Download pdf
Impact of Digital Technology on Employee Wellbeing in the Context of Teleworking During COVID-19
- 1 University of Exeter
* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
COVID-19 significantly impacted economic and social life worldwide, and telecommuting has become the only option for many companies and organizations to continue operating during this time. While telecommuting is not a new concept, the mass adoption of telecommuting during a pandemic is unprecedented. The widespread adoption of digital technology has highlighted the importance of digital technology in enabling telecommuting. However, the emerging telecommuting model brings new challenges and raises concerns about employee wellbeing. One of the key issues is employee health and well-being. This paper examines the impact of digital technology on employee wellbeing in a telecommuting environment through a literature review and an empirical study. The study finds that using digital technology has positive and negative impacts on employee wellbeing. Digital technology can improve communication, collaboration, and productivity, providing employees greater flexibility and autonomy. On the other hand, however, digital technology can also lead to problems such as information overload, blurred boundaries between work and life, and increased stress and fatigue. The impact of digital technology on employee wellbeing depends on various factors, including the type of technology used, the nature of the work performed, and the characteristics of the employee.
Keywords
digital technology, employee wellbeing, teleworking
[1]. International Accounting Standards Board.. Amendment to International Accounting Standard IAS 19, Employee Benefits: Actuarial Gains and Losses, Group Plans and Disclosures (Vol. 19). IASCF Publications Department, (2004)
[2]. Galanti, T., Guidetti, G., Mazzei, E., Zappalà, S., Toscano, F.: Work from home during the COVID-19 outbreak: The impact on employees’ remote work productivity, engagement, and stress. Journal of occupational and environmental medicine, 63(7), e426 (2021).
[3]. Gajendran, R. S., Harrison, D. A.. The good, the bad, and the unknown about telecommuting: a meta-analysis of psychological mediators and individual consequences. Journal of applied psychology 92(6), 1524 (2007).
[4]. Golden, T. D., Veiga, J. F., Dino, R. N.: The impact of professional isolation on teleworker job performance and turnover intentions: does time spent teleworking, interacting face-to-face, or having access to communication-enhancing technology matter?. Journal of applied psychology 93(6), 1412 (2008).
[5]. Bakker, D., Kazantzis, N., Rickwood, D., Rickard, N.: Mental health smartphone apps: review and evidence-based recommendations for future developments. JMIR mental health 3(1), e4984 (2016).
[6]. Kossek, E. E., Valcour, M., Lirio, P.: Organizational strategies for promoting work–life balance and benefits. Work and benefits 3, 295-319 (2014).
[7]. Shockley, K. M., Shen, W., DeNunzio, M. M., Arvan, M. L., Knudsen, E. A.: Disentangling the relationship between gender and work–family conflict: An integration of theoretical perspectives using meta-analytic methods. Journal of Applied Psychology102(12), 1601 (2017).
[8]. Burchell, B., Wang, S., Kamerāde, D., Bessa, I., Rubery, J.: Cut hours, not people: no work, furlough, short hours, and mental health during COVID-19 pandemic in the UK (2020).
[9]. Derks, B., Van Laar, C., Ellemers, N.: The queen bee phenomenon: Why women leaders distance themselves from junior women. The Leadership Quarterly 27(3), 456-469 (2016).
[10]. Baumeister, R. F., Leary, M. R.: The need to belong: desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. Psychological bulletin 117(3), 497 (1995).
[11]. Raghuram, P. (2008). Migrant women in male‐dominated sectors of the labour market: a research agenda. Population, space and place, 14(1), 43-57.
[12]. Kreitzer, L., Brintnell, S. E., Austin, W.: Institutional barriers to healthy workplace environments: From the voices of social workers experiencing compassion fatigue. The British Journal of Social Work 50(7), 1942-1960 (2020).
[13]. Toscano, F., Zappalà, S.: Social isolation and stress as predictors of productivity perception and remote work satisfaction during the COVID-19 pandemic: The role of concern about the virus in a moderated double mediation. Sustainability 12(23), 980 4 (2020).
[14]. Boamah, S. A., Hamadi, H. Y., Havaei, F., Smith, H., Webb, F.: Striking a balance between work and play: The effects of work–life interference and burnout on faculty turnover intentions and career satisfaction. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 19(2), 809 (2022).
[15]. Hasson, R., Sallis, J. F., Coleman, N., Kaushal, N., Nocera, V. G., Keith, N.. COVID-19: Implications for physical activity, health disparities, and health equity. American Journal of lifestyle medicine 16(4), 420-433 (2022).
[16]. Thompson, N. A., Verduijn, K., Gartner, W. B.: Entrepreneurship-as-practice: Grounding contemporary theories of practice into entrepreneurship studies. Entrepreneurship & Regional Development 32(3-4), 247-256 (2020).
Cite this article
Xu,P. (2023). Impact of Digital Technology on Employee Wellbeing in the Context of Teleworking During COVID-19. Advances in Economics, Management and Political Sciences,33,219-224.
Data availability
The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study will be available from the authors upon reasonable request.
Disclaimer/Publisher's Note
The statements, opinions and data contained in all publications are solely those of the individual author(s) and contributor(s) and not of EWA Publishing and/or the editor(s). EWA Publishing and/or the editor(s) disclaim responsibility for any injury to people or property resulting from any ideas, methods, instructions or products referred to in the content.
About volume
Volume title: Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Economic Management and Green Development
© 2024 by the author(s). Licensee EWA Publishing, Oxford, UK. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and
conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license. Authors who
publish this series agree to the following terms:
1. Authors retain copyright and grant the series right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this
series.
2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the series's published
version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial
publication in this series.
3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and
during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See
Open access policy for details).