When the exception becomes the norm: A quantitative analysis of the dark side of work from home

Abstract

Although many scholars and practitioners have shown that work from home (WFH) leads to positive organizational outcomes, the COVID-19 outbreak’s consequences suggest important downsides associated with an increased extent of WFH. Utilizing theories of social identity and need to belong, this study aims to investigate the potential dark sides of an increased extent of WFH. In a moderated mediation model, we test how an increased extent of WFH affects feelings of isolation and further influences the employees’ organizational identification. Our study is based on data from an online survey of 382 employees in Germany. Results suggest that a higher extent of WFH during the COVID-19 lockdown leads to more social isolation and less organizational identification. Besides, our results show that task interdependence significantly moderates the correlation between an increased extent of WFH and social isolation. In such manner, our study contributes to the literature on potential counterproductive organizational effects caused by an increased necessity of WFH. Organizations must develop countermeasures to better integrate employees who WFH more intensely into organizational routines to decrease their feelings of social isolation and increase their organizational identification.

Normative telecommuting: the effects of group composition and task interdependence on telecommuter and non-telecommuter performance

“…The current study contributes to what is known about task interdependence and telecommuting by showing that the combined effect of group task interdependence and group composition on the relationship between telecommuting and performance demonstrates that the negative effects of task interdependence on telecommuting performance can be attenuated by increasing the proportion of telecommuters in the group. These results are complementary to those found by Kossen and van der Berg (2022) in that this study also suggests that as telecommuting becomes more prominent (either through individual-level intensity, or the proportion of group members who telecommute), some attribute of the work environment must be changing in order to attenuate these negative effects. We surmise that as telecommuting becomes more normative to the group, group norms are probably adapting to ensure group survival and to increase the predictability of expected group behaviors (Feldman, 1984).…”

“…the amount of time spent telecommuting as a proportion of total working time) interacts with task interdependence such that performance increases with teleworking intensity for those who perceive their jobs to be less interdependent, whereas telecommuting intensity is not associated with performance for those who perceive high levels of interdependence. Kossen and van der Berg (2022) show that task interdependence moderates the relationship between telecommuting intensity and social isolation such that interdependence attenuates the relationship. Shockley et al (2021) demonstrate that task interdependence moderates the relationship between supervisor expectations and performance of telecommuters such that when interdependence is high, the relationship is weaker.…”

“…demonstrating that one is on time, working long hours, appearing to work hard and having so-called face time with coworkers and managers). Indeed, some researchers have proposed that the violation of such norms is the reason for many negative outcomes associated with telecommuting, such as isolation and lack of organizational identification (Kossen and van der Berg, 2022). It is feasible that groups for whom telecommuting is commonplace develop their own norms, because those norms associated with co-located work are not intended or optimized for telecommuting, and could feasibly detract from the performance and well-being of telecommuters.…”

Roads to recovery in remote working. Exploration of the perceptions of energy-consuming elements of remote work and self-promoted strategies toward psychological detachment

“…Moreover, physical distance from the work community impedes access to social support in the work context (Charalampous et al. , 2022; Kossen and Berg, 2022; Wang et al. , 2021; Sardeshmukh et al.…”

“…Moreover, remote working cannot be separated from an increased sense of professional and social isolation (Charalampous et al. , 2022; Kossen and Berg, 2022; Wang et al. , 2021) and the consequential lack of social support (Sardeshmukh et al.…”