An exploration of the psychological factors affecting remote e-worker's job effectiveness, well-being and work-life balance

• Published in: Employee relations Vol. 35; no. 5; pp. 527 - 546
• Main Authors: Grant, Christine A, Wallace, Louise M, Spurgeon, Peter C
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bradford Emerald Group Publishing Limited 09-08-2013
• Subjects: Employees; Employers; Flexibility; Human resource management; Job satisfaction; Mental health; Productivity; Stress; Studies; Supervisors; Telecommuting; Trust; Work life balance; Workers; Well-being; Job effectiveness; Remote workers; Teleworking; Psychology; E-working; Management style; Trust; Quality of working life; Work-life balance
• ISSN: 0142-5455; 1758-7069
• DOI: 10.1108/ER-08-2012-0059

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of remote e-working on the key research areas of work-life balance, job effectiveness and well-being. The study provides a set of generalisable themes drawn from the key research areas, including building trust, management style and the quality of work and non-working life.Design methodology approach - The paper is an exploratory study into the psychological factors affecting remote e-workers using qualitative thematic analysis of eleven in-depth interviews with e-workers, across five organisations and three sectors. All participants worked remotely using technology independent of time and location for several years and considered themselves to be experts.Findings - The paper provides insights into the diverse factors affecting remote e-workers and produces ten emerging themes. Differentiating factors between e-workers included access to technology, ability to work flexibly and individual competencies. Adverse impacts were found on well-being, due to over-working and a lack of time for recuperation. Trust and management style were found to be key influences on e-worker effectiveness.Research limitations implications - Because of the exploratory nature of the research and approach the research requires further testing for generalisability. The emerging themes could be used to develop a wide-scale survey of e-workers, whereby the themes would be further validated.Practical implications - Practical working examples are provided by the e-workers and those who also manage e-workers based on the ten emerging themes.Originality value - This paper identifies a number of generalisable themes that can be used to inform the psychological factors affecting remote e-worker effectiveness.