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Home-based remote work becomes increasingly popular. The facets of remote work, especially working from home, are multifaceted and can become stressors that affect a person’s health. At the same time, self-efficacy is an important personal resource to deal with health-related stressors. The objective of this study is therefore to explore the relationship between self-efficacy (SE), work-related stress (WRS), health outcomes (health and anxiety), contributing factors (autonomy and experience) and work-family conflict (WFC) in a remote work setting. Using a PLS-model (partial least square) with a sample of n = 5163 responses, we found that SE significantly reduces WRS (β = −0.164; p < 0.001). Moreover, WFC increases WRS and anxiety, while SE reduces WFC and mediates health outcomes (anxiety: β = −0.065; p < 0.001; health: β = −0.048; p < 0.001). At the same time, autonomy (β = 0.260; p < 0.001) and experience (β = 0.215; p < 0.001) increase SE. Our results have high practical implications for employers and employees, underlining the importance of self-efficacy as a personal resource to buffer WRS and WFC while promoting overall health at the same time.

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Distance learners are often referred to as ‘lone wolves' who, as a result of the geographical distance and other system-specific characteristics of distance learning programs, place little emphasis on communicating with the university and, in particular, their fellow students. This article, following a demonstration of the developments in the field of distance learning, focuses on the communication patterns of distance learners. As part of a quantitative study, the students of a German distance university answered a survey on this topic. A significant result was the division of the students into three groups according to their tendency to communicate: Power communicators, regular communicators, and the lone wolves. Moreover, a shift within the student cohorts can be identified: students in later semesters prefer synchronous communication as opposed to the asynchronous use of emails. Learning analytics and a shift in the role of academic support towards mentoring can support an increase in the tendency to communicate and, ultimately, in student motivation and performance.