Adjusting to epidemic-induced telework: empirical insights from teleworkers in France

Abstract

The covid-19 pandemic crisis presents unprecedented challenges and has profound implications for the way people live and work. Information and communication technologies have been playing a crucial role in ensuring business continuity as lockdown measures have suddenly forced employees from across the globe to telework, often leaving them unprepared and ill-equipped. This paper develops an epidemic-induced telework adjustment model derived from the theory of Work Adjustment and the Interactional Model of Individual Adjustment. It is tested on a sample of 1574 teleworkers in France. The results demonstrate the superiority of the influence of crisis-specific variables that are professional isolation, telework environment, work increase and stress. Implications for research are discussed while concrete and actionable recommendations for organisations are provided.

Implications of Employment Changes Caused by COVID-19 on Mental Health and Work-Related Psychological Need Satisfaction of Autistic Employees: A Mixed-Methods Longitudinal Study

“…Contrary to our hypotheses, satisfaction of the need for social relatedness remained stable in the absence of daily face-to-face interactions. In the general population, social isolation and lack of communication with colleagues were indicated as central disadvantages of remote work (Boell et al 2013;Carillo et al 2020). Our findings, that feelings of social-relatedness remained after the transition to remote work, and that most participants were satisfied with the alternative communication possibilities and the supports received from their employers, are encouraging in relation to remote work arrangements of autistic adults.…”

The show must go on - virtualisation of sport events during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…Related work -also focusing on the role of technology to help better cope with the COVID-19 pandemic (Carillo et al, 2020;Hacker et al, 2020;Keesara et al, 2020;Waizenegger et al, 2020) -emphasises the acceptance, usage, and implications of video conferencing technology. Research on virtual worlds often relates to virtual video gaming worlds, but also highlights use cases in professional athletes' training, education, and healthcare (Billieux et al, 2013;Flavián et al, 2019;Vignais et al, 2015).…”

“…Lastly, the educational component of sports digitalisation concerns how it enables and requires the acquisition of specific skills, i.e., training and learning, not only for athletes but also related stakeholders, such Remote collaboration (Carillo et al, 2020;Park et al, 2014;Waizenegger et al, 2020), Telemedicine (Keesara et al, 2020), Distance learning (Lakhal et al, 2013), Leisure (Hacker et al, 2020) Games, such as Pokémon Go (Althoff et al, 2016;Rauschnabel et al, 2017), Smart glasses (Rauschnabel, 2018;Rauschnabel et al, 2018), Education (Bacca et al, 2014;Yuen et al, 2011), Commercial (Rauschnabel et al, 2019;Van Esch et al, 2019) Remote collaboration (Regenbrecht et al, 2004), Enabling peripheral realworld interactions (Budhiraja et al, 2015;Von Willich et al, 2019) Games, such as Second Life and World of Warcraft (Billieux et al, 2013;Penfold, 2009), Healthcare (Huygelier et al, 2019), Education (Huang et al, 2016), Athletes' training (Craig et al, 2009;Vignais et al, 2015) as coaches (Loy, 1968). Digital technologies allow for innovative training methods, which might improve training possibilities and effectiveness.…”

“…While for work and different parts of private life, digital solutions already exist and have been studied (e. g., Carillo et al, 2020;Waizenegger et al, 2020), the COVID-19 pandemic shows that there is substantial lack of digital sporting alternatives (e.g., Hacker et al, 2020), even though sporting activity, in many cases as part of a group, represents an integral part in the lives of billions of people (Mehrsafar et al, 2020;Yeo, 2020). However, a novel type of application enables users to engage in physical activity and to interact virtually mediated, while being embedded in a virtual world.…”

Managing Pandemics—Demands, Resources, and Effective Behaviors Within Crisis Management Teams

“…The ongoing COVID‐19 pandemic has changed our work life in many ways (e.g., Kniffin, Narayanan, Anseel, Antonakis, Ashford, Bakker, Bamberger, Bapuji, Bhave, Choi, Creary, Demerouti, Flynn, Gelfand, Greer, Johns, Kesebir, Klein, & Lee, 2020; Rudolph, Allan, Clark, Hertel, Hirschi, Kunze, Shockley, Shoss, Sonnentag, & Zacher, 2020), and, for epistemic reasons and to derive practical support strategies, a growing number of studies are addressing the psychological implications of this pandemic. However, while extant research has focused on multiple groups of workers, such as hospital staff, grocery clerks, teleworkers, and delivery drivers (e.g., Bartsch, Weber, Büttgen, & Huber, in press; Brooks, Dunn, Amlôt, Rubin, Greenberg, 2018; Carillo, Cachat‐Rosset, Marsan, Saba, & Klarsfeld, 2020; Lissoni, Del Negro, Brioschi, Casella, Fontana, Bruni, & Lamiani, 2020), so far no study has focused on the task forces that have been installed to manage the pandemic situation. Crisis management teams (CMTs) at the municipal, district, state, and national levels coordinate various prevention, mitigation, and response activities—and they are required to operate quickly and appropriately in an ambiguous, risky, and constantly changing environment.…”