Evden Çalışma ile İş ve İş Dışı Yaşam Dengesi Arasındaki İlişkide Uzayan Ulaşılabilirlik Halinin Düzenleyici Rolü
Ferhat Ayyıldız, Samet ArslanEvden çalışma, COVID-19 pandemisi esnasındaki izolasyon gereklilikleri nedeniyle daha yaygın hale gelmiştir. Karantina önlemleri kaldırılmış olsa da evden çalışma devam etmekte ve birçok çalışan için bu uygulamanın kalıcı hale gelmesi beklenmektedir. Ancak, evden çalışmanın iş ve iş dışı yaşam alanlarını dengelemedeki etkinliği üzerine yapılan araştırmalarda çelişkili sonuçlar elde edilmiştir. Evden çalışmanın sonuçları, kurumların bu çalışma sürecini nasıl yönettiğine bağlı olarak farklılık gösterebilir. Bu nedenle, evden çalışmanın hangi durumlarda çalışanların iş ve iş dışı yaşam dengesi için faydalı olduğunu incelemek kritik öneme sahiptir. Bu araştırma, uzayan ulaşılabilirliğin evden çalışma ile iş ve iş dışı yaşam dengesi arasındaki ilişkiyi nasıl düzenlediğini inceleyerek bu konuda katkı sağlamayı amaçlamaktadır. Hem evden çalışma sistemi hem uzayan ulaşılabilirlik hali bilgi ve iletişim teknolojilerinin kullanımına dayalıdır. Bilgi ve iletişim teknolojileri, çalışanlara işlerini her zaman ve her yerde yerine getirebilme olanağı sağlaması açısından faydalı görülse de onlar için bazı potansiyel sorunlar da yaratmaktadır. Uzayan ulaşılabilirlik çalışanların psikolojik olarak işten ayrılmalarını önler ve iyileşme sürecini engeller. Bu nedenle, daha yüksek düzeylerdeki uzayan ulaşılabilirlik halinin evden çalışmanın denge sağlamaya yönelik olumlu etkisini azaltacağı öne sürülmektedir. Araştırmamızın katılımcıları, farklı sektörlerdeki 307 çalışandan oluşmaktadır. Verileri toplamak için çevrimiçi anket formu ile kesitsel bir tasarım ve hipotez testi için PROCESS makro kullanılmıştır. Sonuçlar, evden çalışmanın çalışanların iş ve iş dışı yaşam dengesi ile ilişkisinin anlamlı düzeyde olmadığını göstermektedir. Bununla birlikte, evden çalışma ve uzayan ulaşılabilirliğin iş ve iş dışı yaşam dengesi üzerindeki etkileşim etkisi anlamlıdır. Durumsal etkiler, evden çalışmanın iş ve iş dışı yaşam dengesi üzerindeki etkisinin yalnızca uzayan ulaşılabilirlik düşük olduğunda anlamlı ve pozitif olduğunu göstermektedir. Bu bulgular, daha yüksek düzeyde uzayan ulaşılabilirliğin, evden çalışmanın iş ve iş dışı yaşam arasında dengeyi korumadaki faydalarını engelleyebileceğine işaret etmektedir.
Working from Home and Balancing Work and Nonwork Life: The Moderating Role of Extended Availability
Ferhat Ayyıldız, Samet ArslanThe practice of working from home (WFH) has become more common due to the isolation requirements during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although quarantine measures have been lifted, WFH continues and is expected to become permanent for many employees. However, research on the effectiveness of WFH with regard to balancing the work and nonwork life domains has yielded contradictory results. The outcomes of WFH may differ depending on how organizations manage this work process. Thus, examining the situations in which WFH is beneficial is critical for balancing employees’ work and nonwork lives. This study aims to contribute to the growing body of WFH studies by examining how extended availability moderates the relationship between WFH and the work-nonwork balance. Both the WFH practice and extended availability are based on the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs). Although ICTs are considered beneficial because they provide employees with the opportunity to carry out their work anytime and anywhere, they also create some potential problems for employees. Extended availability results in employees being prevented from psychologically disengaging from work and hinders their recovery process. Thus, this study proposes higher extended availability to reduce WFH’s positive effect on the work-nonwork balance. The study’s respondents involve 307 employees from different sectors. The study uses a cross-sectional design and online questionnaire to collect the data and PROCESS macro to test the hypothesis. The results reveal that WFH is not significantly associated with employees’ work-nonwork balance. However, the interactive effects of WFH and extended availability on the work-nonwork balance are significant. Conditional effects have shown WFH’s effects on the worknonwork balance to only be significant when extended availability is low. These findings suggest that higher extended availability may prevent WFH’s benefits regarding maintaining the balance between the work and nonwork life domains.
Although the tools of information and communication technologies (ICTs) had only previously been in workplaces during traditional work hours, ICT usage has been extended over time (Towers et al., 2006). The use of ICTs, which have diversified workplaces and ways of working, has increased rapidly (Olson-Buchanan et al., 2016), and these developments have become an essential factor of change in work life by providing employees with greater flexibility in terms of how, when, and where they can perform their tasks (Eurofound, 2020). These developments have resulted in an increase in flexible work hours and workplace arrangements (Arlinghaus & Nachreiner, 2014), with work arrangements having become better suited to people’s personal needs and lifestyles (Cooper & Lu, 2019). The actions and structural regulations that have been taken to better meet the demands arising from individuals’ work and nonwork lives have been conceptualized as work-life balance practices (Bergman & Gardiner, 2007). Telecommuting is one of the essential applications used to enable individuals to achieve work-life balance (Gajendran & Harrison, 2007).
The COVID-19 outbreak led to working from home (WFH) becoming commonplace, as quarantine measures including social distancing became the norm for employees worldwide (Milasi et al., 2020). Many organizations and employees were forced to suddenly transition to WFH without any preparation (Galanti et al., 2021). However, researchers have pointed out that the results of WFH, which was adopted as a policy for achieving a balance between work and non-work life, had been contradictory in terms of its effectiveness both during and before the pandemic (De Klerk et al., 2021; Nakrošienė et al., 2019). Technological tools in particular are used in the process of managing WFH. The developments in ICTs have provided employees with the opportunity to access and perform their tasks outside the workplace and have also opened the way for employees to be able to be reached anywhere and anytime (Thörel et al., 2022). The constant connection to work due to ICTs has increasingly blurred the boundaries between work and non-work life for employees (Boswell & Olson-Buchanan, 2007). Therefore, ICTs have been claimed to perhaps have double-edged sword effects on employees (Diaz et al., 2012).
On one hand, while explanations about the advantages and disadvantages of WFH state that WFH might be beneficial in terms of achieving a balance between the work and nonwork domains, WFH on the other hand might also increase the conflict between these domains. Sarbu (2018) stated that WFH might reduce work-family conflicts to the extent that employees can plan and adapt their professional and private lives. However, WFH also carries some risk of increasing work-family conflict due to the increased family responsibilities alongside a permanent attachment to the workplace. In line with this, research on WFH’s impact on the work-nonwork balance during the pandemic has yielded contradictory results. Individuals working from home have reported achieving a work-family balance to have become more difficult due to factors such as school closures, education being maintained at home, and the presence of a partner at home (Wang et al., 2021). Conversely, a majority of individuals positively experienced WFH during the pandemic, with one of the main advantages of the practice having been found as the ability to achieve a work-nonwork balance (Ipsen et al., 2021; Putri & Amran, 2021). Another study found no relationship between WFH and work-life balance (Campo et al., 2021). Therefore, the present study claims how WFH is implemented to be crucial in whether it produces positive or negative results regarding the work-nonwork balance.
One of the main factors causing conflicts between different life domains and blurring individuals’ boundaries has been the use of ICTs after regular working hours (Andrade & Petiz Lousã, 2021; Fenner & Renn, 2010; Schieman & Young, 2013; Wright et al., 2014). As a result of the use of mobile phones and portable computers, individuals can remain committed to work by responding to calls or answering emails during such times as dinner, on weekends or other holidays (Boswell & Olson-Buchanan, 2007). Such commitment to work leads to a greater workload and violation of the family domain due to the work demands (Towers et al., 2006).
Organizations endeavor to remain competitive by constantly increasing productivity in the face of the increasing pressure to achieve more with fewer resources, and this pressure also encourages a relatively new work behavior known as extended availability for work (Cooper & Lu, 2019). Extended availability is conceptualized as the condition of being available for work-related demands, even when physically being in a nonwork domain (Thörel et al., 2022). Extended availability is different from planned overtime, as a permanent uncertainty exists about whether or not a task will arise for an employee and which demands will be imposed (Dettmers, 2017). Although extended availability is considered to be potentially both helpful for and a hinderance to employees’ work, Büchler et al. (2020) emphasized how it might have a deleterious effect on employees’ well-being. Work-related contacts outside of regular working hours can increase the risk of work-related health impairments such as sleep problems, fatigue, depression, and anxiety (Arlinghaus & Nachreiner, 2013). Such constant connectivity causes mental work stressors to remain and makes disengaging psychologically from work more difficult (Büchler et al., 2020).
During the COVID-19 pandemic, employees’ extended availability was found to have increased and employees to have been contacted outside of regular work hours (Mar & Buzeti, 2022). The blurring of boundaries between work and home can prevent employees who work remotely from getting away from demands and recovering (Haun et al., 2022). Research has found employees’ engagement in work-related matters during their leisure time to be able to threaten their well-being and ability to recover from the demands of work (Thörel et al., 2022). Moreover, taking on irregular work hour patterns and greater intensification of work can negatively affect workers’ work-life balance (Eurofound, 2020). Therefore, extended availability can diminish the benefits of WFH in terms of the worknonwork balance. Based on these expectations, the hypothesis of the research has been formulated as follows:
H1: The relationship between WFH and work-nonwork balance is moderated by extended availability, such that the positive relationship between WFH and work-nonwork balance weakens as extended availability increases.
Method
The sample for this study comprised 307 employees (65.1% female) working for private and public firms in Türkiye. The participants’ average age is 31.4 (SD = 7.4), and their average work experience is 8.7 years (SD = 7.4). During the data collection period, a large portion of the participants (N = 157; 51.1%) reported working in an office. Meanwhile, 78 (25.4%) stated working from home, and 72 (23.5%) stated working in the hybrid system.
To test the hypothesis, data were collected in September 2021, when the Turkish government encouraged companies to allow WFH. An online survey was generated using Google Forms and distributed through the researchers’ social media accounts. After providing consent, participants responded to the items, which assessed demographics, WFH, extended availability, and work-nonwork balance. The proposed moderation model was tested using Model 1 in the program Process Macro (version 4.0; Hayes, 2013) in SPSS 27 to examine the moderating effect of extended availability on the relationship between WFH and work-nonwork balance.
Results
Regarding correlations among the key variables, WFH was not found to be significantly related to work-nonwork balance or extended availability (p > .05). However, extended availability was found to be significantly negatively correlated with work-nonwork balance (p < .01). The moderation analysis results have revealed WFH to not be significantly associated with employees’ work-life balance (β = .17, p > .05). However, the interactive effects of WFH and extended availability on work-nonwork balance was found to be significant (β = -.12, p < .05). Therefore, extended availability was confirmed to have a moderating effect on the relationship between WFH and work-nonwork balance. Moreover, WFH’s conditional effects on work-nonwork balance were examined at three levels of extended availability, namely at one standard deviation below the mean, at the mean, and at one standard deviation above the mean. The results reveal significant positive conditional effects in the case of low extended availability and no significant effects when extended availability is at either the mean or at high availability, thus supporting the hypothesis.
Discussion
The current research has shown the relationship between WFH and work-nonwork balance to be insignificant, with extended availability moderating this relationship and thus supporting the hypothesis. Namely, when extended availability is low, the relationship between WFH and work-nonwork balance is significantly positive. However, as extended availability increases, this relationship becomes insignificant. This result indicates WFH’s effect on work-nonwork balance to depend on how WFH is implemented. Communicating work-related matters outside of regular work hours can prevent employees from balancing their work and non-work life. When considering how WFH was extended and how employees were expected to work all day during the pandemic (Akbaş Tuna & Türkmendağ, 2020), the buffering effect of extended availability on the relationship between WFH and worknonwork balance is better understood.
This result may also provide an explanation for the inconsistent findings in the literature regarding WFH’s effect on employees’ work-nonwork balance. WFH’s effects on worknonwork balance can vary depending on the nature of the work being carried out in different organizations and on managerial expectations. A study conducted by Ipsen et al. (2021) on participants from different countries and professions found 55% of participants to view WFH as a positive experience, while 45% evaluated WFH negatively. Therefore, evaluating how WFH is implemented is more important than evaluating whether it is good or bad.
The main limitation of the current research is its cross-sectional design. Future studies can work on establishing causal connections among variables and increase the internal validity of the study by using a longitudinal design. Moreover, this study did not examine individual differences. WFH’s effect may depend not only on organizational factors such as extended availability but also on individual factors. Future studies should consider how the effects of organizational policies may differ for everyone and examine which employees are more satisfied and able to effectively manage WFH.