Flexibility leading to autonomy in the workplace, or a chain aggravating overwork? 

Chung-Yen Chen 

SEP 2020

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, governments across the globe have launched multiple policies in expectation of “flattening the curve,” and many enterprises have adopted measures including Work from Home (WFH) or Split Operation in response to epidemic prevention. All of a sudden, all the impediment to the implementation of WFH and relevant technical difficulties prevalent in the past seems to get a chance to be resolved. Thanks to the improvement of information technology, the prevailing use of expanded network bandwidth, cloud services, and mobile devices, as well as the popularization of information literacy, the distance between us and WFH may only be a critical juncture like the current one. However, it has already raised a debate among a variety of industries: whether WFH can truly replace traditional work modes in normal working hours (instead of bringing unfinished work home and increasing the employees’ risk of overwork) and core businesses (rather than a variant version of outsourcing), whether it will last after the end of the pandemic, and whether its feasibility, convenience, efficiency, and cost-benefit ratio is good enough [1].

In a broader sense, flexible work arrangements can include not only WFH but also “work from anywhere,” “telework” (or telecommuting, remote work, distance work), “distributed work,” and “virtual work.” Other relevant terms are “flexible office” and “co-working space.” One common feature of these concepts that gradually turns into reality is decentralization, to let employees leave headquarters and offices. And this is anything but a news story: “bring the work to the worker,” instead of the vice versa, had been an established slogan since at least the 1970s. Against the backdrop of the fossil fuel energy crisis and shortage of labor force supply, WFH had been deemed as a solution to transportation cost and energy consumption [2]. Just like today, locomotives of social transformation are often these historical crises.

All the discrepancies and similarities between WFH and traditional work modes have layered novel occupational health (OH) risks and issues on top of existed OH hazards. For instance, when sitting in front of a computer screen at home, the exposure to repetitive movement and awkward posture can be similar as in offices, and so does the control measures to reduce these ergonomic hazards. However, OH professionals including occupational health nurses, occupational medicine physicians, and industrial hygienists may be incapable of intervening in the decentralized “home workplace.” Employers’ legal duties of care and protection and the agenda of Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Committees may never cross the fence of a company. In addition, it remains inconclusive whether labor inspectors hold the right to inspect a “home workplace” [3].

In any case, as with other employees, employers should bear the major responsibility for the OH of teleworkers, such as evaluation of fitness to telework, as well as ensuring non-inferiority to traditional work modes and conformity to OSH regulations/standards in aspects including environment, equipment, operating procedure, evacuation route and even information security [4]. Relevant acquisition expenses or refurnishing costs should not be passed on to workers alone. Information provision, technical support, and communication channels should be smooth and unhindered. Supervisory responsibilities should be attributed to the government, and the “Health and safety checklist for working from home” required by the Queensland Government of Australia to be filled out by the employer is an example worthy of reference [5]. Only that there are still many shadowy corners without sunlight on the shop floor and at the office in current Taiwan, so there is still a long way to go for the government and the civil society to supervise the employers to take on their obligations.

Which is healthier, WFH, or the traditional work mode? Although associated research works had been conducted for more than 2 decades, no consistent conclusion had been made yet. For example, studies had found that teleworkers had lower risks of adverse health behaviors like alcohol abuse, tobacco use, and physical inactivity, as well as multiple health risks and depression [6]. An earlier study on white-collar workers had reported lower blood pressure and less harmful cardiovascular arousal during WFH by comparison with office work, but also elevated epinephrine levels after WFH, seemingly indicating mixed results to health. This was explained by the author with the difference in work tasks and consecutive working hours between WFH and office work [7], and this may imply that our thought must return to the nature of work.

A crucial difference between traditional work modes and WFH is that the latter features a flexible work schedule and workspace, and this means far more than reduced transportation time and increased efficiency. If autonomy to adjustment is adequately authorized to employees, or if at least the intensity of direction and supervision of the employer is reduced indirectly due to an extended distance, then teleworkers are capable of adjusting work rhythm by themselves, customizing work environment, alternating work and relaxation or other everyday life activities, and improving coordination between work and family matters. Needless to say, if the flexibility is in favor of employers, they can probably assign new work tasks to teleworkers anytime and anywhere.

A study had demonstrated that telework may reduce both work role overload and family role overload of professionals, gaining them more control over their work schedule and work intensity, facilitating their coping with the stress of parenting responsibilities, and balancing competing burdens under multitasking scenarios. However, the same study had also reported that employees with higher family burdens are with less capability or willingness to WFH, and they tend to “split” their roles to improve work efficiency – in other words, they would rather complete more work at the office than take it home, to “give back to the work what is the work's, and to the family what is the family's.” [8]. This seemingly implies that WFH may not fully integrate the two roles. For example, some meta-analyses that combine the results of multiple studies found that “work interference with family” (WIF) may be slightly lowered by telework, but “family interference with work” (FIW) is not significantly reduced and even elevated instead [2,9].

An ill-defined and inseparable work-family interface is a double-edged sword, but the degree of injury it caused varies depending on multiple subjective and objective conditions. Some ambitious workers used to be self-exploitative, causing consequent erosion of the concept of “normal working hours” and their indefinite prolongation, with overtime work never been recorded and reimbursed. Some other workers have difficulty to concentrate or to resist temptation without supervisors or coworkers onsite, non-working hours spill into working hours [10]. Moreover, family support may be a plus to work, but negative moods at work and home can inevitably interpenetrate each other. To put it bluntly, the abovementioned problems are not exclusive to telework, but they are unavoidably magnified by telework.

Given that multiple roles come with the territory, it depends on a clear-cut switch between roles to prevent role conflict or confusion from happening. For the workers, apart from time management skills, establishing spatial and temporal boundaries between work and family is still in need. For instance, some experts had recommended working at a fixed spot at home and a fixed schedule, using a company-assigned cell phone only during work time, and even dressing up carefully as a ritual before work. However, the most important strategy above all is probably achieving a clear agreement between the employer and teleworkers on job duties, expectations, and deadlines of work items [11]. Besides, ample preparation with evaluative procedures, training, and counseling programs may improve the matching between teleworkers and their home work environment [12].

Another feature associated with flexibility is probably an elongated distance between teleworkers and the company, physically and mentally. This reflects in the aspect of psychosocial hazards as alienation and a sense of isolation that impacts the work and social relationship and becomes a pivotal factor contributing to psychological stress and job dissatisfaction [13]. Some common feelings of employees include unfamiliarity with changeable circumstances within the company, fear of invisibility of themselves (and its potential influence on promotion), and worries about mistakes caused by under-management [14]. Of course, these effects are still two-sided. For those not good at getting along with others easily, WFH may be more comfortable. For people with higher self-management skills and stronger self-motivation, WFH may raise their commitment to the organization and reduce their intention to quit. Interestingly, a study found that as the level of telework increased, work-family conflict decreased, relationship with supervisors improved, but relationship quality with coworkers worsened [2]. This appears to infer that changes in physical, mental, and social distance are probably asymmetric for different relationships.

In general, face-to-face contacts can facilitate social belongingness, identification to the company, and positive emotions produced by interaction, and these are indispensable to healthy work relationships. This is why most experts recommend teleworkers returning to the company periodically, even only to have a group photo shoot or to hold a funfest. A study suggested that 5 to 10 teleworkers from the same hierarchy to organize a “health circle” voluntarily, to explore common telework stressors in the form of group work, and to develop coping strategies. After an intersectoral exchange of experiences, sharing of stress management tips, and guidance and demonstration by experts, significant improvement was found in those teleworkers in terms of ergonomic hazards, time management, and the capability to communicate [15]. Therefore, managers should endeavor to assist employees working from home in developing an organized social support network.

To sum up, while telework may theoretically create autonomy and reduce work-family conflict, it may also add difficulty to maintaining work relationships, and their positive and adverse health effects may offset each other, or with one side overwhelm the other – this is termed as “telecommuting paradox” by scholars [16], and it may reflect as discrepancies in study outcomes. One reason among others is that complete WFH is far from prevalent, and many study subjects are teleworking modes with varied frequency or intensity, so it is way too early to make a generalized judgment. For example, some scholars found that negative outcomes emerge only after working from home more than 2 to 3 days a week, and others reported that higher job satisfaction comes with a moderate degree of telework than a low or high degree one.

Furthermore, as stated earlier, telework leads to protective and harmful effects that are unequally distributed in different population groups, and this is likely to reproduce, consolidate and provoke existed inequality in resource allocation and health. For example, some studies had observed telework relieving work stress by altering traditional practices of communication, while others found it opposite [11]. It is conceivable that study outcomes among “digital natives,” “digital immigrants” and even "digital refugees" could be poles apart; and whether the problem is essential may also depend on the varying level of needs in communication with colleagues or clients for a certain occupation [12]. Additionally, concerning gender differences, some scholars claimed that WFH may benefit women, who usually bear heavier family responsibilities, over men [16]. However, if the patriarchal institution of inequality in power is yet to be unraveled, how can one guarantee that telework would not merely allow a patriarch to exploit female with domestic labor even more conveniently? Finally, it should not be ignored that, probably shortly, those remain excluded from the domain of telework are the same disadvantaged people at the bottom of the pyramid, and they are not only the most deprived but also the least likely to reverse the game.

Thus, after all, what betters or worsens mental and physical health, burnout, stress, relationship quality, job satisfaction, performance, and the career outlook is not WFH per se, but the cornerstones of a variety of work modes: autonomy, participation in decision-making, and social support. Likewise, it is not WFH itself that transforms the ways of working, but how the organization arranges WFH to promote OSH in the “home workplace.” [16, 17] The critical juncture of telework follows the pandemic crisis, but only we can struggle for its transformation into a healthier mode of work.

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