The effectiveness of well-being-oriented human resource management in the context of telework

Abstract

Organizations can support employee well-being through a wide variety of HRM practices, which can be summarized as well-being-oriented HRM (WBHRM). It is unclear, however, whether these practices can also foster the well-being of teleworkers. Indeed, due to reduced visibility and salience, it is likely that WBHRM is less or even not effective in the telework context. To prove this assumption, we analyze how strong specific domains of WBHRM are related to different dimensions of employee well-being (including happiness, health, and relational well-being) in a non-telework and telework context. In the telework context, we also analyze the moderating role of telework intensity. Our analyses are based on data from 1,980 German employees at two consecutive points in time. Our findings reveal that the overall relationship between WBHRM and employee well-being in terms of happiness (engagement, job satisfaction) and health (strain) is not weakened in the context of telework. Nevertheless, we found differences in the importance of specific domains to foster happiness and health well-being. In terms of relational well-being, we found that WBHRM is positively related to social isolation in the telework and non-telework context (which is counterintuitive). We did not find support for any moderating effect through telework intensity.