Work at home and time use in Finland

Investigating the Role of Remote Working on Employees' Performance and Well-Being: An Evidence-Based Systematic Review

Remote working refers to a working model in which employees can pursue work tasks outside the organization due to the use of technology. Several research papers showed that different assumptions are linked to remote work because of the flexibility and autonomy granted to employees when working remotely or from home. This review consistently aims to describe remote work's role in employees' well-being and performance. Using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, 20 peer-reviewed papers published from 2010 until 2021 were selected for this review. Findings showed various and mixed consequences on employees' performance and well-being. Specifically, remote working affects employees' perceptions about themselves and their workplaces and contributes to their physical and mental health, particularly regarding work-life balance. Managerial implications for remote working implementation will be discussed in the paper.

The relationship between telework from home and the psychosocial work environment: a systematic review

OBJECTIVE

Telework from home (TWFH) has become routine for many, yet research on how this may affect the psychosocial work environment is sparse. To understand the effects that TWFH may have on the psychosocial work environment, this systematic literature review identified, evaluated, and summarized findings on the association of TWFH with factors of the psychosocial work environment.

METHODS

Searches were conducted in MEDLINE, Embase, Amed, PsycINFO, and PubMed. The topic of the study reflected TWFH, and subjects should be office workers employed at a company. Outcomes should reflect psychosocial work environment factors. Inclusion criteria stated that studies should be primary, quantitative, and published in a peer-reviewed journal. English language publications dating from January 2010 to February 2021 were included. Risk of bias was assessed using the Newcastle-Ottawa scale (NOS) and quality of overall evidence using Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE).

RESULTS

Searches resulted in 3354 publications, and after screening rounds 43 peer-reviewed original studies satisfying predetermined inclusion and exclusion criteria were included. Fourteen individual psychosocial work environment outcome categories were studied. Limited overall evidence to support effects of TWFH on the included work environment outcomes, with evidence being rated either of low or very low quality. Flexibility and autonomy are discussed as potential mediating variables in the relationship between TWFH and the psychosocial work environment.

CONCLUSION

There is a lack of high-quality research investigating effects of TWFH on the psychosocial work environment. To suggest TWFH guidelines or recommendations, there is a need for research with high-quality longitudinal designs, precise measures of time use and location of work, and validated measures of factors known to be of importance. PROSPERO registration number CRD42021233796.

Telework, Wages, and Time Use in the United States

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.

To work at home or in the office? Well-being, information flow and relationships between office workers before and during the COVID-19 pandemic

Purpose

This paper aims to compare employee well-being, information flow and relationships with co-workers and supervisors for people working at home and working in different office types before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Design/methodology/approach

A nationwide study of 2,845 Estonian office workers in autumn 2019 and 2,972 in spring 2020 was carried out.

Findings

It was discovered that in normal circumstances, people at home had similar results to those in a cell office or activity-based office. Open-plan offices were found to be the worst in respect to the facets of work studied. However, in the context of the pandemic, the playing field became more level in some respects and worse in the case of activity-based offices.

Practical implications

When telework is well arranged both in terms of facilities and organising the necessary communication and information flow, then it is a viable alternative to working in an office. What is more, employers need to pay more attention to the physical and social work conditions in open-plan offices and also activity-based offices in the context of a pandemic.

Originality/value

Previous studies have only compared telework with working in an office in general. Comparing working at home with different kinds of offices gives valuable insights.

The Breath of the Metropolis: Smart Working and New Urban Geographies

The paper explores the potentialities of telework, a topic with rich literature published since the 1970s, which has become topical again with its forced application related to the COVID-19 pandemic emergency. The paper carries out an analysis of the potential territorial impact—transport networks and geographies of living—of telework in the Italian national context. The analysis highlights the potential relevance of the application of telework in certain metropolitan areas that present urban poles where economic sectors with a high propensity for telework are centralised. This survey relates the large stock of tourist housing in the vicinity of large metropolitan areas to a potential demand arising from the change in housing preferences towards more pleasant contexts made possible by the application of telework. In conclusion, this work aims to contribute to the construction of a platform for the Italian context—lagging behind but with recent legislative measures on smart working—aimed at favouring the definition of research lines able to enhance the potential offered by the application of telework for environmental, social, and territorial sustainability objectives, and it also aims to outline possible territorial scenarios for the main metropolitan areas

Job Quality and Work-Life Balance of Teleworkers

As telework and mobile work arrangements become more widespread with new advancements in digitalization, these flexible models of work are rapidly expanding to new categories of employees and completely modifying working conditions and job quality. The aim of this study was to assess how particular types of telework affect different dimensions of job quality. We applied multivariable techniques to a sample of 35,765 workers from the Sixth European Working Conditions Survey. Our findings show that gender and types of telework by workplace and ICT-use intensity are crucial factors affecting working conditions and job quality. Occasional teleworkers are the group with the best job quality, while highly mobile teleworkers are those with the worst job quality and work-life balance. Home-based teleworkers, especially women, present better results than highly mobile workers in terms of working time quality and intensity, though in exchange for lower skills and discretion, income, and career prospects. This study contributes to deepening our knowledge on the impacts of flexible arrangements of work, providing an analysis of current data on different dimensions of job quality and work-life balance and including gender as a crucial axis of analysis.

Who is Teleworking and Where from? Exploring the Main Determinants of Telework in Europe

Telework and ICT-based mobile work (TICTM) arrangements have emerged in response to technological changes driven by digitalisation, increasing flexibility within the labour market, and globalisation. As telework becomes more widespread, these flexible models of work are rapidly expanding to new categories of employees, changing the factors traditionally found to be important for telework eligibility. The aim of this study is to gain a deeper understanding of new profiles of teleworkers, examining main factors that increase or decrease the likelihood of different TICTM arrangements. We apply multinomial logistic regression models to a sample of more than 20,000 workers from the 6th European Working Conditions Survey. Our findings confirm the heterogeneity in the profiles of teleworkers, particularly distinguishing by TICTM arrangement. Occasional teleworkers are usually male managers or professionals, but a relevant percentage of highly mobile teleworkers are technicians and associate professionals, while clerical support workers amount to a large group of home-based teleworkers. The majority of occasional and highly mobile teleworkers are still men, but this can no longer be said of home-based teleworkers. The correlations between telework and permanent contracts, full-time jobs, and living in urban areas are weak, showing that TICTM is spreading into more precarious, temporary, and lower-paid jobs, especially among home-based teleworkers and highly mobile teleworkers.

New Technology, Work and Employment in the era of COVID-19: reflecting on legacies of research

The outbreak of COVID‐19 is having a drastic impact on work and employment. This review piece outlines the relevance of existing research into new technology, work and employment in the era of COVID‐19. It is important to be retrospective and undertake both a historically and theoretically informed position on the impact of new technologies in the current crisis and beyond. Issues of control, surveillance and resistance have been central to work on the impact of technology on work and employment and these themes have been identified as central to the experience of work in the current crisis.

Work–Life Balance, Organizations and Social Sustainability: Analyzing Female Telework in Spain

The concept of work–life balance has recently established itself as a key component on route maps drawn up in the pursuit of social sustainability, both on a local scale, represented by individual organizations, and on a more general one, represented by global institutions such as the United Nations. Our article analyzes telework’s use as a political tool within organizations that either boost or hinder the development of social sustainability. Additionally, we propose the notion of “life sustainability” to analyze how female teleworkers describe the link between specific work cultures and the possibility of fulfilling social sustainability goals in local work environments through the achievement of a good work–life balance. Our research was performed following a qualitative approach, drawing from a sample of 24 individual interviews and 10 focus groups with a total of 48 participants, all of which are female teleworkers with family responsibilities. Our main findings allow us to summarize the interviewees’ social perceptions into two categories, which we have dubbed ‘life sustainability ecologies’ and ‘presence-based ecologies’. We conclude by discussing female teleworkers’ claim that work–life balance is directly linked to social sustainability and that the latter goal will remain out of reach as long as the issue of balance goes unresolved.

New Telework, Time Pressure, and Time Use Control in Everyday Life

This study explores how changing conditions for home-based telework affect the quality of life and social sustainability of workers in terms of time pressure and time use control in everyday life. Changing conditions concern the spread of telework to new types of jobs of a more routine character, involving new practices of unregulated work and anytime smartphone access. Empirically, we draw on survey data from a sample of 456 home-based teleworkers employed by six governmental agencies in Sweden. Results indicate that subjective time pressure is not associated with job type in terms of distinguishing between bounded case work and more independent analytical work. Time pressure is intensified by family-related factors, telework performed outside of working hours, and part-time work, and is moderated by the private use of smartphones. We find no significant associations between subjective time use control, job qualifications, and teleworking practice. Family situation and having small children at home reduce time use control. Also, high levels of smartphone use for work-related purposes are associated with reduced control.

Mobile knowledge workers and traditional mobile workers: Assessing the prevalence of multi-locational work in Europe

This article contributes to the discussion on flexible working by assessing empirically the prevalence of mobile, multi-locational work in Europe (EU-28, Norway and Switzerland). Drawing on data from the Sixth European Working Conditions Survey, the prevalence of multi-locational work across Europe is examined in terms of the knowledge intensity of the work. Knowledge-intensive occupations are characterised by a high level of individual skills, typically acquired through tertiary-level education, and a high degree of autonomy combined with frequent use of ICT. According to the results, working on mobile sites - a practice that augments working in the primary workplace - is most common in northern European countries, where the proportion of knowledge-intensive occupations is high. However, even in the Nordic region, knowledge workers predominantly work at their employers' premises. This finding is in marked contrast with the hyperbole and expectations which assume that ICT allows knowledge workers to work free from the constraints of time and space. Agriculture, construction and transport workers still represent the largest proportion of the mobile workforce. Knowledge-intensive job features, however, predict the adoption of working at home. The analysis adds to the literature on flexible working by taking into account both traditional and knowledge-intensive forms of multi-locational work as well as providing a cross-national comparison.

Resisting long working hours: The case of Spanish female teleworkers

Spain has some of the longest working days in the European Union and this presents problems for women employees, especially with regard to their work–life balance. Teleworking has been introduced as a possible solution. Our article analyses this working relationship and shows how female teleworkers produce new interpretations of time, space and agency. When it comes to time, we conclude that there is ‘gendered time’ and ‘resistance time’. This (a) illustrates how women who telework deploy different approaches in the way they relate to their temporal, spatial and material worlds, and (b) defines a particular type of agency associated with teleworking that vindicates their condition as both female workers and mothers, and denounces a patriarchal labour model designed by and for men.