Perception of home teleworking during COVID-19 crisis in Spain: significant factors and assymetrical influence on acceptance and resistance

Abstract

PurposeThis paper aims to shed light on the perception of the consequences of implementing home teleworking (TW) for employers and employees amid the pandemic. By doing so, the research analyzes the factors that explain employers' and employees' perceptions of home TW and the symmetry of their impact on its acceptance and rejection.Design/methodology/approachThe analysis is done over the survey “Trends in the digital society during SARS-COV-2 crisis in Spain” by the Spanish “Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas.” The explanatory variables were selected and classified using the well-known taxonomy of Baruch and Nicholson (i.e. individual factors, family/home, organizational and job-related).FindingsThe global judgment of HTW is positive, but factors such as gender, age, children in care or being an employer nuance that perception. While some factors, such as the attitude of employees toward information communication technologies (ICTs), perceived productivity or the distance from home to work, have a significant link with both positive and negative perceptions of HTW, other factors can only explain either positive or negative perceptions. Likewise, the authors observed that being female and having children on care had a detrimental influence on opinions about HTW.Practical implicationsA clearer regulation of TW is needed to prevent imbalances in rights and obligations between companies and employees. The authors also highlight the potentially favorable effects of telecommuting on mitigating depopulation in rural areas.Originality/valueThe authors have also measured not only the significance of assessed factors on the overall judgment of HTW for firms and workers but also whether these factors impact acceptance and resistance attitudes toward TW symmetrically.

Spanish Workers’ Judgement of Telecommuting during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Mixed-Method Evaluation

“…A commonly cited reason is that home teleworking (HTW) is often linked to reduced organizational commitment, as teleworkers might develop a stronger commitment to working from home rather than to their organization, leading to a more transactional perspective on their relationship with their employer [2]. Furthermore, the implementation of telework arrangements requires an initial effort from the company, which can be substantial both in terms of financial investment and organizational adjustments [24].…”

“…The attitudes of coworkers and managers moderate the image or reputation perceived by an individual when they make use of telework and the importance that it would have for completing work with this modality [33]. It has been widely documented that widespread employers' and managers' reluctance to remote working practices is due to the difficulty associated with monitoring workers who are not working from the office [2,24].…”

“…A critical aspect for companies implementing telecommuting is to identify the worker profiles that are better suited to telecommuting [2]. In [24], it is shown that the explanatory factors for the acceptance of home-based telework do not symmetrically impact the acceptance and rejection of telecommuting. In this study, the implemented configurational analysis enables the identification of worker profiles with receptive and resistant attitudes towards home-based telework.…”

“…Similarly, the mechanisms that lead to acceptance and resistance to new technologies are not symmetrical, and this holds true in the context of telecommuting [24]. In this regard, fsQCA allows for the capture of asymmetric explanations of the presence or absence of a specific outcome [17,23].…”