Employees’ fit to telework and work well-being: (in)voluntariness in telework as a mediating variable?
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-10-2021-0441 |
| Published date | 31 August 2022 |
| Date | 31 August 2022 |
| Pages | 257-274 |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Industrial/labour relations,Employment law |
| Author | Silvia Lopes,Paulo C. Dias,Ana Sabino,Francisco Cesário,Ricardo Peixoto |
Employees’fit to telework
and work well-being:
(in)voluntariness in telework
as a mediating variable?
Silvia Lopes
Faculdade de Psicologia, CicPsi, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal and
Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences, Centre for Philosophical and Humanistic
Studies, Universidade Cat
olica Portuguesa, Braga, Portugal
Paulo C. Dias
Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences, Centre for Philosophical and Humanistic
Studies, Universidade Cat
olica Portuguesa, Braga, Portugal
Ana Sabino and Francisco Ces
ario
APPsyCI –Applied Psychology Research Center Capabilities and Inclusion,
ISPA Instituto Universit
ario, Lisbon, Portugal and
CAPP –Centro de Administraç~
ao e Pol
ıticas P
ublicas, ISCSP,
Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal, and
Ricardo Peixoto
Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences, Centre for Philosophical and Humanistic
Studies, Universidade Cat
olica Portuguesa, Braga, Portugal
Abstract
Purpose –The present study aims to examine the mediating role of (in)voluntariness in teleworking in
explaining the relationship between employees’fit to telework and work well-being (i.e. work engagement and
exhaustion).
Design/methodology/approach –A cross-sectional survey design was used in this study. The sample
comprised 222 individuals performing telework in Portugal. Statistical analyses employed were descriptive
statistics, Pearson’s correlation, confirmatory factor and structural equation analyses, and mediation analysis
using Hayes Process macro.
Findings –The findings confirmed the hypothesis that employees’fit to telework raises the voluntariness in
telework and decreases involuntariness in telework. However, contrary to expectations, no significant
relationships were found between voluntariness in telework, work engagement and exhaustion. Yet,
involuntariness in telework showed a significant role in decreasing work engagement and increasing workers’
exhaustion. The mediating role of involuntariness in telework was confirmed in explaining the relationship
between employees’fit to telework and exhaustion.
Practical implications –Managers in global firms can draw from the results to understand how employees’
fit to telework directly and/or indirectly contributes to work well-being and develop human resource (HR)
management practices aiming to increase employees’fit to telework.
Employees’fit
to telework and
work well-
being
257
This study was supported the strategical program of the Centre for Philosophical and Humanistic
Studies (CEFH), funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (UID/FIL/00683/
2021). The authors are grateful to the Centre for Philosophical and Humanistic Studies (CEFH) for
supporting the research.
Data Accessibility: Data is available by request.
Conflict of Interest statement: Authors report no conflicts of interest.
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 14 October 2021
Revised 17 June 2022
8 August 2022
Accepted 15 August 2022
Employee Relations: The
International Journal
Vol. 45 No. 1, 2023
pp. 257-274
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/ER-10-2021-0441
Originality/value –Although teleworking is already studied, to the best of the authors’knowledge, no
studies have analyzed the same conceptual model employees’fit to telework, (in)voluntariness in teleworking
and work well-being.
Keywords Employees’fit to telework, Voluntariness, Involuntariness, Work well-being, Work engagement,
Exhaustion
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Telework is an alternative work arrangement where work is performed from any location of
employees’convenience, most frequently home-based and includes the employees’using
information and communication technology (ICT) to accomplish their work (Brunelle and
Fortin, 2021;Kapoor et al., 2021). Since the use of ICT intermediates the work, telework has
brought new challenges to human resource (HR) management, among which the
organizations and employees need to have the necessary adjustment to telework to
present higher levels of performance (Abulibdeh, 2020;Biron et al., 2020;Rai
sien_
eet al., 2020;
Raghuram et al., 2001). Moreover, while some studies indicated many advantages of telework
(e.g. improved productivity, greater work–life balance, reduction in commuting and an
increase in job satisfaction), other studies observed negative effects of teleworking (e.g.
higher social isolation, career stagnation, increased work-life conflict and poor well-being)
(Grant et al., 2013,2019). As such, the present study, drawing on the Person–Job (P–J) fit
literature (Saks and Ashforth, 1997), hypothesizes that employees’well-being is the result of
individuals’beliefs they have the necessary abilities and needs to perform in telework
conditions. Concerning positive and negative results of telework, the present study focuses on
work well-being by analyzing individuals’work engagement and exhaustion. Despite several
constructs used in the literature to evaluate work-related well-being (Fisher, 2014), the current
research focuses on a positive indicator, i.e. work engagement, and a negative indicator, i.e.
exhaustion, to measure well-being at work (Schaufeli and Bakker, 2004). Work engagement
concerns a cognitive and affective positive mindset related to work and includes vigor,
dedication and absorption (Schaufeli et al., 2017). Vigor is translated into high energy levels,
mental resistance and capacity to invest effort in work. Dedication consists of a strong
individual involvement, enthusiasm, pride and challenge in work. Absorption reflects an
individual full concentration on work in a way that the individual loses the notion of time.
Exhaustion at work consists of diminished emotional and physical energy at work (Bakker
and Demerouti, 2007).
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the employees’well-being had already captured the
interest of many researchers (Cantante-Rodrigues et al., 2021). For instance, in Portugal, in
2018, The Portuguese Association of Health Psychology estimated that approximately 18%
of the Portuguese workers experienced burnout –an indicator of poor well-being (Aon, 2018).
The COVID-19 pandemic moved many workers worldwide from offices to telework, in a
home-based, due to the social distancing measure (Rai
sien_
eet al., 2020). This situation
provides an unprecedented opportunity to identify the factors contributing to employees’
well-being in telework.
Beyond predicting the individuals’subjective perception of being mismatched to work as
having a detrimental effect on the individuals’well-being (e.g. Wickrama and O’Neal, 2020),
previous literature also highlighted the importance of individuals’engagement in their work
for more self-determined reasons (Fernet et al., 2020). In other words, based on self-
determination theory (SDT), a substantial body of literature has been showing the importance
of the quality of motivation to engage in a specific action (Ryan and Deci, 2019). Building on
previous empirical studies conducted with non-teleworker samples (e.g. Bernhard-Oettel
et al., 2013;Lopes and Chambel, 2017), the current research aims to extend these findings and
ER
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