Exploring Indian working mothers' transition to involuntary telecommuting
| Date | 28 August 2023 |
| Pages | 1392-1414 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-10-2022-0467 |
| Published date | 28 August 2023 |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Industrial/labour relations,Employment law |
| Author | Shahina Javad,Priyanka Nema,Nimit Chowdhary |
Exploring Indian working
mothers’transition
to involuntary telecommuting
Shahina Javad
XLRI, Jamshedpur, India
Priyanka Nema
Jagran Lakecity University, Bhopal, India, and
Nimit Chowdhary
Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India
Abstract
Purpose –During the COVID-19 pandemic, many working mothers in India adopted involuntary
telecommuting work option for the first time. However, no research explored their adjustments and
experiences in the new work setting. This paper aims to gain an in-depth understanding of Indian working
mothers’lived experience of involuntary telecommuting.
Design/methodology/approach –A phenomenological research design was adopted. The authors
conducted 14 in-depth, semi-structured telephonic and online interviews. Data were analyzed using
Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis framework.
Findings –The data analysis yielded two interconnected superordinate themes in this research: (1)
characteristics of involuntary telecommuting and (2) the impact of involuntary telecommuting. Under the first
theme, four sub-themes emerged: long working hours, increased family demands, reduced interaction with
coworkers and technology-enabled communication with supervisors. The second theme comprised five sub-
themes: time-based work interference with family, time-based family interference with work, strain-based
family interference with work, absence of emotional and professional support and performance management
concerns. Involuntary telecommuting mothers faced challenges due to lack of control over their daily work
schedule and demands, along with an increased burden of unpaid household work, leading to difficulties in
managing their work schedule and negotiating their professional role identity within the family. These findings
emphasize that working mothers who participated in involuntary telecommuting encountered bidirectional
time-based conflicts and unidirectional strain-based conflict.
Research limitations/implications –Thestudy examines a particularsubsetof women telecommuterswho
were working mothers with young children. These potential limitations are to be addressed in future research.
Practical implications –Th e findings suggest that managers sh ould develop HR policies and
telecommuting ecosystems in order to enhance effectiveness of telecommuting. Specifically, organizations
offering telecommuting work options should create opportunities for informal interaction among peers and
formal one-to-one interaction with managers. Moreover, HR managers should develop and implement
employee-friendly telecommuting policies.
Social implications –The research contributes to HRM and gender literature.
Originality/value–The paper contributes to the discourses of work-life balance, workplace relationships and
work policies within telecommuting literature.
Keywords Involuntary telecommuting, COVID-19, Interpersonal isolation, Work-family conflict, Gender,
Interpretative phenomenological analysis
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
The telecommuting concept has existed since Jack Nilles first coined the term in the seventies
(Nilles, 1975). Telecommuting, which is also known as telework, remote work, distributed
work, virtual work, flexible work, flexplace, work from home and distance work, is a work
practice that involves members of an organization substituting a portion of their typical work
hours to work away from a central workplace, using technology to interact with others as and
ER
45,6
1392
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 11 October 2022
Revised 16 March 2023
4 August 2023
Accepted 4 August 2023
Employee Relations: The
International Journal
Vol. 45 No. 6, 2023
pp. 1392-1414
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/ER-10-2022-0467
when needed to work on tasks (Allen et al., 2015;Nilles, 1998). A person can be said to be a
telecommuter if his/her telecommunications link to the office is as simple as a telephone or
other communications media, such as an email and personal computer that links to office
servers and fax machines (Bailey and Kurland, 2002).
With recent advances in technology that enable mobile connections at affordable rates,
working away from the office as a telecommuter has become increasingly available to many
workers worldwide (Allen et al., 2015). Voluntary telecommuting, an option to telecommute
individually to accommodate a particular situation or need temporarily or permanently (Olson,
1983), has been a prevalent work practice in western organizations (Lautsch et al., 2009). In fact,
telecommuting and other forms of flexible work arrangements have long been promoted to
enable individuals to manage their work and non-work lives effectively (Allen et al., 2015;
Choudhuryet al., 2020). Home-based telecommuting is expected to improve work quality and the
private life of telecommuters (Been et al., 2016) by providing them additional degrees of freedom/
flexibility in decidinghow to organize and carryout their day-to-dayjob (Hornung and Glaser,
2009). Therefore, work and family researchers argued that home-based telecommuting is a more
attractive work option for women, especially for young working mothers (Gordon, 1976;
Mokhtarian et al., 1998;Nayakand Pandit, 2021).Previous stud ies examined gender differences
in voluntary telecommuting and found that females perceived telecommuting as a more
attractive option than their male counterparts (Madsen, 2003;Nayak and Pandit, 2021;Singh
et al., 2013). More specifically, Smithson and Stokoe (2005) propose that working women,
particularly mothers of young children, constitute the primary users of work-life policies.
According to their perspective, the category of “flexible worker”is frequently associated with
women and those with young children.
Global adoption of lockdowns and other social distancing measures to combat COVID-19
resulted in millions of employees being encouraged or forced to adopt home-based
telecommuting (Jamal et al., 2021). The pandemic restrictions compelled organizations, with
littleexperience inlarge-scale remotework, to quicklydevelop or expandsuch arrangementsfor
employees who previously did not have this flexibility.This shift was not only rapid but also
involuntary for both organizations and employees, leaving many people with little information
or guidance on how their jobs would change, the expected duration of the situation and the
nature of this new work setup. It is important to note that involuntary telecommuting due to
COVID-19 differs from voluntary telecommuting in several ways. The most significant
difference is that it is an employer-initiated work option without proper infrastructure and
systems to support teleworking employees (Kramer and Kramer, 2020;Waizenegger et al., 2020).
Despite the lack of information or strategy, leaders across business, education and government
sectors rapidly requested their employees to work remotely as COVID-19 began to spread.
Involuntary remote work, resulting from the pandemic, impacted a much broader
spectrum of workers than those who had previously worked from home (Hayes et al., 2021).
Early on, many employees quickly realized that their home setups lacked adequate
ergonomic conditions for work. For instance, several teleworking employees reported
discomfort, experiencing emerging issues such as back, neck and wrist pains as they resorted
to working from their laps or kitchen tables. In response, they sought assistance from their
companies to procure additional equipment, such as external monitors, office chairs, external
keyboards and other essential items to improve their home workspaces (
Smite et al., 2023).
Enforced or involuntary telecommuting has garnered considerable research attention
worldwide in recent years (Anwari et al., 2021;Beck et al., 2020;Blahopoulou et al., 2022;Campo
et al., 2021;Charalampous et al., 2022). Followingthe outbreakof the pandemic,numerousIndian
organizations adopted full-time involuntary telecommuting, leading many employees to
experience remote work from home for the first time. While work-family researchers in India
have focused on understanding factors influencing involuntary telecommuting
adoption, productivity and activity-travel behavior (Kapoor et al., 2021;Kumar et al., 2021;
Telecommuting
journey of
Indian working
moms
1393
Get this document and AI-powered insights with a free trial of vLex and Vincent AI
Get Started for FreeStart Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
