Telework Implications on Work-Life Balance, Productivity, and Health of Different Generations of Romanian Employees

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to analyse the impact of telework on the work-life balance, productivity, and health of different generations of Romanian employees. Qualitative and quantitative methods provide the means to exploit the richness of data and deepen the understanding of the phenomenon studied. The quantitative data derived from a research instrument was associated with qualitative data collection. Quantitative research was conducted to achieve the stated purpose using the survey method, the number of respondents being 1098 persons. The research tool was an online questionnaire. Results highlight how telework affected each generation of employees. The satisfaction towards teleworking achieved by Generation Z and Baby Boomers is, on average, higher than that of Generation Y and X. The differences between the age groups (Generation Z, Y, X, and Baby Boomers) in terms of telework satisfaction levels were also tested, considering each of the three aspects examined and presented in the article’s title. At the conceptual level, research brings a new methodological approach as an element of originality that can be used for similar future research. Moreover, new concepts on the effects of telework on employees were connected and analysed simultaneously: work-life balance, productivity, and health of employees during teleworking. At the operational level, this type of research can determine the degree of satisfaction of employees in different companies/organizations and identify solutions to increase employee engagement.

Negative Impact of Telework, Job Insecurity, and Work–Life Conflict on Employee Behaviour

“…The existence of some positive influences between working from home and the feeling of professional isolation felt daily by fully remote employees (β = 0.423; T-value = 3.184; p < 0.01) was demonstrated, but also for those working partially from home (β = 0.283; T-value = 2.364; p < 0.05) [38]. During the COVID-19 pandemic, organisations that adopted teleworking provided a large variety of technological tools for maintaining good communication, but this was not enough to avoid professional isolation [50], social isolation, marginalisation, and other forms of deterioration in the quality of relationships between co-workers and employees [124]. Therefore, professional isolation becomes a negative outcome of telework (see H4).…”

“…One study concluded that teleworking generated strain for employees in the form of work-family conflicts due to difficulty of detaching themselves from work at the end of the day. Personal difficulties and remote working contributed to the feeling of professional disconnection between teleworkers and their co-workers and their supervisors [50]. Another study found that work-life conflict was generated because many employees were required to work with children, teenagers, or young adults who were also working from home, generating a difficult management of boundaries which increased conflict [103].…”

“…Work-life conflict generated by teleworking also contributes to increasing professional isolation as our results prove (see H5). Even though the implication of work-life conflict has not been previously tested, studies in the context of COVID-19 indicate several negative implications of work-life conflict and a lack of boundaries, which increases the sense of professional isolation felt by the employee [50]. Interruption and increased conflict with family also have a negative impact on employee well-being [51].…”

“…Teleworking was also associated in previous research with an increase in workload and an increase in responsibilities, as they included house duties alongside work tasks [49]. The boundaries between work and family responsibilities become unclear [50]. Teleworkers also have weakened boundaries regarding working hours, co-worker disturbances, and interruptions, which each generate a negative impact on their well-being [51].…”

The direct and indirect effects of workplace loneliness on FoMO: Nomophobia and general belongingness

“…The risk of nomophobia and FoMO is increasing for employees (Farivar & Richardson, 2021;Marsh et al, 2022) due to reasons such as the use of mobile technologies to perform more tasks at work for millennials and becoming a part of organizational environments, providing temporal and spatial flexibilities on the one hand, and the potential to interrupt other activities such as e-mail, notifications, etc. outside of working hours (Ivasciuc et al, 2022). Studies addressing these risks have mainly focused on the effects of nomophobia or FoMO.…”