Abstract
Digitalization of knowledge work is essential for today’s organizations, responding to diversified employee needs. Many organizations are already implementing some form of flexibility to help workers perform work and non-work duties, while maintaining high productivity. While these changes in workplaces, “New Ways of Working (NWW)”, have been discussed in the literature, a systematic appraisal of evidence of NWW has not been conducted. Relating to poor work-related mental health worldwide, this systematic review analyzed the psychological impacts of NWW, and the quality and quantity of NWW research. Following the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analysis (PRISMA) guidelines, NWW studies targeting psychological outcomes were evaluated. Initial literature search on ProQuest, PsycINFO, Science Direct, and Google Scholar retrieved 308 titles, from which seven articles fulfilled all inclusion criteria. Our appraisal revealed that NWW research evaluated diverse psychological outcomes. While NWW can help workers’ engagement, work-related flow, and connectivity among staff, NWW can also increase blurred work-home boundary, fatigue, and mental demands. The quality of NWW research was overall medium, needing more rigorous studies. Our findings can inform decision-makers in the workplace to effectively implement NWW, and researchers to improve the quality and the usefulness of future NWW studies.
Highlights
Digitalization of knowledge work has been increasingly implemented and changed the way people work [1], supporting the United Nations’ recommendations and goals for sustainable development [2,3].Thanks to the modern advancement of information and communication technology (ICT), the workforce can engage with work ubiquitously at any time [4]
New Ways of Working (NWW) is commonly regarded as a work style that is flexible in time and location, supported by: (i) active use of ICT and (ii) management with clearly defined targets [9]
Among several outcomes relevant to organizations, this review focused on psychological outcomes, corresponding to challenges many organizations face today: poor work-related mental health
Summary
Thanks to the modern advancement of information and communication technology (ICT), the workforce can engage with work ubiquitously at any time [4]. This is crucial for organizations, as the employees’ needs associated with work have been diversified due to various commitments outside work: organizations that cannot adjust their work restrictions to their employees’ work needs will have a limited chance to recruit or maintain a good workforce [5]. Organizations and policy makers have devised and implemented more flexible and adaptive work styles to retain high productivity while actively supporting workers in non-work duties. This relatively new trend is called “New Ways of Working (NWW)” [6]. NWW is commonly regarded as a work style that is flexible in time and location, supported by: (i) active use of ICT and (ii) management with clearly defined targets [9]
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