Employee communication channels and social ties in organisations when teleworking and working on-site: a latent profile analysis
| Date | 14 October 2024 |
| Pages | 1723-1743 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-01-2024-0048 |
| Published date | 14 October 2024 |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Industrial/labour relations,Employment law |
| Author | Jurgita Lazauskaite-Zabielske,Ieva Urbanaviciute,Arunas Ziedelis,Rita Jakstiene |
Employee communication
channels and social ties in
organisations when teleworking
and working on-site: a latent
profile analysis
Jurgita Lazauskaite-Zabielske, Ieva Urbanaviciute, Arunas Ziedelis
and Rita Jakstiene
Organizational Psychology Research Centre, Institute of Psychology,
Vilnius University, Vilnius, Lithuania
Abstract
Purpose –This study aimed to test the relationship between various communication channels (in person, on
screen, on the phone, messaging), the team feeling and perceived support by colleagues under different intensities of
telework.
Design/methodology/approach –European Social Survey (ESS) Round 10 (2020–22) data file edition 3.0
was used for data analysis. The sample of this study consisted of 9,500 workersfrom ISCO groups 1–4 from 19
European Union countries. Latent profile analysis was used to analyse the data.
Findings –Five communication and telework intensity profiles were revealed: solo office workers, connected
teleworkers, solo teleworkers, all-mode office communicators and office classics. Demographic and professional
characteristics predicted employees’ membership in specific telework and communication channel profiles. The
significant between-profile differences regarding one’s team feelings and perceived support from colleagues were
observed. The highest levels of team feeling and expectations of getting work-related help from colleagues were
observed among office classics, characterised by all types of communication except on-screen communication. On
the contrary, solo teleworkers who worked from home and rarely used all multi-mode communication channels to
contact their colleagues reported the lowest levels of team feeling and social support.
Originality/value –Using representative data from 19 European countries (N59,500), this study provides
insight into how combinations of telework intensity and communication forms relate to different levels of team
feeling and perceived support among colleagues. It highlights the importance of using diverse communication
for maintaining social support and team cohesion.
Keywords Intensity of teleworking, Perceived support, Team feeling, Communication channels at work,
Latent profile analysis
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
The COVID-19 pandemic has irreversibly changed the world of work. With the introduction of
the first lockdowns at the beginning of 2020, the ways of working and interactions changed for
hundreds of millions of employees as they transitioned into teleworking, interacting with each
other via technology (Faraj et al., 2021). Even after the pandemic, one-fifth of employees (22%)
work from home, indicating a no less than double increase since 2019 (Eurofound, 2023a).
Telework or remote work has become a popular alternative to working in a traditional office
due to the onset of information and communications technologies. This work arrangement
“involves members of an organisation substituting a portion of their typical work hours (ranging
from a few hours per week to nearly full-time) to work away from a central workplace—typically
Employee
Relations: The
International
Journal
1723
The research received funding from the Research Council of Lithuania under Grant Agreement No.
S-MIP-22-23.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/0142-5455.htm
Received 22 January 2024
Revised 23 August 2024
25 September 2024
Accepted25 September 2024
Employee Relations: The
International Journal
Vol. 46 No. 8, 2024
pp. 1723-1743
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/ER-01-2024-0048
principally from home—using technology to interact with others as needed to conduct work
tasks” (Allen et al., 2015, p. 44). Employees prefer to work remotely to avoid commuting, tend to
family demands and increase productivity (Deole et al., 2023;Thompson et al., 2021), while
organisations adopt telework to cut operational costs and attract and retain employees (Smite
et al., 2023). Eurofound (2021) reported that no less than one-third of all jobs across Europe are
teleworkable, suggesting that the rates of teleworking employees will unlikely decrease, which
leads to an unprecedented discussion among researchers and practitioners about telework and its
effects on employees and organisations (Eurofound, 2023a).
With many benefits of telework have been documented, such as increasing performance
(Toscano et al., 2024), job satisfaction (Lu and Zhuang, 2023), life satisfaction (Kazekami,
2020), and organisational commitment (see recent meta-analysis by Gajendran et al., 2024),
organisations are dealing with new and unique challenges. One of them is decreased social
connectedness (Rudolph et al., 2021), which is considered the biggest downside of telework
(Goredema, 2023). Indeed, teleworkers have long been known to experience poorer social
interactions and inherent communication barriers due to the temporal and physical distance
involved and reliance on communication technology, which is an integral part of telework
(e.g. Rockmann and Pratt, 2015).
At the same time, communication is considered essential for the success of teleworkers
(Charalampous et al., 2019). To be productive, teleworkers must be able to communicate with
colleagues not only face-to-face but also through various communication channels such as
email, phone, texting, instant messaging, and videoconferencing (Sias et al., 2012). However,
the transition to telework has been observed to alter communication behaviours, resulting in
increased use of instant messaging and decreased scheduled meetings (Yang et al., 2022).
This raises some risks, as computer-mediated communication lacks contextual information
and nonverbal cues, leading to less accurate and less satisfying interactions (Walther, 1996)
and poorer relationship quality (Mackenzie, 2010). Decreased social connectedness could also
lead to disengagement, lower job satisfaction, reduced well-being, and poorer performance
(Brown and Leite, 2023;Jaiswal and Prabhakaran, 2024). The fear of severed social ties is one
of the reasons why organisations choose to return to on-site or implement hybrid work
(Colvin, 2022).
In sum, building and maintaining relationships is essential for teleworkers’ psychological
well-being (Grant et al., 2013;Nitschke et al., 2021). However, empirical studies on the
relationship between communication forms and social connectedness in the context of
telework are still scarce and far from univocal. As telework is becoming a customary way of
working (Eurofound, 2021;The European Commission’s Science and Knowledge Centre,
2020), we need to obtain a more nuanced view of how the intensity of telework
(operationalised as the number of days per week spent teleworking) and the use of
communication channels might affect social connectedness to understand its benefits and
potential pitfalls.
With this study, we make several timely contributions to the literature. First, using a
person-centred approach, we identified profiles characterised by different combinations of
communication channels and the intensity of telework. Although communication is usually
regarded as key to teleworker success (DeSanctis and Monge, 1998;Sias et al., 2012),
communication is rarely studied together with telework. Moreover, the existing research (e.g.
Shockley et al., 2021) usually focuses on the relationship between communication,
performance and well-being, neglecting the relational aspect. A person-centred approach
allowed us to simultaneously inspect the variety of combinations of teleworking and
communication channels and thereby capture the individual experience in a more accurate
and holistic way. In addition to the widely held belief that teleworkers primarily rely on
computer-mediated communication and have limited opportunities for face-to-face
interactions (Carillo et al., 2021), our research indicates that the use of communication
ER
46,8
1724
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