How Digitalization, Work-Family Balance, and Work Efficiency Can Influence Employees' Preferences for Teleworking in the Future

Abstract

During Covid-19 pandemic many employees found themselves in the new position of teleworkers. Proof of the last years, teleworking remains an alternative to the classic system, reason why in this paper we aim to examine, based on an online questionnaire, the perceptions of Romanian employees about the very complex aspects that teleworking involves: the new ICT tools and technologies adoption, impact on work efficiency, work-family balance, and employees physical and mental health. The paper is based on an empirical analysis of data, and the authors have used as research methods: testing the independence of groups (Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal Wallis) and the correlation between variables, categorical principal components analysis (CATPCA) and logistic regression model. Our findings show that several factors, such as flexible working hours, family time, and autonomy have a positive influence on the decision to telework, while IT security risks, interruptions and virtual meetings were not perceived by respondents as negatively influencing their decision to telework. However, the consequences for mental health, such as mental stress, lack of socialisation and the difficulty of separating working time from family time, lead respondents to prefer another working system. The implications of the research are relevant for policy makers, employers, and employees as they reveal which categories of employees are more likely to telework and why.

Applying IS-Enabled Telework during COVID-19 Lockdown Periods and Beyond: Insights from Employees in a Greek Banking Institution

“…We found that telework was well received by employees of different ranks and educational backgrounds, and especially by parents with young kids, who were able to spend more time with them while working from home. In line with reported evidence in past studies (Dimian et al 2023;Weinert and Weitzel 2023), everyone in our sample had mainly pleasant things to say about remote working, which helped them have a better work and personal life balance during the COVID-19 pandemic. The only negatives noted were in regards to the support they received from the organization in terms of the non-coverage of their work-related expenses, such as the provision of a laptop and the extra cost incurred for electricity/internet.…”

“…• Organizational issues, including work performance (Ficapal-Cusí et al 2023;Mirowska and Bakici 2023); employee-supervisor relationship (Park et al 2023); issues with communication, trust, control, and productivity (Fontaneda et al 2023), especially in the context of banking institutions (Meyer et al 2022); the need to reform organizational processes (Yanagihara and Koga 2023); focus more on cooperation than subordination and increasing autonomy (Junça Silva and Coelho 2023;Stanciu et al 2023); need to reform organizational culture to fit the telework model while focusing on trust equality and confidentiality (Junça Silva and Coelho 2023;Mirowska and Bakici 2023;Bayazitova et al 2023); and re-structure organizational benefits policy to fit the telework model (Brandão and Ramos 2023;Fontaneda et al 2023), as well as utilize flexible working hours (Dimian et al 2023).…”

“…• The effect of telework on employees' emotional status and work-life balance, including the need to focus and alleviate issues with the social consequences of teleworking in the form of stress and/or technostress (Goñi-Legaz et al 2023;Dimian et al 2023;Gualano et al 2023), andtechno-isolation (Goñi-Legaz et al 2023); the effects of telework on the workers' social lives (Stanciu et al 2023); work intensification during telework (Rebelo et al 2024); feelings of unfairness on behalf of the employees not teleworking (Lee and Gascó-Hernandez 2023;Krajčík et al 2023;Fontaneda et al 2023); a decreased need for commuting that leads to time saved for personal life (Rebelo et al 2024); and a general preference for part-time/hybrid work model rather than full-time teleworking (Krajčík et al 2023). These effects have partly been reported as moderated by employees' demographic profile in terms of gender and age (Raišien ė et al 2023), or-in the case of banking institutions-employees' position in the organization and level of remuneration (Uford et al 2023), as well as the level of intensity of telework imposed (Chambel et al 2023).…”

“…The COVID-19 pandemic in essence forced organizations to adopt telework (many of which without any prior preparation), thus influencing not only daily organizational routines but also workers' well-being and happiness (Junça Silva and Coelho 2023). A recent study conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic found the following: (a) several factors, such as flexible working hours, family time, and autonomy, have a positive influence on the decision to telework; (b) IT security risks, interruptions, and virtual meetings do not negatively influence the employees' decision to telework; (c) the social consequences of telework (mental stress, lack of socialization and the difficulty of separating working time from family time) lead employees to prefer other forms of work (Dimian et al 2023). However, although full-time telework brings important changes in working conditions and has the potential to affect the living and health conditions (psychosocial factors) of teleworkers, part-time teleworking may, on the contrary, have a positive impact on psychosocial risk factors, favoring work-home balance, communication, and social relationships (Antunes et al 2023).…”

Towards Achieving Sustainable Development in China: What Role Does Digital Technologies and Green Technologies Play?

“…The findings of multiple regression analysis revealed the positive contribution of ICT in economic growth of the economies irrespective of the level of development. Scrutinizing global panel of 149 countries, (Majeed & Ayub, 2018) studied the effect of ICT related technologies on economic growth and according to the findings of GMM, OLS, 2SLS and Pooled OLS estimations, ICT technologies were found to promote the economic growth at regional and global level (Chau et al, 2023;Dimian, Gheorghe, Boldeanu, & Maftei, 2023).…”