Roads to recovery in remote working. Exploration of the perceptions of energy-consuming elements of remote work and self-promoted strategies toward psychological detachment
| Date | 05 September 2023 |
| Pages | 140-161 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-09-2022-0431 |
| Published date | 05 September 2023 |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Industrial/labour relations,Employment law |
| Author | Heini Pensar,Liisa Mäkelä |
Roads to recovery in remote
working. Exploration of the
perceptions of energy-consuming
elements of remote work and
self-promoted strategies toward
psychological detachment
Heini Pensar and Liisa M€
akel€
a
School of Management, University of Vaasa, Vaasa, Finland
Abstract
Purpose –This paper examines an employee’s recovery process in the remote-working context. It explores
which elements of remote work are energy-consuming for employees and what action they can take to instigate
the essential recovery strategy of psychological detachment.
Design/methodology/approach –The study adopts a qualitative research approach based on 89 semi-
structured interviews with employeesworking from home with six large corporations from multiple industries.
The data were interpreted using thematic analysis.
Findings –The study identifies a main theme –the energy-consuming elements of remote work –and three
sub-themes: extended working hours, intensive working and reduced social support. Each theme incorporates
elements controlled by individuals (internal) and those beyond their control (external). Second, the authors
identified strategies that helped individuals to detach from work, and devised four sub-themes, the authors
labeled cognitive controlling, physical disconnection from work, time-bound routines and non-work activities.
Originality/value –This is the first study to focus on recovery as a process in the context of remote working,
and it contributes to the knowledge of psychological detachment and strategies for recovery and to the
literature on contemporary remote working.
Keywords Remote work, Psychological detachment, Recovery strategies, COVID-19
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
The response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic made remote working
the new normal, and a complete return to pre-pandemic working life is unlikely (ILO, 2022;
Teevan et al., 2022). Accordingly, there is a demand to understand remote working and
how employees experience it. Many remote workers’primary workplace is now their home
(Eurofound, 2022), but combining home and work locations blurs the boundary between
the two environments (Haun et al.,2022). As a result, the home environment can become
permeated by work outside working hours, hindering psychological detachment from
work (Charalampous et al., 2022;Kinnunen et al., 2016;Sonnentag et al., 2010).
Psychological detachment is a process that restores employees’energetic and mental
resources consumed by demands imposed by work (Zijlstra et al., 2014) and is an essential
prerequisite of effective recovery (Sonnentag and Fritz, 2007). It is. While relaxation,
ER
45,7
140
© Heini Pensar and Liisa M€
akel€
a. Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published
under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute,
translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes),
subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be
seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
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 16 September 2022
Revised 20 February 2023
30 June 2023
16 August 2023
Accepted 16 August 2023
Employee Relations: The
International Journal
Vol. 45 No. 7, 2023
pp. 140-161
Emerald Publishing Limited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/ER-09-2022-0431
mastery and control over leisure can also aid recovery (Sonnentag and Fritz, 2007), prior
studies have identified psychological detachment as the most significant recovery
experience (de Jonge et al.,2012;Sonnentag and Fritz, 2015). The essential role of
psychological detachment in recovery and the threat to it posed by working from home
(Charalampous et al.,2022) motivated the current study.
Recent research reveals how employee actions can affect psychological detachment (Luta
et al., 2021;Sonnentag et al., 2022;Sonnentag and Niessen, 2020), and the current study
complements that research by focusing on strategies promoting psychological detachment to
aid recovery in a remote-working context.
Psychological detachment from work and the subsequent recovery process is necessary
because failure to recover can impair health and well-being (Fritz and Sonnentag, 2005;
Sonnentag et al., 2008). Ongoing exposure to workload and strain without appropriate
recovery can result in negative physical and psychological health effects; fatigue, sleeping
problems and exhaustion (Sianoja et al., 2018;Siltaloppi et al., 2009;Sonnentag et al., 2008).
Impaired well-being is linked to negative organizational outcomes such as reduced
performance levels (Bakker and Bal, 2010;Tanskanen et al., 2019). Therefore, it is
important to understand the process of recovery from work and how psychological
detachment can be promoted to support well-being among employees working remotely
(Charalampous et al., 2022). The current study aims to fill a research gap arising from
strategies for psychological detachment in the context of remote work being understudied
(Gillet et al., 2022;Haun et al., 2022;Kubicek et al., 2022;Lazauskait_
e-Zabielsk_
eet al., 2022;
Smith et al., 2021;Sonnentag et al., 2010;Tedone, 2022;Tr
ogolo et al., 2022).
Past recovery studies utilized the effort-recovery (E-R) theory devised by Meijman and
Mulder (1998) (e.g. Minkkinen et al., 2021;Pereira and Elfering, 2014). The theory proposes
that people routinely strive to meet work-related demands and, in doing so, activate their
stress system, leading to energy consumption and an elevated need for recovery (Geurts
and Sonnentag, 2006;Meijman and Mulder, 1998). Here, we follow the logic of E-R theory
by focusing on energy-consuming elements of remote work that can increase the need for
recovery among remote-working employees. We acknowledge that by focusing only on the
demands imposed by remote work, we are not covering the full spectrum of employee
experiences, and the positive aspects of remote working are beyond the purview of
this study.
Furthermore, E-R theory suggests that recovery occurs when the individual is no
longer exposed to work demands. However, that suggestion has been criticized for being
too simplistic and ignoring the processual nature of recovery (Zijlstra et al., 2014).
Therefore, acknowledging conservation of resources theory (COR) (Hobfoll, 2001), we
assume that employees working remotely aim to replenish the resources consumed by
their work (i.e. energy) and, moreover, that their personal resources (e.g. self-regulation
skills) play an important role in the dynamic process of recovery via strategies fostering
psychological detachment (Zijlstra et al., 2014).
Most empirical recovery studies are based on a quantitative research design (e.g. Gillet
et al., 2022; for a review, see Sonnentag et al., 2022). We found only two studies focusing on
self-promoted strategies to improve psychological detachment. One relied on a qualitative
approach to elicit students’experiences via group interviews (Luta et al., 2021), while the other
was conducted in a laboratory setting and utilized quantitative research methods (Sonnentag
and Niessen, 2020).
The current research adopts a qualitative approach to expose this little-researched
phenomenon. It explores (1) what elements of remote work employees perceive are energy-
consuming and (2) what self-promoted strategies foster the essential recovery strategy of
psychological detachment. This study contributes to knowledge of remote working and
recovery from work.
Remote
workers’
recovery
strategies
141
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