Telework experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, currently more people than ever before are teleworking. Telework or remote working is not a new phenomenon and its effects on workers’ well-being have been explored previously. Typically mentioned benefits of telework are greater work-life balance, job autonomy, and increased job satisfaction. However, research also found certain downsides to telework, such as increased time pressure, stress, and overwork, as well as social isolation and lack of support from colleagues. Research findings on telework are still inconclusive and some important questions regarding teleworkers’ cognitive demands and affective states are still unanswered.

In order to gain insights into teleworking in different European countries, we are conducting a weekly study on workers’ telework experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. With this study, we want to answer questions about how people experience telework and what consequences telework has on different work-related and well-being aspects. Besides, the focus of the study is not only on affective and social dimensions of telework but also on cognitive demands and whether and how they change over the time that work is conducted from home.

We are looking for employees who are currently teleworking to participate in the study. The study consists of short questionnaires that are to be filled out at the end of as many work weeks as possible in the coming weeks. Answering the questions takes about 10-15 minutes in the first week and about 10 minutes in the following weeks. Once the study is finished, participants will receive individual results through an automated feedback to observe changes in their telework experience over the last weeks. The questionnaires can be filled out in four different languages – English, German, French and Spanish: https://www.soscisurvey.de/telework-study/

Duration: 03/2020 - ongoing

Project investigators: Dr. Sabina Hodzic, Dr. Roman Prem, Prof. Bettina Kubicek

Cooperation partners: Dr. Xavier Borteyrou and Dr. Franck Zenasni from Université de Paris as well as Dra. Esther Villajos Girona from the International University of Valencia.