Distance Makes the Heart Grow Fonder: An Examination of Teleworkers’ and Office Workers’ Job Satisfaction Through the Lens of Self-Determination Theory

Eric Brunelle,Jo-Annie Fortin

doi:10.1177/2158244020985516

Abstract

Although research on teleworking dates back about a decade, much remains unknown with regard to how teleworking impacts employees’ experience at work. Based on self-determination theory, this research seeks to understand the dynamics underlying the impact of teleworking on employees’ job satisfaction. The study was conducted in an organization with a formal teleworking program; 448 respondents (211 teleworkers and 237 office workers) completed an online questionnaire. The results of structural equation model analysis indicate that teleworking is a better way of meeting workers’ psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. In addition, our results indicate that there is a moderating effect on the relationship between these three types of psychological needs and employees’ job satisfaction, supporting the idea that the satisfaction of psychological needs does not operate in the same way for teleworkers and office workers.

Highlights

Since the beginning of the 21st century, organizations across the world have shared the challenge of adapting quickly to constantly evolving circumstances
There is a general agreement among researchers that telework is an alternative work arrangement in which employees perform some portion of their regular work at a site other than the main office, using Information and communication technologies (ICTs) to communicate with people inside and outside the organization (Gajendran & Harrison, 2007)
This was not posited as an hypothesis in this research, we first examined the impact of telework on job satisfaction

Summary

Introduction

Since the beginning of the 21st century, organizations across the world have shared the challenge of adapting quickly to constantly evolving circumstances. There is a general agreement among researchers that telework is an alternative work arrangement in which employees perform some portion of their regular work at a site other than the main office, using ICTs to communicate with people inside and outside the organization (Gajendran & Harrison, 2007). This definition involves a substitution of place, which restricts teleworkers’ interactions with coworkers and superiors because of the greater spatial distance. Global Workplace Analytics estimates that 25% to 30% of the U.S workforce will work from home on a multiple-days-a-week basis by the end of 2021 (Global Workplace Analytics, 2020)

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