher levels of stress [8], specifically by increasing work-life conflict [9] or affecting work-life balance [10]. ...
The COVID-19 pandemic affected the relationship between work and life almost everywhere on the planet. Suddenly, remote work became the mainstream way of working for millions of workers. In this context, we explore how the relationship between remote work, work stress, and work–life developed during pandemic times in a Latin America context. In a sample of 1285 responses collected between April and May 2020, through a PLS-SEM model, we found that remote work in pandemic times increased perceived stress (β = 0.269; p < 0.01), reduced work–life balance (β = −0.225; p < 0.01) and work satisfaction (β = −0.190; p < 0.01), and increased productivity (β = 0.120; p < 0.01) and engagement (β = 0.120; p < 0.01). We also found a partial moderating effect, competitive and complementary, of perceived stress, and one significant gender difference: when working remotely, perceived stress affects men’s productivity more acutely than women’s productivity.
... Menurut Bell, Rajendran, dan Theiler (2012) keseimbangan kehidupan-kerja adalah sejauh mana seseorang dapat secara bersamaan menyeimbangkan tuntutan emosional, perilaku, dan waktu di antara pekerjaan, keluarga, dan kehidupan pribadi. Meskipun kondisi pandemi saat ini menghasilkan kebijakan bekerja dari rumah (work from home) dan memungkinkan para karyawan untuk bertemu dengan anggota keluarganya lebih sering, namun ketidakjelasan batasan kerja di rumah juga dapat berpengaruh terhadap keseimbangan kehidupan-kerja (Sullivan, 2012). ...
Studi terhadap 154 orang karyawan kantor pusat PT Bank Syariah X bertujuan untuk mengetahui pengaruh keseimbangan kehidupan-kerja dan gaya kerja baru terhadap stres kerja. Hasil analisis regresi pada masing-masing variabel prediktor menunjukkan bahwa keseimbangan kehidupan-kerja memiliki pengaruh yang negatif dan signifikan terhadap stres kerja (β = -0,56, p<0,01). Namun, variabel gaya kerja baru ditemukan tidak berpengaruh secara signifikan terhadap stres kerja (β = 0,37, p>0,05). Selanjutnya, hasil analisis regresi berganda menemukan bahwa keseimbangan kehidupan-kerja dan gaya kerja baru secara bersama-sama berpengaruh signifikan terhadap stress kerja, F(2, 151) = 33,98, R=0,56, p<0,01, R2=31%). Temuan ini menunjukkan bahwa 31% proporsi varians stres kerja dapat dijelaskan oleh keseimbangan kehidupan-kerja, sedangkan 69% sisanya dipengaruhi oleh faktor lain yang tidak diukur dalam penelitian ini. Oleh sebab itu, dapat dikatakan bahwa keseimbangan kehidupan-kerja merupakan variabel prediktor yang berpengaruh lebih kuat terhadap stres kerja dibandingkan dengan gaya kerja baru.
... However, there are also a number of disadvantages of TW, indicating that it does not automatically improve the quality of life (Moore, 2006). For example, workers may be unable to separate work from family in their home offices, which can increase stress (Russell et al., 2009;Sullivan, 2012) TW brings many benefits, both to the organization and its employees. Research has confirmed a series of TW benefits, such as increased workers' performance, reduced organizational costs, higher morale and commitment, greater autonomy, reduced commuting time (Brenke, Reinsch, 1997Reinsch, , 1999Wiesenfeld et al., 2001). ...
Due to the new information and communication technologies, it is now possible to disconnect work from space and time and to take advantage of new ways of organizing work. One of the options is teleworking (TW), currently being implemented throughout Europe due to the condition created by the coronavirus pandemic. The aim of the paper is twofold: (i) to analyse a range of factors (size of the enterprise; foreign owner; written strategy; project-driven enterprise; disabilities; work-life balance; benefits, lack of workers, illness, lower cost, relax at work and comfort; renting space, IT level) influencing the duration of TW implementation in the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and (ii) to better define the differences between the SMEs where TW was introduced in a short time, and those introducing it over a longer period. Out of the total of 31 factors, six factors have been proved to have a different impact on the duration of TW implementation (TW implementation due to higher efficiency; monitoring is performed only according to the results; the managers see the disadvantage of TW in its possible misuse; the enterprises use internal TW regulations; the managers see the main advantage as higher operational flexibility; the introduction of TW, due to the balance of work and family life). All together, 44,000 SMEs in the Czech Republic were invited into the research. The data were collected from 1,018 enterprises, with 60% of the enterprises using TW actively; on average, these enterprises have been using it for seven years.
... 2. Conceptual background 2.1 The implications of home-based telecommuting on work-life balance Literature has largely discussed the effects of home-based telecommuting and remote working on work-life balance, arguing that working from home is likely to enhance the flexibility of working arrangements, paving the way for increased work-life balance (Sullivan, 2012). Nevertheless, it has been emphasized that the advantages of telecommuting from home are uncertain (Bloom et al., 2015), since they strictly depend on the individual socio-economic conditions (Aguilera et al., 2016). ...
Purpose. The disruptions brought by COVID-19 pandemic compelled a large part of public sector employees to remotely work from home. Home-based teleworking ensured the continuity of the provision of public services, reducing disruptions brought by the pandemic. However, little is still known about the implications of telecommuting from home on the ability of remote employees to manage the work-life interplay. The article adopts a retrospective approach, investigating data provided by the sixth European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS) to shed lights into this timely topic.
Methodology. An empirical, quantitative research design was crafted. On the one hand, the direct effects of telecommuting from home on work-life balance were investigated. On the other hand, work engagement and perceived work-related fatigue were included in the empirical analysis as mediating variables which intervene in the relationship between telecommuting from home and work-life balance.
Findings. Home-based telecommuting negatively affected the work-life balance of public servants. Employees who remotely worked from home suffered from increased work-to-life and life-to-work conflicts. Telecommuting from home triggered greater work-related fatigue, which worsened the perceived work-life balance. Work engagement positively mediated the negative effects of working from home on work-life balance.
Practical implications. Telecommuting from home has side effects on the ability of remote workers to handle the interplay between work-related commitments and everyday life activities. This comes from the overlapping between private life and work, which leads to greater contamination of personal concerns and work duties. Work engagement lessens the perceptions of work-life unbalance. The increased work-related fatigue triggered by remote working may produce a physical and emotional exhaustion of home-based teleworkers.
Originality/value. The article investigates the side effects of remotely working from home on work-life balance, stressing the mediating role of work engagement and work-related fatigue.
... Furthermore, some moderating factors might have been missed in previous research, such as telework frequency (Sullivan, 2012). Maruyama et al. (2009) revealed that compared to infrequent teleworkers, frequent teleworkers are more likely to report positive work-life balance. ...
Telework has been promoted for decades as one of the traffic demand management policies to alleviate congestion during peak periods and reduce work-related trips, along with other benefits. However, less clear is the role played by life stages (i.e., gender, marital status and parenthood) on telework behavior. This study investigated to which extent telework frequency associated with life stages, and how these associations could be explained based on the work-life conflict perspective. Representative data were obtained from German Microcensus 2010 (N = 188,081 participants). The outcome variable was measured as ordered telework participation levels (i.e., never, infrequently and frequently). After testing for multicollinearity, a zero-inflated ordered probit regression model was applied to assess the associations between telework and family-life stages, while adjusting for individual, household, job-related and environmental characteristics. Results suggest that life stages associate with telework behavior in a complex way. Three patterns have been distinguished. Specifically, irrespective of gender and marital status, parents are less likely to telework compared to those without children. Regarding individuals without children, single individuals are more likely to telework than married ones, and males more likely than females. In contrast, for individuals with children, the partnered parents are more likely to telework than single parents, and females more likely than males. Our findings suggest that as the most important feature in family-life stages, children play a vital role in telework behavior. It not only increases both work-to-family conflict and family-to-work conflict, but also triggers housework re-division within couples and aggravates gender differences. Policies that support formal childcare resources could relieve the family-to-work conflict and encourage people to work at home.
... In addition, however, WfH may exert either positive or negative effects on the private domain. This is because WfH may facilitate the reconciliation of family and job needs, but at the same time generate new sources of conflict and stress at home (Baines and Gelder, 2003;Sullivan, 2012;Song and Gao, 2018). Hence, WfH could be more or less favorable to overall life satisfaction depending on the interactions between private life and work. ...
Working from home (WfH) has become much more common since the early 2000s. We exploit the German Socio-Economic Panel between 1997 and 2014 to investigate how such a work arrangement affects labour market outcomes, job and life satisfaction. We find that childless employees work an extra hour of unpaid overtime per week and report higher job satisfaction after taking up WfH. Among parents, WfH reduces the gender difference in working hours and monthly earnings, as contractual hours increase more among mothers. Hourly wages, however, increase with WfH take-up among fathers, but not among mothers unless they change employer.
... Working from home would, therefore, only give women more tasks to do while working. Sullivan (2012) points out that remote working, working from home altogether, can perpetuate women's dual burden of paid and unpaid work and affirm an unequal gendered division for household and family. That would be the opposite from the objective of Nordic parental polices, that encourage both parents to work and be responsible for their family at the same time. ...
The demand for long and inflexible working hours in leading positions in the economy is often seen as one of the primary hindrances for women entering leadership positions. The aim of the article is to analyse how virtual work affects the reconciliation of work and family life among senior managers in Iceland. The study is based on qualitative one-on-one interviews with managers in Icelandic companies. Our findings show that the work life of women and men in leadership positions intrudes into their domestic sphere in distinct ways. Virtual work in general improves work–life balance, as it enables managers to bring work home from the office and vice versa. Women are more likely than men to experience hurriedness when they integrate housework, caregiving and paid work with the help of information and communication technologies. Men, who seem to have more power over their own time than women, establish sharper boundaries between work, caregiving and the household. They take less responsibility for daily family care and other domestic work and are better able to relax and unwind while at home. Women are left with fewer options than men for where and when to work.
The aim of this conceptual paper is to understand if augmented intelligence may be considered a driver of antifragility that can be allegorically represented by the Japanese art of Kintsugi, which consists of the use of gold or silver to repair broken objects in ceramic to get a better aesthetic form. Covid-19, like a black swan, represented, for many companies, understood as systems, a complex situation capable of upsetting their equilibrium. It had thus forced them to accelerate the digitization process. Digitalization, based on artificial intelligence (AI) tools, brings in many fields new perspectives, such as new business scenarios and models. By using the Viable System Approach (vSa) lens, we investigated the impact of smart working, widely spread to manage a complex situation (Covid-19), in allowing companies to cope with changes and to be antifragile. A remote smart working model is proposed, as an evolution of smart working, based on a new culture of “doing business” to search for new viable conditions. It can allow companies a more efficient resources management, an endless orientation towards results, but also new synergies in new contexts thanks to new and increased networks, for new collaborations and new forms of interactions, as well as more profitable relationships with employees, based on a strong relationship of trust and on better opportunities for work-life balance.KeywordsAntifragilityRemote smart workingAugmented intelligenceViable system approach
The proliferation of novel work arrangements, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, has led to the emergence of remote work trip experiences in which work is conducted within the context of leisure travel. Remote work trips challenge the dichotomous view of traditional work and leisure domains. Grounded in positive psychology, this exploratory research investigates remote work travel experiences as a new phenomenon under the leisure travel umbrella. Using a data analytics approach based on a topological analysis of 32,881 Instagram posts, the findings revealed 23 distinct elements of remote work trip experiences that potentially influence well-being. The results indicate that traveling may benefit well-being despite not taking any breaks from work. By investigating the emerging trend of remote work trips and by expanding the understanding of how integrated work-travel experiences can influence well-being, this study contributes to the body of literature on both travel and positive psychology alike.
The main purpose of the study is to investigate resilience (emotional resilience), hope, and job dissatisfaction based on the personal differences and work-related changes of remote working employees because of the COVID-19 pandemic period. The study is designed as a quantitative study with a quota sampling method. The data for the hypotheses prepared for the research question is obtained by the survey method. In addition to the socio-demographic information form, job dissatisfaction, resilience, and hope scales are used to test the hypotheses. The study sample consists of 269 participants working remotely due to COVID-19 pandemic. Hypotheses are analysed with difference and relation tests. It was concluded that there was a significant and negative correlation between job dissatisfaction for both hope and resilience, job dissatisfaction negatively affects the hope and resilience level of employees, but socio-demographic characteristics were not determinative on their emotinal experiences. In addition to these findings, regardless of the conditions, the respondents who experienced remote work had high levels of resilience ( mean=4.0384) and hope (mean=4.0019) and low levels of job dissatisfaction (mean=1.9182). Accordingly, hope and resilience are essential to overcome job dissatisfaction, which is a vital outcome discussed in the literature. Increasing these capacities is both beneficial for employees who are working in unusual circumstances and for generally desired organizational outcomes.
The researchers report the outcome of an empirical study on remote working and occupational stress and its effect on employee job satisfaction, motivation, and performance. Remote working has three sub-scales: self-proficiency, technology, and teamwork. Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation subscales are included to assess employee motivation. A total of 513 responses concerning remote working sub-scales employee self-proficiency, technology, teamwork, and occupational stress, the independent variables' effect on the dependent variables job satisfaction, intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and performance were assessed. The measured Cronbach's alpha was in the range of 0.64 to 0.77, demonstrating the reliability and internal consistency of the research instrument. The general linear model results indicated that all the independent variables-self-proficiency, teamwork, and job stress-are statistically significant and influencing the outcome variables. The general linear model results further indicate statistically significant age differences in the dependent variables; however, there were no statistically significant sex differences. The independent variable self-proficiency influences job satisfaction, intrinsic motivation, and performance (p<0.01); teamwork influences employee job satisfaction and extrinsic motivation (p<0.01; p<0.05); and job stress on performance (p<0.01) are statistically significant and influence the outcome variables. However, the model predicted a statistically significant influence of age (p<0.01) on all the dependent factors: job satisfaction, intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and performance.
To contrast the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, ‘home-schooling’ was adopted in most countries and the issue was studied in considering the effects of the crisis on educational and digital inequalities, and on families and gender relations. Nevertheless, very few studies have looked at the working conditions of teachers in this very atypical framework. This paper presents results from a survey with the aim of investigating these conditions, following the sociology of work approach. The survey was promoted by FLC-CGIL (the federation of knowledge workers of the main trade union in Italy), realised by a research group composed of researchers from Fondazione Giuseppe Di Vittorio, Università di Roma ‘La Sapienza’, Università Guglielmo Marconi, and Università di Teramo and was carried out in Italy using the CAWI technique during the first national lockdown (between April and May 2020). We present results about two specific issues: (1) the ways the new pandemic framework was organised, and (2) its consequences on the quality of work and living conditions of workers. Regarding the first issue, we found variations in accordance with different management styles and decision-making approaches. On the second issue, we found worsening working time, workloads and work-life balance given the absence of a clear regulation.
Background
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced mental health professionals to adapt quickly. The pandemic has created multiple new tasks for the psychologist. In addition to the various stressors closely linked to the COVID-19 pandemic, psychologists were forced to make their services more flexible. Teleworking was a way of continuing to work.Objective
This study aimed to identify the impact of working pattern on the levels of burnout, depression, anxiety, and stress.Methods
This was a cross-sectional study based on an online questionnaire applied to eighty-three Portuguese psychologists. Data were collected from May 9 to June 8, 2020, a period comprising the declaration of a national calamity and then state of emergency, and the subsequent ease of lockdown measures. The Copenhagen Burnout Inventory Scale and Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale were used. Univariate multiple linear regression models were estimated for each mental health outcome.ResultsSignificant differences were found between psychologists working in the workplace and in teleworking at the personal burnout, work-related burnout, client-related burnout, depression, and stress. In multiple linear regression, teleworking, not working, and being unmarried was significantly associated with higher levels of depression. Teleworking was significantly associated with higher stress scores and client-related and work burnout.Conclusions
This exceptional time of sudden, mandatory, and high-intensity teleworking, required rapid adaptation, giving rise to new stressors that might have been responsible for burnout levels in psychologists.
Purpose
The COVID-19 pandemic forced organizations to adopt telework, many of the organizations without any prior preparation, influencing not only daily organizational routines but also workers' happiness. Happiness is important for organizations because happy and fulfilled workers are a key to achieving organizational success. Organizational culture is a critical factor to implement telework, because that may influence the workers' attitudes toward this model of work and workers' happiness. This study aimed to test the moderating role of organizational culture (clan, adhocracy, market and hierarchical) in the relationship between attitudes toward teleworking and happiness.
Design/methodology/approach
To meet the objectives, the authors collected data from 265 teleworkers.
Findings
The results revealed that only market culture moderated the relationship between attitudes toward teleworking and happiness, such that this relationship became stronger in the presence of a goal-oriented culture. No other dimension of organizational culture significantly moderated the relationship between telework and happiness.
Practical implications
These results prove to be fundamental for a better understanding of organizational and individual factors when organizations want to implement telework as a work arrangement.
Originality/value
Considering the mainstream literature in telework, to the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to date to integrate the moderating role of organizational culture in the relationship between telework and happiness.
Information and communication technologies supported by mobile devices (laptops, smartphones, tablets) have enhanced the ability for employees to stay connected with their companies outside working hours. However, we have little understanding of the implications for employees’ subjective well-being. This paper aims to analyze the impact of two forms of digital connection on subjective well-being: online communication through email and smartphone (communication technologies), and remote access to companies’ networks, i.e. files, management systems and software (information technologies). In order to asses this, we use a large survey on the working conditions and work quality of 14,685 employees in Luxembourg. Results show that being contacted frequently outside office hours has a negative impact on life satisfaction, whereas remote access to the companies’ networks is positively related to life satisfaction and negatively related to job stress.
Work-from-home (WFH) influences both work and life, and further impacts family relationships. The current study explored the impacts of WFH on family relationships during the COVID-19 pandemic and identified effective adaptive processes for maintaining family relationships under WFH. Using the Vulnerability-Stress-Adaptation (VSA) model, the study examined the roles of adaptive processes (spending time with family members and balancing work and life) and demographic differences (gender, age, marital status, and education level) in the relation between WFH and family relationships. Path analysis results based on an online survey (N = 150) suggested that, overall, WFH improved family relationships through proper adaptive processes. WFH had a positive relation to time spent with family members, and this relation was especially salient for workers with lower education levels. While there was no statistically significant overall relation between WFH and work-life balance, older workers tended to engage in increased work-life balance during WFH. Both adaptive processes were positively related to family relationship quality. The findings advance the understanding of family relationships and WFH and provide practical recommendations to enhance family relationships under WFH.
Drawing on enrichment theory, the study examines whether academics' experience in one domain of work-life interface resulted in any enrichment in the other domain. The researcher conducted 26 semi-structured online interviews with academics from Turkey and the UK. Thematic analysis was utilized to identify themes and subthemes. The study shows that married people with young children (under 12) and especially female academics struggled the most to balance work and life during the pandemic because they had to fulfill their work and family responsibilities at the same time and place. Considering the research's findings from the enrichment model's perspective, it is concluded that remote work offers work and life enrichment to some extent to individuals, but individuals' diverse living circumstances matter in discussing work-life balance and the level of enrichment in work and life domains. This is important for organizations to put on their agenda while thriving to achieve diversity and develop inclusive workplaces in the post-COVID-19 era.
Covid-19 radically shifted the way of work and its
organization and that’s why, the purpose of the paper is
to explore the impact of remote e-working on work-life
balance for female teachers since they commenced to
work in a remote way for educational purposes. The
first coronavirus case was officially detected in March,
2020 in Turkey and the schools including the private
ones were closed and EBA (Network of Education
Informatics) TVs and its online platforms for teaching
were established and all teachers started to teach in
these platforms in a remote way. As a result of the
pandemic, the distinction of work and non-work life
was eliminated through technology use and these two
became integrated. Measuring the effect of technology
and e-working on work-life balance has become a
‘must’ for labor relations in these changing dynamics.
The paper is an exploratory study of remote work and
its influence on keeping work-life balance using
qualitative thematic analysis of fourteen in depth
interviews with female teachers from state institutions
in Turkey. All these participants worked remotely by
means of technology, which is the core of the study.
The book includes 19 chapters:
Chapter 1: Introduction; Chapter 2: Human Resource Policy; Chapter 3: Environment of HRM; Chapter 4: Human Resource Planning; Chapter 5: Job Analysis; Chapter 6: Recruitment; Chapter 7: Selection; Chapter 8: Socialization; Chapter 9: Training and Development; Chapter 10: Performance Appraisal/ Evaluation; Chapter 11: Motivation; Chapter 12: Reward; Chapter 13: Employee Incentive Plans; Chapter 14: Discipline; Chapter 15: Managing Diversity; Chapter 16: Green Human Resource Management; Chapter 17: Remote Working; Chapter 18: Employability; Chapter 19: Case Study
The use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) allows to work in multiple locations. The purpose of this article is to investigate how multilocal knowledge workers engage in work in the interplay of workplaces between cities and mountain regions. We follow a mixed methods approach with intertwined quantitative and qualitative data sources. The results show that working in the periphery using marginality can be beneficial and disadvantageous at the same time. Furthermore, marginality is seldom utilized for creativity but preferably for working undisturbed. This study contributes to the literature on marginality and flexible working between urban centers and rural peripheries in the digital age.
The impact of global COVID-19 pandemic, both in health and economic terms is becoming clearer. This article critically explores the challenges in implementing remote working practices in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and the solutions during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in Bangladesh. Based on the qualitative approach, interviewing 14 participants from SME owners, consultants, government officials and professors, we found several challenges such as financial constraints, bureaucracy, lack of knowledge and interest, communication problem, high employee turnover and difficulty to find trustworthy employee implementing remote working practices. The study also advanced some solutions such as convincing the benefits of remote working practices, government rules, financial incentives, training and IT courses and remote (online) classes in universities in implementing remote working practices in the SMEs not only during COVID-19 pandemic but also for the long-term. These have several implications regarding SMEs performances and workers benefits.
This chapter contributes to the understanding of how online collaboration and cooperation can take place between geographically dispersed people by providing insights into how people work from the Hubud co-working space on Bali in Indonesia. The chapter revolves around the presentation of an interview with a person working from this co-working space. The case represents an example of how people, who, in a radical way, embrace the new possibilities of information and communication technology (ICT) work and live their professional lives. The aims are to provide insight into how people in the co-working space collaborate and work in a primarily online world and to present material that other researchers, students, and people who are interested in online collaboration can use in their work. The chapter introduces a framework that is intended as a tool to explore the material by introducing some of the key concepts, a possible theoretical approach, and a context for the case.
Purpose
Various investigations have shed light on the positive and negative effects of telework on the work-family conflict. These effects might be related to the conditions under which telework is carried out. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the influence of six variables related to telework conditions on the work-family conflict, and the number of additional hours worked beyond normal office hours.
Design/methodology/approach
Multiple linear regression models are calculated with data collected from a sample of 142 teleworkers in public institutions to evaluate the effect of the above variables.
Findings
Results reveal that factors which affect work-family conflict include the space used for working at home, the presence of persons at home while someone is teleworking, the number of days of telework, the time a person has been teleworking, and the extent of responsibility a worker has outside of the work environment.
Originality/value
There is a need for research to determine the ideal conditions and situations for teleworking. This study is specifically intended to strengthen some previous findings in this area, and to provide new evidence.
Some see in telework a way to better balance professional and personal or family responsibilities. We analyzed the data on telework in the Workplace Employee Survey (WES) and found that only a small percentage of workers indicate that they telework because of family obligations, while for two thirds, it is because of employers' demands. Data is compared according to gender and number of children, and again this highlights the fact that work–family balance is not the main reason for working at home. The data show that it is employers' requirements that explain the majority of hours of work done at home. Résumé: Certains voient dans le télétravail une façon de mieux concilier les res-ponsabilités parentales et professionnelles. Nous présentons ici une analyse des données de l'Enquête sur le milieu de travail en évolution, et constatons plutôt que ce sont les exigences de l'employeur qui amènent les gens à travailler à la maison. Les données sont comparées selon le sexe, ainsi que le nombre d'enfants, et ceci permet de montrer que la conciliation emploi-famille n'est pas la principale raison pour travailler à domicile. Les données indiquent que ce sont les demandes des employeurs qui expliquent l'importance des heures de travail effectuées à domicile.
In recent years, there has been increasing focus on the question of how to balance work
and life commitments in both academic and political debates. Homeworking is one
initiative that has been promoted as a way of improving the work–life balance. This
paper examines the experience of homeworking drawing on a recently completed ESRC
study on homeworkers. Using the data from 45 interviews and 3 focus groups with
homeworkers from different socio-economic backgrounds, it explores the question of
whether working (or not) from home improves people’s capacity to balance their work
and life commitments.
Voluntary telecommuting is an increasingly prevalent flexible work practice, typically offered to assist employees with managing work— family demands. Most organizations with telecommuting policies rely on supervisor discretion regarding policy access and implementation in their department. Although supervisors' approaches have implications for telecommuters and their non-telecommuting co-workers, few studies integrate these stakeholder perspectives. Drawing on surveys and interviews with 90 dyads of supervisors and subordinates, some of whom were telecommuters and some of whom were not, we examine effective managerial approaches regarding telecommuting implementation. First, supervisors should stay in close contact with telecommuters, but this contact should emphasize sharing information rather than close monitoring of work schedules. Telecommuters supervised with an information-sharing approach were more likely to report lower work—family conflict, increased performance, and were more likely to help co-workers. Second, supervisors should encourage telecommuting employees to separate work and family boundaries, which is related to lower work—family conflict. However, supervisors face a paradox as a separation approach can negatively affect workgroup relations: telecommuters who are encouraged to create boundaries between work and family were less likely to extend themselves in crunch times or after hours to help their colleagues. Non-telecommuters' workload and work—family conflict may increase as a result.
Telework has been given more and more attention over recent years as a way to reduce urban pollution, as a new mode of work organization and oftentimes as well as a way of balancing work and family. Various authors have held different views on this issue, but a good number of North-American authors have centered their interest on how to make telecommuting function well within a firm, on management tips and issues. There have been relatively few critical studies, and practically no gendered feminist study of the subject, partly due to the fact that most authors concentrate on one professional category and do not have a general view of the telecommuting labour market. Our own research provides a picture of the teleworkers, but goes beyond the general percentages towards a gendered view of the subject. This reveals an interesting fact, which we will call a gendered segmentation of telework or telecommuting. In this paper, we will present data to support this thesis of a gendered segmentation of telework, by stressing the gendered differences in the type of work done in a context of telework, as well differentiations in tasks, in the autonomy of decision to telecommute, as well as in work organization and conditions of work. We will show that work organization and tasks are differentiated according to gender and we will also determine if men and women see the same advantages and disadvantages in telework or if, as some studies indicate, work-family balancing was really an important objective for women, while men would telecommute for other reasons.
A basic tenet of this article is that organizations of different form, texture and size emerge and interact thus creating ‘fields’. This article explores how boundary characteristics of the various organizations in a particular field may influence developments in that field. The perspective taken here takes into consideration a multitude of interacting organization types, ranging from informal groups to large formal organizations. A framework of interpretation is developed to assist in the distinction between organizations on the basis of their boundary properties. The framework is applied to a field involving the setting up and development of a virtual organization. On the basis of this framework, certain developments in the field are interpreted through the lens of the boundary characteristics of the organizations involved. The findings are critically discussed and implications are suggested.
The introduction of paid work into the home challenges our conceptualisations of work and family as spatially distinct. Research specifically examining spatial experiences within homeworking households is scarce, and often does not explore family members' own accounts. This paper examines spatial arrangements in homeworking households, potential problems and conflicts, gendered patterns, and the link between space and the psychological work-family boundary. Interviews with homeworkers and their families reveal a range of consequences for the whole family. Conflicts can arise over entitlement to, and use of, space. A complex relationship between physical and psychological boundaries is revealed. L'introduction du travail rémunéré à domicile remet en question notre conception du travail et de la famille du point de vue distinction spatiale. Les recherches portant spécifiquement sur les expériences spatiales au sein des foyers o[ugrave]le travail à domicile est pratiqué sont rares et n'abordent pas en profondeur les faits tels qu'ils sont relatés par les membres de la famille. Cette étude examine les dispositions spatiales dans les foyers o[ugrave] est pratiquéle travail à domicile, les problèmes et conflits potentiels, les schémas comportementaux suivant le sexe ainsi que le lien entre l'espace et la frontière psychologique travail/famille. Les entretiens avec des travailleurs à domicile et leurs familles font apparítre un ensemble de conséquences pour tous les membres de la famille. Des conflits résultant du droit d'occupation et de l'utilisation de l'espace peuvent surgir. Une relation complexe entre les frontières physique et psychologique apparít.
In the vast literature on work-life balance one question remains seriously under-elaborated: Why now? The paper opens by recognising that flexible working practices can be employee friendly or employer friendly, and that current employer friendly practices tend to constrain, rather than enable, possibilities for work-life balance. Part two introduces neoliberalism, interpreting it as a new class strategy: the iron fist of a renewed ruling class offensive is wrapped in the velvet glove of freedom, individualism, and (re-habilitated) discourses of flexible working practices. Part three introduces socio-linguistics to overcome an elision between work-life balance as a set of practices and as a set of discourses. We then see that discourses of flexibility have been un-coupled from discourses associated with employee unfriendly flexible working practices, and re-coupled with discourses associated with employee friendly working practices and, hence, with work-life balance. Data show that current flexible working practices are characterised as much by employee unfriendly working practices that tend to constrain work-life balance, as they are by employee friendly practices that tend to enable work-life balance. Shorn of its employee unfriendly connotations, the term 'flexibility' has been discursively 'rehabilitated' such that it no longer connotes any negativity. In conclusion one of New Labour's work-life balance policies (the right to request and the duty to consider flexible working practices) is analysed in an attempt to answer the initial question: 'Why work-life balance now?'
Based on a comprehensive literature review and detailed semistructured interviews with skilled workers who work at home, this article explores six research areas: reasons for working at home, the creation and maintenance of home/work boundaries, problems of isolation, distractions and temptations facing at-home workers, workaholism, and gender differences. The results indicate that white collar workers usually choose to work at home to reduce work/family conflicts or because of factors in the external labor market. Problems of creating and maintaining home/work boundaries, isolation, distractions and temptations at home, and workaholism do exist, but there was evidence that they may have been exaggerated in previous writing about at-home work. A combination of gender and life course stage better predicts differences in the experiences of the interviewees than does gender alone.
This study explores how the reported use and perceived value of five workplace flexibility options differ by gender and life stage. It also examines the relationship of perceived workplace flexibility, gender, and life stages to family-to-work conflict and stress and burnout. Data are from a multi-company database created by WFD Consulting containing the results of studies conducted in multiple organizations between 1996 and 2006. Results revealed a curvilinear relationship in differences between men and women in the use of workplace flexibility options over the life course. Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) revealed that perceived flexibility consistently predicted less family-to-work conflict and less stress and burnout. Gender (being female) was also modestly associated with greater family-to-work conflict and greater stress and burnout. The addition of life stage variables significantly increased the proportion of the variance explained in family-to-work conflict and stress and burnout. The addition of the interaction of life stage and gender significantly increased the proportion of the variance explained in family-to-work conflict but not in stress and burnout. These results support the idea that gender, life stage, and their interactions are important variables in research related to workplace flexibility. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Despite widespread public appeals, the evidence base linking worker health to workplace flexibility remains weak. The goal of this study was to improve understanding of the potential health benefit of promoting schedule flexibility at work. Using data from several businesses across a variety of industries (N = 19,704), this study tested hypothesized associations among employee participation in formal flexible work arrangements, perceived flexibility, and stress and burnout. Results indicated that stress and burnout was lower among workers engaged in all types of formal flexible arrangements, and that 30-50% of observed differences between workers engaged in flextime (either alone or combined with compressed workweeks) and those not engaged in a formal arrangement were explained by perceived flexibility. Evidence also indicated that the generally beneficial effect of schedule flexibility differs by gender and the employment arrangement of a worker's spouse or partner. This study provides clear support for advocates' calls for employers to expand flexible arrangements, particularly flextime. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Although Finland is one of the most advanced and competitive economies in the world, with a sophisticated technological infrastructure, only four per cent of Finnish wage earners regard themselves as doing telework, and a further four per cent had tried telework. Empirical evidence of telework is presented in this paper.
Interest in paid work performed in the home increasingly focuses on the concept of telework but debate over definitions continues. This paper discusses aspects of this debate and argues that project-specific definitions are useful and inevitable. The assertion that a single definition should be used by all research in this area is challenged.
Measuring the spread of telework has been an objective of telework research since it has been appropriated by EU and nation state policy during the 1980s. While a great deal of statistics on the subject have become available from various sources, a number of questions have not been sufficiently explored yet, mostly due to the comparatively small share of teleworkers among the total labour force which has made representative data hard to obtain. The ongoing spread of teleworking in all EU countries makes this task increasingly easier. In the meantime, however, there is a trend towards "anywhere-anytime, natural interactions with a universe of IST applications and services" in working life which means that working from just anywhere becomes a reality for more and more people. With a view on statistical measurement, this gives rise to a number of challenges. Existing indicators, and related methodologies for data collection, must be put to the test as to whether they are still appropriate in the light of developments towards "ubiquitous computing" and "footloose working". This paper presents first results of a survey undertaken as part of SIBIS (Statistical Indicators Benchmarking the Information Society), an IST programme research project that develops new indicators for the measurement of Information Society phenomena. The pilot survey was conducted in all EU Member States plus Switzerland and the USA, thereby giving a comprehensive view of the status quo of telework diffusion in 2002. It represents the first attempt to develop a statistical measure for the intensity of telework.
This article explores the relationship between work–family roles and boundaries, and gender, among home-based teleworkers and their families. Previous literature suggests two alternative models of the implications of home-based work for gendered experiences of work and family: the new opportunities for flexibility model and the exploitation model. Drawing on the findings of a qualitative study of home-based workers and their co-residents, we argue that these models are not mutually exclusive. We explore the gendered processes whereby teleworking can simultaneously enhance work–life balance while perpetuating traditional work and family roles.
Telework has inspired research in disciplines ranging from transportation and urban planning to ethics, law, sociology, and organizational studies. In our review of this literature, we seek answers to three questions: who participates in telework, why they do, and what happens when they do? Who teleworks remains elusive, but research suggests that male professionals and female clerical workers predominate. Notably, work-related factors like managers' willingness are most predictive of which employees will telework. Employees' motivations for teleworking are also unclear, as commonly perceived reasons such as commute reduction and family obligations do not appear instrumental. On the firms' side, managers' reluctance, forged by concerns about cost and control and bolstered by little perceived need, inhibits the creation of telework programmes. As for outcomes, little clear evidence exists that telework increases job satisfaction and productivity, as it is often asserted to do. We suggest three steps for future research may provide richer insights: consider group and organizational level impacts to understand who telework affects, reconsider why people telework, and emphasize theory-building and links to existing organizational theories. We conclude with lessons learned from the telework literature that may be relevant to research on new work forms and workplaces. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
In recent years, we have seen how the quality of work life has been focused and defined by the European Commission (EC). In
our study we compare the EC definition with the academic one and try to see how close they are. We also analyse the possibility
of applying the institutional definition to the Spanish case through the development of specific indicators. Our main conclusions
are that QWL is increasingly important for policy makers. In addition, it is essential to have objective indicators and to
conduct surveys in order to reliably measure QWL.
Much research shows that paid work performed at home supports a gendered division of household labor; leaving women disproportionately responsible for unpaid domestic work. For contract professionials, however, the flexibilily to manage working time outside the constraints of a standard job allows both men and women to meld paid employment with household responsibilities. Interspersing paid and unpaid work, home-based contractors-both women and inen-accommodate family needs. They arrange daily schedules to be available parents and household managers, and they develop longer-term career trajectories that allow adjustment over time. For women, however, long-standing notions of domesticity make such accommodation invisible, normative, and unremarkable. For men, in contrast, home-based contracting can create the space with which to challenge gender norms. For these home workers, therefore, the same arrangement simultaneously reinforces and resists conventional constructions of gender.
This study tests a theoretical model of antecedents (e.g., reporting a family-supportive supervisor) and outcomes (e.g., family-work conflict) of employees making use of family-friendly employment benefits. We measured benefit usage both in terms of overall use and by examining the use of four specific family-friendly benefits (i.e., telecommuting, ability to take work home, flextime, and family leave). Although the major test of our model involved the use of cross-sectional data, data gathered at a later point in time also were used to test hypotheses. Our findings highlighted the importance of reporting to a family-supportive supervisor (having such a supervisor was associated with the use of family-friendly benefits, less family-work conflict, and greater job satisfaction). In terms of the use of specific benefits, flextime was associated with lower reports of family-work conflict and higher job satisfaction.
This article examines the emancipatory and restrictive dimensions of self-employed homework. The analysis is based on in-depth interviews with 46 individuals, predominantly women, who work in home-based, self-employed professional, domestic service, or craft production ventures. In line with predictions that self-employed homework is liberating to workers, most respondents viewed self-employed homework as a means for breaking away from traditional employment options. Mothers also hoped to combine paid work and child care. However, in line with exploitation hypotheses, findings indicate that the profit requirements of doing business and conflicts between work and family demands led respondents to replicate at home some of the negative, exploitative work arrangements that they tried to escape. The social location of respondents, which included gender, family status, resources, and race-ethnicity as well as local and regional economic conditions, varied respondents'experiences of self-employed homework and their strategies for confronting dilemmas.
Traditionally, caring for children has been principally women’s work. The claim is frequently heard that men, especially younger men living in the major cities, are increasingly sharing this load equally with their wives. It is argued that for this claim to be proven, it is necessary to show that men not only assist but share responsibility for most of the more demanding tasks. When the findings from a study of a Victorian community (married couples) made in the 1980s were compared with those from a Melbourne study made in 1998, it showed that the Melbourne men were doing more of the particularly demanding tasks than men in the earlier study. However, in both contexts women had major responsibility, and men typically acted as wives’ assistants. These patterns held even when their wives were engaged in full-time paid work. It is also demonstrated that in both the urban and rural contexts, men and women believed that women, rather than men, should give children primacy. These beliefs were shown to be common...
This study examined the legitimization of work location choices at a government agency in the early stages of implementing a voluntary telecommuting program. Legitimization is a complex socially constructed practice and process within a given organizational culture. Three broad legitimacy lenses (pragmatic, moral, and cognitive legitimacy) provided the framework for analyzing interviewed members’ discourse and described organizational messages. The analysis revealed a textured account of workplace justification that exposed significant challenges facing organizations attempting to implement new forms of work. The results show that although organizational messages focusing on employee wellbeing were largely supported and served to pragmatically legitimize employee choices, perceived degree of communicative interaction with stakeholders such as colleagues, clients, and family members served as claims that supported and contested various forms of legitimacy.
While the structure of telecommuting, or telework, varies across companies, most arrangements offer employees the option to perform their work responsibilities from various locations. A number of factors provide a compelling case for employers to consider such arrangements for their employees, such as motivating better performance and fostering commitment to the organization. Using data that were collected during the longitudinal experiment reported in Hunton 2005, the present study seeks to better understand how organizations might achieve these goals by examining the impact of alternative telework arrangements on the organizational commitment of employees and by evaluating the relationships among telework arrangements, organizational commitment, and task performance. Participants in three of the telework conditions exhibited significant increases in affective, continuance, and normative commitment, relative to a control group; however, in one of the telework conditions (working exclusively at home), organizational commitment was equivalent to the control group. While we postulated that participants with higher numbers of work location alternatives would exhibit greater increases across all three dimensions of organizational commitment, this expectation was only marginally supported. Finally, we report a positive association between organizational commitment and task performance across the treatment conditions and find that organizational commitment mediates the relationship between the telework arrangements and task performance.
This article examines the state of the art in telework research. The author reviews the most central scholarly literature examining the phenomenon of telework (also called home-based work or telecommuting) and develops a framework for organizing this body of work. She organizes previous research on telework into six major thematic concerns relating to the definition, measurement, and scope of telework; management of teleworkers; travel-related impacts of telework; organizational culture and employee isolation; boundaries between “home” and “work”; and the impact of telework on the individual and the family. Areas for future research are suggested.
This article examines the emancipatory and restrictive dimensions of self-employed homework. The analysis is based on in-depth interviews with 46 individuals, predominantly women, who work in home-based, self-employed professional, domestic service, or craft production ventures. In line with predictions that self-employed homework is liberating to workers, most respondents viewed self-employed homework as a means for breaking away from traditional employment options. Mothers also hoped to combine paid work and child care. However, in line with exploitation hypotheses, findings indicate that the profit requirements of doing business and conflicts between work and family demands led respondents to replicate at home some of the negative, exploitative work arrangements that they tried to escape. The social location of respondents, which included gender, family status, resources, and race-ethnicity as well as local and regional economic conditions, varied respondents' experiences of self-employed homework and their strategies for confronting dilemmas.
Since the 1960s, women have begun emerging into the public sphere and the public/private divide has been eroding. However, women's participation in the public sphere remains limited by the ongoing need to do two jobs (‘the double day’), working both in the home and in the labour market. Thus, a study conducted into gender difference in the legal professions in Ireland [Bacik, Ivana, Costello, Cathryn, and Drew, Eileen (2003), Gender InJustice: Feminising the legal professions?, Trinity College Dublin Law School, Dublin.] found that, while women are entering legal studies in increasing numbers, they remain concentrated at the lower levels of practice. Women lawyers have immense difficulty in achieving work/life balance, due to the long hours culture, an ingrained hostility to flexible work arrangements, and to the fact that they retain a disproportionate caring burden in the private sphere. Changes in the structuring of legal work are clearly required to address this gender imbalance and the associated work/life imbalance—but cultural changes are ultimately needed to end the ongoing “struggle to juggle.”
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the shifting boundaries between two experiential categories – home and work – for office workers. The boundaries are both spatial and temporal, and the paper seeks to analyse how certain kinds of mobile technology are being used in such a way as to make these boundaries increasingly permeable.
Design/methodology/approach
The research involved both the collection of quantitative data using a survey tool, and the gathering of qualitative data through in‐depth interviews.
Findings
The paper finds that the mobile technology discussed enables work extension – the ability to work outside the office, outside “normal” office hours. This provides flexibility with respect to the timing and location of work, and makes it easier to accommodate both work and family. But at the same time, of course, it also increases expectations: managers and colleagues alike expect staff to be almost always available to do work, which makes it easier for work to encroach on family time, and also leads to a greater workload. The ability to perform work extension is, then, a dual‐edged sword.
Practical implications
The paper provides both managers and non‐managers with insight into the effects of providing mobile technology to office workers, and suggests some mechanisms to mitigate negative effects.
Originality/value
The paper explores the impact of mobile technologies on non‐mobile office staff.
Context of teleworking and gender freelance teleworking and gender characteristics of teleworkers household roles location employment history and teleworking experience working conditions comparisons of teleworking and on-site working personal qualities and skills work content and management issues advantages and disadvantages of teleworking.
Much research shows that paid work performed at home supports a gendered division of household labor, leaving women disproportionately responsible for unpaid domestic work. For contract professionals, however, the flexibility to manage working time outside the constraints of a standard job allows both men and women to meld paid employment with household responsibilities. Interspersing paid and unpaid work, home-based contractors—both women and men—accommodate family needs. They arrange daily schedules to be available parents and household managers, and they develop longer-term career trajectories that allow adjustment over time. For women, however, long-standing notions of domesticity make such accommodation invisible, normative, and unremarkable. For men, in contrast, home-based contracting can create the space with which to challenge gender norms. For these home workers, therefore, the same arrangement simultaneously reinforces and resists conventional constructions of gender.
Telework is a rapidly emerging reality in the workplace. This study explores the influence of mobile telework on family life as reported by teleworkers in a large national corporation (n = 157). In addition, this group is compared to an equivalent group of office workers (n = 89) from the same corporation. Mobile teleworkers reported much greater work flexibility. Some reported that their families thrived because of this flexibility. Others reported that their families struggled because workplace and schedule flexibility blurred the boundaries between work and family life. Suggestions are given for how family life educators might help mobile teleworkers ease the transition from traditional work to the virtual office.
An abstract is not available.
In this paper we present some findings from an empirical study into teleworking that challenge the received wisdom that principles of efficiency and speed determine the organisation of public and private lives. Instead, we make a case that emerging forms of work organisation such as telework entail opportunities for some individuals to rethink the relationship between life and work and to engage in questions of 'how to live one's life'. Drawing on our research study, which combined participant observation with interview conversations with 25 teleworkers and their families, we argue that teleworking, the epitome of flexibility and instantaneousness, can, rather than always contributing to the acceleration of life, provide potential for regeneration, re-evaluation and slowing down.
To explore the influences of common telework practices on employee dependent care responsibilities, job performance, and work experience, quantitative and qualitative data were collected from 863 teleworking federal government employees with dependents. Respondents reported that teleworking positively influences their job performance and intentions to remain with their organizations. Teleworking assists them in meeting their dependent care responsibilities, but current policies and management practices undercut the full potential of telework as a mechanism for meeting employee caregiving demands and reaping the associated benefits to the employer. Results show that employees would like dependent care to be a formal factor in telework policy and that they would like to telework more days than currently allowed. Findings suggest that management should consider the circumstances under which dependent care needs could be a formally accepted rationale for telework.
This paper explores the changing nature of work over the last couple of decades, and its impact on the health and well-being of employees. It highlights the recent UK government project on Mental Capital and Mental Wellbeing, exploring the recent research on work and well-being and their implications for policy and interventions in the future. This reflective piece on the contemporary workplace concludes by raising a series of questions about work–life balance that society will need to answer over the next decade.
The relationship between the perceived usability of flexible work schedules and work/life balance was explored with 710 office-based employees. Direct linkages were found between perceived usability of flexible work schedules and the three dimensions of work/life balance (work interference with personal life, personal life interference with work, and work/personal life enhancement). In addition, employees operating under flexitime work schedules displayed significantly higher levels of work/life balance than their counterparts utilising traditional fixed-hour schedules. However, non-significant differences in the levels of work/life balance were found between two other flexible work schedules (flexiplace and job share) and fixed-hour work schedules. Consequently, while individual flexible work schedules may have a marginal overall positive impact on employee work/life balance, the perceived usability and availability of these work schedules appears to be a key element in achieving work/life balance for many office-based employees. The implications for employees, organisations, and future research are discussed.
This article draws upon the narratives of self-employed parents, their partners and children in order to examine the ‘family friendliness’ of making the home a site of paid work. While not fitting narrow definitions of ‘teleworker’ the subjects daily confronted the use of space in their homes, and access to technologies there.
This article presents the findings of field research investigating the experiences of a wide spectrum of home-based information workers within the context of discourses on technological change and labour market restructuring. The social relations being (re)produced in such settings, particularly as they relate to both common-sense and theoretical notions of flexibility, are analysed.
23 March 2000) 2 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY It is frequently suggested that working at home will be the future of work for many people in the UK. Two images of this future dominate popular commentaries on the subject. The pessimistic outlook draws on the historical imagery of homeworking as exploitative, lowly paid and carried out by women seeking to combine work with childcare as well as those disadvantaged in the labour market such as ethnic minorities. The optimistic scenario, on the other hand, draws on futuristic images of increasing swathes of the workforce being able to work wherever and whenever they choose via the use of the Internet, the mobile phone and the PC. For these people, working at home is seen as an enriching and liberating experience. This paper confronts these stereotypes with hard empirical evidence from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) which has asked respondents questions about the location of their workplace since 1992. As a result, we now have the means to provide a national, up-to-date picture of those reporting to work at home. However, the analysis of these data has so far been piecemeal and limited. This paper aims to correct this deficiency by answering a series of frequently asked questions about the subject.
A flexible definition of teleworking suggests that it is more widespread than is generally believed. However, is telework technologically driven? This is tested with data from six countries. As the categories of the definition have distinctive social characteristics, telework seems to reflect traditional occupational practices rather than a major technological shift.