Work from Home: Accessiblity and Sustainability

Introduction

Real-world contexts

The prevalence of virtual teams has increased significantly since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Stay-at-home orders and social distancing intensified the need to work from home and create virtual teams instead of in-person ones. These newfound virtual teams formed in both academic and workplace settings. Elementary through university students found themselves in online classrooms, discussions, and group projects. Employees began working from home either part-time or full-time. Virtual teams have become a staple in academic and work-life seen through the increase in fully remote job listings and degree programs.

Social Scientific Theories

As the prevalence of virtual teams continues to increase, effective virtual team performance is imperative. There are multiple determinants that directly affect virtual team performance (Garro-Abarca et. al, 2021). Two of these determinants are communication and trust. Communication refers to the quality of correspondence between team members. Communication is dependent on accessibly to technology and differences in work-life situations. Trust refers to the established leadership, cohesion, and empowerment of the virtual team. Trust is most greatly influenced by the degree/level of communication(Feitosa & Salas, 2020). Both determinants, communication and trust, are contingent on accessible team members. In order for teams to be effective, they must communicate. The current model looks to investigate how levels of team member accessibility can influence overall team performance.

Accessibility is important in connecting with team members in a virtual space, but what is the range between too accessible and not accessible enough? In addition to exploring accessibility and overall performance, the current model also looks at the aspects of wellbeing and burnout. Being connected in a virtual space allows for 24/7 contact, but that is not sustainable (Giumetti et. al, 2012; Mheidly et. al, 2020). Virtual teams require a balance between constant access and not enough access. Too much access can lead to virtual burnout and a drop in productivity. Additionally, constant access can create a "doing more and more for less" mindset (Giumetti et. al, 2012; Mheidly et. al, 2020). Virtual workplace environments may lack the comradery of a physical workplace making the constant access feel "not worth it."

Agent Properties

In the current model, there are three types of agents: easily accessible, moderately accessible, and difficult to access. The number of each agent type can be manipulated with a slider ranging from 1 to 100. Each of the agent types (easy, moderate, and difficult) has an accessibility level and a burnout threshold.

• Accessibility level

  • A measure of how "accessible" an agent is

  • Accessibility level is manipulated in Netlogo through how easily an agent will form links with other agents based on the radius.

  • Accessibility level varies for each agent type

    1. 1. Easy to access (radius value selected on a slider from 4-6)

       2. Intermediate accessibility (radius value selected on a slider from 2-4)

       3. Difficult to access (radius value selected on a slider from 0-2)

• Burnout threshold

  • A maximum number of connections (e.g., links) an agent can have before reaching virtual burnout. Once an agent reaches this threshold, the agent will die.

  • The burnout threshold value is the same for all agent types, but its value can be manipulated on a slider (slider ranges from 1 to 100).

Simulation Plans

Due to unforeseen circumstances, the model has yet to be successfully coded and this project serves as a proposal for a future model. If successfully coded in the future, simulations should be run to investigate how accessibility level impacts the overall number of links and the percentage of alive agents. It is advised to use BehaviorSpace to parameter sweep. The parameters to sweep include:

• Number of agents

  • Keeping all accessibility levels and the burnout threshold at default, systematically test how numbers of each agent type influence the tracking parameters (recommend using increments of 25)

    • E.g., easy at 25, intermediate at 50, difficult at 50

    • E.g., easy at 50, intermediate at 50, difficult at 50

    • E.g., easy at 75, intermediate at 50, difficult at 50

    • etc...

• Accessibility levels

  • Keeping the number of agents and the burnout threshold at default, systematically test how accessibility levels of each agent type influence the tracking parameters (recommend using increments of 1)

    • E.g., easy_access at 4, intermediate_access at 3, difficult_access at 1

    • E.g., easy_access at 5, intermediate_access at 3, difficult_access at 1

    • etc...

• Burnout threshold

  • Keeping the number of agents and all accessibility levels at default, systematically test how numbers of each agent type influence tracking parameters (recommend using increments of 15 or 25)

    • E.g., burnout_threshold at 1, burnout_threshold at 25, burnout threshold at 50, etc.

Implications, Limitations, and Future Directions

Without having run the simulations, it is not certain the implications this model has in improving our understanding of working from home and virtual teams. We predict that this model will provide insight into how responsiveness and accessibility relate to virtual burnout. It is hypothesized that highly accessible individuals (and teams with many easy to access agents) will experience higher levels of virtual burnout than individuals with moderate or little accessibility. The goal of this model is to provide insight into the ideal proportions of accessibility, what is the right about of accessibility to still form connections but avoid mass virtual burnout.

Future research look at the relationship between quality of work and virtual burnout. The current model is limited to only looking at the number of connections. The current model does not address the quality of work or the style of communication/connection. Perhaps there is a relationship between how many connections an agent has and their overall work performance. Similar to finding the "happy medium" of accessibility and virtual burnout, we would predict a sort-of "happy medium" situation in conversation with quality of work. Additionally, future research should look at the relationship between social isolation, virtual team performance, and overall accessibility. Conversely to virtual burnout, there is virtual social isolation. Virtual social isolation occurs when agents or team members are making too few links/connections that they become disconnected from the group and reduce team performance.

References

Bakshy, E. and Wilensky, U. (2007). NetLogo Team Assembly model. http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/models/TeamAssembly. Center for Connected Learning and Computer-Based Modeling, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL.

Feitosa, J., & Salas, E. (2020). Today's virtual teams: Adapting lessons learned to the pandemic context. Organizational dynamics, 100777. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orgdyn.2020.100777

Giumetti, G. W., McKibben, E. S., Hatfield, A. L., Schroeder, A. N., & Kowalski, R. M. (2012). Cyber incivility @ work: The new age of interpersonal deviance. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 15(3), 148-154. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2011.0336

Moran, L. (2005). Invited reaction: Virtual team culture and the amplification of team boundary permeability on performance. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 16(4), 459-463. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/hrdq.1150