Maintaining workforce sustainability during remote working: managing e-work-life balance against work related stressors

Abstract

The study's main goal is to shed light on the interrelationships between work stressors and work-life balance perceptions for remote working employees. Further, the study aims at displaying how these variables make an impact on the workforce sustainability in terms of employee burnout and productivity. This insight is particularly important because, despite the work stressors associated with remote working, maintaining a work-life balance for remote working employees benefits not only the individuals but also the organizations in terms of workforce sustainability. In an environment where both organizations and employees face radical changes in their work styles, it is important to understand and support such sustainability, in order to contribute to the overall social sustainability. This study was formed as an empirical investigation into the interrelationships between work stressors, work-life balance, and workforce sustainability as experienced by white collar employees working remotely in Turkey. The data was collected by convenience sampling and with survey method from 448 employees working in organizations of different sizes, industries, and remote working conditions, thus enriching the representativeness of the sample. The findings of the survey showed that work-related stressors were positively related to disruption of workforce sustainability for remote working employees. These stressors had a positive relationship with the disruption of work-life balance. Such disruption was also negatively related to workforce sustainability. Last but not least, caretaking responsibility is found as an employee characteristic that makes a difference in these relationships, whereas age and gender were found to be unrelated. These findings shed light onto what could be a new focus area for the literature and practical implications. However, before mentioning them, limitations of this research should be addressed. First, the sample was mainly formed by younger professionals with no caretaking responsibilities. Thus, the representation of various life conditions of elder professionals was limited. Second, although hybrid remote work was included in the survey, the variation of a hybrid style, for example, once a week or one week per month, was not included. Therefore, insight into the preference for remote working style was not included. Last but not least, since the data was collected during Covid-19 pandemic, most companies and individuals were experiencing remote working for the first time. Therefore, there might be a first encounter effect in their perception of e-work-life balance. For further studies, a comparison can be made to understand how individuals' approach to e-work-life balance shifted over time, and there can be an intensified focus on caretaking responsibilities. For companies, an understanding of causes and outcomes of burnout disrupted work-life balance and productivity in the context of remote working, has the potential to offer organizations ways to adapt their workplace culture and HRM strategies to support the needs of employees who might need organizational support during remote working. On the other hand, for society itself, understanding the needs of individuals who struggle with work-life balance and burnout syndrome helps identify ways to create social and economic strategies to support their needs, prevent further cases of burnout, and to create social sustainability. In terms of originality, there are three main inputs that can be addressed. First, this research contributes to the extant literature an understanding of the relationship between the work stressors related to remote working and workforce sustainability. Second, it includes various forms of remote working from different sectors, genders, and age groups. Research is needed by companies and societies with remote working conditions. For this study, survey data were collected from people who work in Turkey that work remotely