Telework: A Social and Emotional Perspective of the Impact on Employees' Wellbeing in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2023 Jan 18;20(3):1811. doi: 10.3390/ijerph20031811.

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic gives us the largest telework experiment ever conducted globally, that will most likely leave visible and lasting marks on the organization of the labor market in the future. The purpose of this approach is to investigate the wellbeing from the social and emotional perspective of the individual, considering relevant relational communication, emotional dimension, work intensity, organization, autonomy and work-life balance, customized in the context of teleworking. The information was collected using a semi-structured questionnaire. The wellbeing assessment was performed based on the correlation analysis and the regression analysis. The results of the studies reveal that the existence of adequate communication and work-life balance ensure the wellbeing of telework employees, while the increase in work intensity degrades it. Furthermore, good communication moderates the relationship between organizational skills and wellbeing. The comparative analysis of wellbeing in relation to the explanatory variables considered by including the gender and age perspective reveals the existence of different configurations, with specific signs and statistical meanings.

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic; autonomy; emotional dimension; organization; relational communication; telework; wellbeing; work intensity; work–life balance.

MeSH terms

  • COVID-19* / epidemiology
  • Communication
  • Emotions
  • Humans
  • Pandemics
  • Teleworking*

Grants and funding

This research received no external funding.