Teleworking in times of COVID-19: the role of Family-Supportive supervisor behaviors in workers’ work-family management, exhaustion, and work engagement

Abstract

Based on the Conservation of Resources theory, this research investigates the association between work-family relationships and employees’ well-being in teleworking situations, and explores the role of Family-Supportive Supervisor Behaviors (FSSB) as an important resource to help employees balance the exchange between work and life domains and improve well-being while teleworking. The current study was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, when most organizations opted for telework and employees found themselves involuntarily working from home. We examined the intensity of remote work as a boundary condition to determine when FSSB can be a resource for employees in telework. Our research combines two studies: a cross-sectional study with 318 workers from a bank that implemented telework over seven months; and a two-wave study with 290 participants from another bank – time 1 was prior to lockdown and time 2 was ten months later. Moderated mediation hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling and the PROCESS macro for SPSS. Results from both studies show that FSSB is related to positive outcomes for work-family relationship and also for well-being. However, many of these associations are conditional upon the levels of intensity of telework. Implications for HRM theory and practice are discussed.