Keeping Up With Work Email After Hours and Employee Wellbeing: Examining Relationships During and Prior to the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many employees to work from home (WFH) and more heavily rely on technology to conduct work, calling for further empirical investigation into the effects of work-related technology and the WFH environment on employee wellbeing. This study investigates the relationship between work-related email (WRE) use during nonwork hours and emotional exhaustion in a sample of U.S. employees required to WFH during the pandemic, with results suggesting that psychological detachment and work-family conflict (WFC) play important roles in this relationship. Furthermore, telepressure (i.e., the preoccupation/urge to promptly respond to WRE) moderated the relationship between WRE use and psychological detachment, which offers insight into the psychological processes behind WRE use after hours. Direct and indirect effects between WRE use and emotional exhaustion were also compared to effects generated using data from an independent sample of pre-pandemic in-office employees to determine whether the pandemic context has amplified the observed relationships. Results show that all direct/indirect effects, except for the effect of WRE use after hours on psychological detachment, were stronger in those required to WFH. These findings shed light onto the similarities and differences between the current and pre-pandemic work landscapes and have important implications for lawmakers, organizational leaders, and employees.

The Work-Home Border Accounting System: A Function of Psychological Detachment

“…Thus, work-to-home interruption reduces psychological detachment (Smith et al, 2021). Tedone (2022) confirmed from a study of 173 full-time administrative assistants working from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States that keeping up with work-related email outside of work hours obstructs chances to psychologically detach from work. Thus, psychological detachment performs a crucial role in work-related email use's relationship with wellbeing.…”

“…COVID-19 pandemic disrupts how and where work is conducted, and many organizations have shifted entirely to the virtual work model (Tedone, 2022). Work-from-home has reformed work's psychosocial and environmental facets .…”

Workplace ostracism and employee wellbeing: A conservation of resource perspective

“…As China's economy takes off and material living standards improve, people are becoming more and more conscious of their physical and psychological health and wellbeing experiences. The term “wellbeing” has gradually appeared in organization management ( 9 ) as a relatively broad concept that includes three aspects: work, psychology, and life ( 10 ). For employees, wellbeing is closely related to individual work engagement ( 11 ), life satisfaction ( 12 ), and occupational health ( 13 ).…”

The double-edged sword of online access to work tools outside work: The relationship with flexible working, work interrupting nonwork behaviors and job satisfaction

“…However, ubiquitous access to work is also accompanied with negative side effects such as mental health deterioration, which was highly likely during the pandemic ( 2 , 3 ). Since working from home during the pandemic was not an autonomous choice, it is important to investigate the relationship of flexible working and boundary management without the omnipresent fear of COVID-19 ( 4 , 5 ).…”

“…We connect two different research streams: the literature on flexible working and the blurred boundaries between work and nonwork literature. Only recently, due to the COVID-l9 pandemic, both research streams have been started to be researched jointly ( 5 ). Both, however, require OAWT and, therefore, we investigate how OAWT shapes flexible working and the relationship with work interrupting nonwork behaviors and job satisfaction (see Figure 1 ).…”