Association of teleworking with employee psychosocial characteristics and well-being: A descriptive study

Abstract

In recent years, teleworking (also referred to as telecommuting) has been the focus of academic research, due to its wide implementation during the COVID-19 pandemic and its significant implications, including psychosocial effects, job satisfaction, and social interactions among employees. Thus, this study employed a quantitative approach to examine these concepts and determine to what extent they have been changed by the implementation of teleworking in companies. Based on the findings, the most important aspect of teleworking was the need for social interactions. These three concepts also showed a statistically significant, but not a strong correlation. First, the women in the sample had higher psychosocial effects and a greater need for social interactions, compared to the men, whereas the younger participants had less psychosocial effects. Second, the participants aged 51 - 60 years had lower averages for job satisfaction, while the participants aged 41 - 50 years had lower averages for social interactions. Third, those who worked in companies consisting of 51 - 200 employees had significantly higher psychosocial effects, but significantly lower job satisfaction, compared to the rest of the sample. Finally, demographic and work characteristics played important roles in the assessment of the impact of teleworking on psychosocial effects, job satisfaction, and social interactions.

Keywords

Job satisfaction / Social interactions / Psychosocial effects / Teleworking

Funding

None.

Conflict of interest

Paraskevi Theofilou is the Editorial Board Member of this journal and Guest Editor of this special issue, but was not in any way involved in the editorial and peer-review process conducted for this paper, directly or indirectly. Separately, other authors declared that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have influenced the work reported in this paper.

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