New Ways to Perform: Employees’ Perspective on Remote Work and Psychological Security in the Post-Pandemic Era

Abstract

With the increasing prevalence of remote work, understanding how it impacts employee perception, psychological safety, and job performance is critical for organisations. This study aims to investigate the relationships among these variables using a cross-sectional quantitative design and a questionnaire consisting of three scales: the Worktango employee sentiment around remote work survey, the Worktango psychological health and safety survey, and Goodman and Svyantek’s performance scale. Our sample included 857 participants, both managers and non-managers, from a large insurance company. Our first two hypotheses were confirmed using non-parametric Kruskal–Wallis tests: employee sentiment around remote work as part of hybrid work is more favourable in non-sales fields and among employees who actually work remotely more often. Moreover, we found that psychological safety moderates the relationship between employee sentiment around remote work and work performance. Specifically, we observed that the positive relationship between employee sentiment around remote work and work performance is stronger when psychological safety is high. Overall, our findings contribute to the understanding of how remote work is perceived by employees and its relationship and impact on their psychological safety and job performance. These insights can help organisations develop effective policies and practices for remote work that support their employees’ well-being and performance.

A Self-Categorization Perspective of Idiosyncratic Deals and Creativity: Mediating Role of Perceived Insider Status and Moderating Role of Psychological Safety

“…Psychological safety continues to be a focus of attention for many scholars in recent research into more creative ways of working, such as virtual teams and hybrid work. 39,40 Psychological safety is closely related to the workplace and is highly susceptible to factors such as organizational culture, climate of trust and perceived safety, and leadership. [41][42][43] In addition, the positive relationship between psychological safety and team performance and innovation, information sharing and adaptability within organizations has been confirmed by many scholars.…”

Happiness Is ‘Being Yourself’: Psychological Safety and Fun in Hybrid Work

“…Early work looked specifically at 'psychological climates', which referred to the shared perceptions and attitudes of employees about organizational values, norms, and the overall work atmosphere (Brown and Leigh 1996). The concept of a 'Psychological Safety climate' (PSC) refers to the extent to which employees perceive their work environment as psychologically and socially supportive and safe (Bond et al 2010), and this extends to flexible work arrangements, such as hybrid work and virtual teams (Barton 2021;Dzandu et al 2023;Juutinen et al 2023;Lee 2021;Parkin et al 2022;Radu et al 2023;Sjöblom et al 2022). A positive PSC indicates that the organization prioritizes employees' well-being, fosters a healthy work environment, and is associated with positive work cultures (Dollard et al 2017) and ethical cultures of trust (Ferrère et al 2022).…”

A Model for the Acceptance and Use of Online Meeting Tools

“…Employees have geographic flexibility to live where they want, eliminate commuting, and report a better work-life balance [7,8]. However, concerns remain about how remote work influences communication, collaboration, information sharing, socializing, performance appraisal, and data security [9][10][11].…”

“…Although developers are working remotely, it is worth noting that post-pandemic remote work differs from traditional forms. With an employee-centered approach, the adaptation of individuals working from home after the pandemic to these technologies becomes the primary focus [9,18,19,21,23]. Therefore, it is necessary to identify the factors that influence the acceptance of online meeting tools by employees.…”