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How a United States Air Force wing built a hybrid work model that balances organizational needs and employee wellbeing
Abstract
Purpose
The results of the COVID-19 pandemic rendered the traditional work environment model obsolete for the United States Air Force, resulting in the need to create a new hybrid work model that fits unique employee needs in a complex organization. This practitioner article discusses how the 711th Human Performance Wing (711 HPW) built the Mission-Focused Agile Work Environment (MFAWE) using a combination of human and mission-focused strategies to ensure a more flexible work environment without compromising excellence or its employees' well-being.
Design/methodology/approach
Using an action research approach, data was collected by 77 diverse stakeholders in six working groups. Five perspectives were examined – employee, operations, infrastructure, leadership and mission – using a combination of literature and policy reviews, interviews, surveys and personal experiences to deliver recommendations to leadership for implementation.
Findings
The MFAWE addressed hybrid work transition requirements, including employee guidance, permanent workspace guidelines and facilities. Lessons learned from implementation included the need for a change management and communication strategy. An employee playbook was found to be an effective modality for information sharing but not for policy enforcement. Employee preference for permanent space regardless of time on site due to sanitation and mental health concerns was also discovered.
Originality/value
This article showcases how a large, complex organization built a new hybrid work model using employee-inclusive practices, filling a gap in the literature. This project also uncovered complex interdependencies when transitioning to a hybrid work model, including employee preferences.
After a relatively slow policy and scholarly take‐up, recent developments created the urgency for massive efforts to implement and regulate telework in public organizations . We contribute to this debate through a systematic review of 120 studies across disciplines. Findings from our analysis reveal a few established antecedents of telework, including individual characteristics like family responsibilities and expected productivity, but also organizational aspects like supportive leadership, and contextual features like natural disasters. Self‐reported productivity and work‐life balance stand out as telework's most widely studied outcomes, although evidence is often conflicting when coming to the effects of telework. We present our results by distinguishing pre‐ and post‐pandemic findings. Complementing our systematic review, we engage in a generative exercise by identifying emerging debates on telework in public bureaucracies. We conclude by indicating future research directions.
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Due to increased telework as a result of the COVID‐19 pandemic, the literature has called for exploring the impacts of imposed telework on work‐ and well‐being‐related outcomes. To answer this call, we investigated the effects of the amount of telework on perceived productivity, work engagement, and social isolation during the beginning of the pandemic. Moreover, leaning on self‐determination theory, we examined the role of knowledge sharing as an underlying mechanism and supervisor social support as a buffer for these effects. Using a weekly diary study, we gathered 847 datasets from 167 individuals. Results revealed negative correlations of telework with productivity and engagement and a positive correlation with social isolation. Knowledge sharing positively related to the outcomes but did not mediate the effects of telework on them. However, supervisor social support did moderate the relationship between telework and knowledge sharing. With very low‐level supervisor social support, large amounts of telework were accompanied by reduced knowledge sharing. Hence, imposed telework during the pandemic acted as a burden. If supervisors failed to provide social support, telework was associated with less productivity and work engagement but greater social isolation via reduced knowledge sharing. Supervisors should adjust their behavior and support knowledge sharing in imposed telework arrangements.
Purpose
Based on the affective event theory and the theoretical framework of “work environment features–work events–emotional responses-work attitude”, this study aims to explore how and when home-based telework negatively affects work engagement by focusing on the dual chain mediating paths of “workplace isolation–negative emotion” and “telepressure–negative emotion”, and the moderating role of family-supportive leadership.
Methods
A questionnaire survey was used to collect 276 self-reported responses from employees with home-based telework experience in China.
Findings
(a) Home-based telework indirectly and negatively affects work engagement through the mediating chain of “workplace isolation–negative emotion”; (b) Home-based telework indirectly and negatively affects work engagement through the mediating chain of “telepressure–negative emotion”; (c) Family-supportive leadership negatively moderates the chain mediating effect of “workplace isolation–negative emotion” and “telepressure–negative emotion” between home-based telework and work engagement. In other words, the higher the level of family-supportive leadership, the weaker the negative effect of home-based telework on work engagement.
Originality/Value
This study sheds additional light on the relationship between home-based telework and work engagement by constructing the influence mechanism model of home-based telework on work engagement, in which “workplace isolation–negative emotion” and “telepressure–negative emotion” act as chain mediators, and family supportive leadership as moderator. This study enriches the literature on home-based telework.
Practical Implications
The findings indicates that home-based work has indirectly and negatively effects on work engagement through dual chain mediating paths of “workplace isolation–negative emotion” and “telepressure–negative emotion”. However, family-supportive leadership can weaken this negative influence. Therefore, organizations need to cultivate family supportive leadership.
Introduction
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic thousands of people have experienced teleworking and this practice is becoming increasingly commonplace. This review aims to highlight the differences in exposure to psychosocial risk factors for health between part-time and full-time teleworking from home.
Methods
The protocol of the systematic review of the literature was registered on PROSPERO 2020 platform according to the PRISMA statement guidelines. The key words “telework” and “frequency” (“part-time” or “full-time”), together with their synonyms and variations, were searched. Independent researchers conducted the systematic search of 7 databases: Scopus, SciELO, PePSIC; PsycInfo, PubMed, Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts (ASSIA) and Web of Science. Of the 638 articles identified from 2010 to June 2021, 32 were selected for data extraction. The authors evaluated the risk of bias and quality of evidence of the studies included using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool. Main themes categorized include 7 dimensions of psychosocial risk factors: work intensity and working hours; emotional demands; autonomy; social relationships at work; conflict of values, work insecurity and home/work interface.
Results
The results revealed scant practice of full-time teleworking prior to the pandemic. Regarding the psychosocial risk factors found, differences were evident before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. For part-time and full-time telework prior to the pandemic, the dimensions of intensification of work and working hours, social relationships at work, and the home-work interface were the most prominent factors. However, studies performed during the COVID-19 pandemic where teleworking was mostly performed full-time, there was an increase in focus on emotional demands and the home-work interface, and a reduction in the other dimensions.
Discussion
Full-time telework brings important changes in working conditions and has the potential to affect living and health conditions of teleworkers. Part-time teleworking may have positive impact on psychosocial risk factors, favoring work-home balance, communication, and social relationships.
Systematic review registration
https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=191455, PROSPERO 2020 CRD4202019 1455.
Using data on full-time wage and salary workers from the 2017–2018 American Time Use Survey Leave and Job Flexibilities Module, we estimate hourly wage differentials for teleworkers and compare how workers allocate their time over the day when they work from home rather than the office. We find that some teleworkers earn a wage premium, but it varies by gender, parental status, and teleworking intensity. Fathers who telework earn more than fathers in office-based jobs, regardless of teleworking intensity. Women without children who telework occasionally earn more than their office counterparts. In industries and occupations where telework is more prevalent, mothers who work from home most days of the week pay a wage penalty compared to mothers in office-based jobs. Using time diaries, we find differences in work patterns and hours across worker groups that could drive these teleworker wage differentials. Most teleworkers work less on home days; however, those who earn wage premiums are working longer hours on weekdays, regardless of their work location. When teleworking, mothers experience more interruptions in their workdays than other workers, which could have negative effects on their productivity. We also find that teleworkers spend less time on commuting and grooming activities but more time on leisure activities and with family on work-at-home days than on office days, and female teleworkers spend more time sleeping and on household production activities.
Workplace culture includes beliefs, attitudes, practices, rules, norms and customs. Ideal workplace culture focuses on activities that generate and demonstrate trust. A strong form of essential values that all employees respect and practice helps to build the positivity and effectiveness of a workplace environment. This paper examines the positivity and effectiveness of an on-site and hybrid working model from Austria. A research question is raised that concerns the difference between negative and positive approaches towards different working environments when following the aspects of respect and dignity, support, caring, rewards, forgiveness and inspiration, and asks whether these differ fundamentally and represent different theoretical mechanisms. Mixed research methods (quantitative and qualitative) using the medium of WhatsApp were applied. Relying on Chi-squared tests, we detected significant differences in 25 out of 29 statements where hybrid workers are more often supporting, caring, rewarding, forgiving and inspiring than cubicle workers. In four cases, the test did not detect any significant difference of respect and dignity dimensions: treating each other with respect, demonstrating integrity, fostering dignity in one another and showing appreciation for one another. Evidently, as shown by the data obtained, organisations that offer a hybrid working model have a very high score of positivity and effectiveness in providing the best place to work. The hybrid model might be an inevitable arrangement for some organisations. The interview data present a clearer picture of some pros and cons. The current data seem to reveal that these benefits persist as companies shift to hybrid working at scale and at pace. Received: 7 July 2021 / Accepted: 19 August 2021 / Published: 5 September 2021
To protect workers’ safety while gradually resuming on-site operations amid the COVID-19 pandemic, many organizations are offering employees the flexibility to decide their work location on a daily basis (i.e., whether to work from home or to work in the office on a particular day). However, little is known about what factors drive employees’ daily decisions to work from home versus office during the pandemic. Taking a social ecological perspective, we conceptualize employees’ daily choice of work location (home vs. office) as a way to cope with stressors they have encountered on the previous day, and conducted a daily diary study to examine how five categories of work-related and COVID-related stressors during the pandemic (identified through a pilot interview study) may jointly predict employees’ next-day work location. We collected data over five workdays from 127 participants working in a Chinese IT company which allowed employees to choose their work location on a daily basis amid the pandemic. We found that experiencing more work–family boundary stressors and work coordination stressors on a certain day were associated with a greater likelihood of working in the office (vs. at home) on the next day, while experiencing more workload stressors prompted employees to work at home (vs. in the office) on the next day. Furthermore, we found that COVID-19 infection-related stressors moderated the effects of technology stressors and workload stressors on next-day work location. Our research findings offer implications for understanding the driving factors of daily work location choices during and beyond the pandemic.
Introduction: Different kinds of shared and activity-based offices are common today and employees' experiences, perceived health, well-being, satisfaction, and productivity have been studied in different types and sizes of environments.
Objectives: In this study we aimed to determine employee satisfaction with a multi-space office. We also aimed to find associations between satisfaction with working space and both individual and social well-being.
Methods: A total of 91 employees from a multi-space office shared by six municipality-owned companies answered a self-administered questionnaire. Frequencies, percentages, averages, and minimum and maximum values are used to describe the results. We used cross-tabulation and Pearson's Chi-Square test to study the associations and linear regression analysis to create a model describing the variability of workspace satisfaction.
Results: The employees were most satisfied with the workspace furniture (82% of respondents) and most dissatisfied with workspace acoustics (44%). Workspace satisfaction was associated with self-satisfaction, good self-perceived future work ability, and good recovery. As regards social factors, workspace satisfaction was associated with good atmosphere among colleagues and good social capital. Satisfaction with acoustics was also associated with good self-perceived future work ability, recovery, and good social capital. Social capital best explained the general variation in workplace satisfaction.
Conclusions: Many individual- and social-related well-being outcomes, and especially social capital, were associated with workspace satisfaction. To maintain workplace satisfaction and well-being, attention should be paid to the design, functionality, and management of the used workspaces.
Purpose
This paper examines the influence of facilitators and barriers on employees’ preference to work in a hybrid model. The study uses the theoretical lens of stimulus-organism-response (SOR) and dual factor theory (DFT). It examines the influence of health consciousness (stimulus), facilitators (e.g. work flexibility, work–life balance and team building) (organism) and barriers (e.g. pandemic and travel stressor and role overload [organism] on employees’ preference to work in a hybrid model) (response). Further, it tests the moderating influence of organizational culture.
Design/methodology/approach
A questionnaire survey was conducted among employees in India, Sri Lanka and Germany, obtaining 281 usable questionnaires. Structural equation modeling (SEM) using Warp PLS 7.0 was used as the analytical technique to examine the model fit and test hypotheses.
Findings
The findings reveal that health consciousness is essential in enhancing facilitators and motivating employees to prefer a hybrid working model. The study’s findings also prove the positive influence of work flexibility, work–life balance and team building as facilitators. The results suggest that pandemic and travel stressors inhibit employees’ preference for working in a hybrid model.
Research limitations/implications
The study is based on a cross-sectional research design to generalise the findings. Future researchers can utilize longitudinal design to decipher the variation in response over time. The study has developed a model combining SOR with DFT; the authors suggest that future researchers use other theories in combination with SOR, like self-determination theory (SDT), to decipher the influence of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation of employees in the context of the hybrid working model.
Practical implications
This study identifies the need for open communication with the employees to overcome their concerns regarding the hybrid working model. The study also suggests that human resource (HR) managers need to prioritize the task that needs to be accomplished from the office versus working from home. The authors recommend various measures, like water cooler breaks and a buddy system, to motivate employees to work in a hybrid model.
Originality/value
This study is among the first studies focused on the hybrid working model. The current study adds to the limited literature on the facilitators and barriers of working in a hybrid work model.
Research in telework has mostly focused on studying teleworkers themselves or comparing the phenomenological experience of nonteleworkers and teleworkers. Thus, supervisors in the telework context have been a relatively neglected area of study. The current study compares the task behaviors of nonteleworking and teleworking supervisors and investigates the factors that affect supervisors’ perceived organizational impact of telework. The findings indicate that teleworking supervisors tend to spend less time doing work that can be accomplished only at the office. For teleworking supervisors, management support for telework, work assignment fairness, teleworker supervision experience and teleworker supervision proficiency all positively affected the perceived organizational impact of telework. In the case of nonteleworking supervisors, only work assignment fairness and teleworker supervision proficiency positively affected the perceived organizational impact of telework.
This article argues that United States Intelligence Community analysts can and should periodically telework as routine professional development and as a research supplement to traditional all-source intelligence analysis. We offer four key benefits to tapping into this reservoir of unclassified information that would improve the quality of the intelligence product, enable better liaison and academic exchange, and steward the profession. We conclude that an overdue rebalancing of classified and publicly available sources could be aided by telework, but only once analysts break free from ‘the cult of the SCIF’ will publicly available information receive the analytical attention that it deserves.
An interdisciplinary research program of the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, has investigated the potential impact of substituting telecommunications and computer technology for certain forms of urban transportation [1]. Emphasis has been placed upon the use of these technologies to alleviate the massive twice-daily peak commuting loads imposed upon most major American cities. The primary means by which these technologies will be used is to allow "information industry" workers to perform their jobs at work centers scattered throughout each city, close to their homes, rather than commuting long distances to work. A basic premise is made that this reorientation of urban work patterns will not occur unless the technological substitutes can be shown to be both economical and effective. The results of a study of a major insurance firm located in the Los Angeles central business district are presented. The study evaluated the present transportation patterns, population distribution, and business contact requirements of a major administrative division of this firm. These commuting and communicating patterns were then used as the basis for assessing the feasibility of the use of various levels of telecommunications and computer technology for allowing the substitution for commuting by "telecommuting." Alternative telecommuting network designs were formulated and evaluated with respect to their ability to facilitate current work functions. Costs of network installation and operation were compared with the present costs of commuting. It is concluded that present communications and computer technology, in terms of "off-the-shelf" hardware and services, can offer an economical substitute for commuting.
To review published studies using action research in the intensive care unit (ICU) in order to provide an intervention framework to improve clinical outcomes.
Systematic review.
Searches of the electronic databases: Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL); Scopus, Medline, Embase, PsycINFO, and the World Wide Web were undertaken using MeSH key words including: 'action research'; 'health care research', 'health services evaluation'; 'intensive care unit'. Reference lists of retrieved articles was also undertaken to identify further articles. All studies were reviewed by two authors using a critical appraisal tool.
The search strategy generated 195 articles. Only 21 studies projects were identified using action research in the ICU. The majority of studies were conducted in the United Kingdom. The participants in the action research studies ranged from 6 to 253. Predominately studies using action research involved nurses in collaboration with patients and family and other health care practitioners to address identified problems in the ICU.
Based on this review it appears that action research is a promising methodological approach to address clinical practice improvement in the ICU. Studies retrieved focussed primarily on process and formative evaluation but not on clinical outcomes. There is a need to incorporate outcome assessment in action research in the ICU to increase the framework of action research to improve clinical outcomes.
Everyone agrees that managing change is tough, but few can agree on how to do it. Most experts are obsessed with "soft" issues, such as culture and motivation, but, say the authors, focusing on these issues alone won't bring about change. Companies also need to consider the hard factors-like the time it takes to complete a change initiative, the number of people required to execute it, and so forth. When the authors studied change initiatives at 225 companies, they found a consistent correlation between the outcomes of change programs (success versus failure) and four hard factors, which they called DICE: project duration, particularly the time between project reviews; integrity of performance, or the capabilities of project teams; the level of commitment of senior executives and staff; and the additional effort required of employees directly affected by the change. The DICE framework is a simple formula for calculating how well a company is implementing, or will be able to implement, its change initiatives. The framework comprises a set of simple questions that help executives score their projects on each of the four factors; the lower the score, the more likely the project will succeed. Companies can use DICE assessments to force conversations a bout projects, to gauge whether projects are on track or in trouble, and to manage project portfolios. The authors have used these four factors to predict the outcomes and guide the execution of more than 1,000 change management programs worldwide. Not only has the correlation held, but no other factors (or combination of factors) have predicted outcomes as successfully.
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Lazarus is a professor of medical education, Chair of the Office of the Dean, and the Dean of the United States Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine
- M Melanie
Melanie M. Lazarus is a professor of medical education, Chair of the Office of the Dean, and the Dean of
the United States Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine, Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.
Lazarus is the corresponding author can be contacted at: melanie.lazarus@us.af.mil Joseph P. Nalepka is the Chief of Workforce Development for the Air Force Research Laboratory, Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. For instructions on how to order reprints of this article
- M Melanie
Melanie M. Lazarus is the corresponding author can be contacted at: melanie.lazarus@us.af.mil
Joseph P. Nalepka is the Chief of Workforce Development for the Air Force Research Laboratory,
Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.
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