Abstract
During the COVID-19 pandemic, working from home (WFH) became the only option for many organizations, generating increasing interest in how such arrangements impact employee job satisfaction. Adopting an event system perspective, this study employed an online survey to capture the WFH experiences of 256 workers from 66 Chinese enterprises during the pandemic. Using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), the study examined how satisfaction was affected by five job characteristics when working from home: longevity (time), home workspace suitability (space), job autonomy (criticality), digital social support (novelty) and monitoring mechanisms (disruption). The findings reveal that three configurations promote employee job satisfaction and that a suitable home workspace is a core condition. In the absence of a suitable workspace, digital social support and an appropriate monitoring mechanism, long-term WFH was found to undermine job satisfaction. However, job autonomy is not a necessary condition for employee job satisfaction. These findings have clear implications for theory and practice.
Highlights
As a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, about 72% of employees worldwide were required to switch overnight to working from home (WFH) [1]
In light of how the COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed our ways of working, the present study focuses on the effects of enforced WFH on job satisfaction in terms of individual evaluations and feelings [14] rather than specific job aspects [34]
The results suggest that the home workspace suitability (HWSS)*DSS*MM configuration can ensure employee job satisfaction (EJS) regardless of longevity of WFH (LWFH) and job autonomy (JA) when employees are simultaneously supported by a suitable home office, adequate digital social support and an appropriate monitoring mechanism to reduce job demands
Summary
As a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, about 72% of employees worldwide were required to switch overnight to working from home (WFH) [1]. A survey conducted by the Institute for Employment Studies found that 50% of respondents (n = 500) were dissatisfied with their current WFH arrangements; of those, 46% attributed their dissatisfaction to irregular working hours, while 33% cited loneliness and 21% expressed concerns about job security [4]. It seems important, to understand why job satisfaction experiences differ among the employees who engaged in WFH during the COVID-19 pandemic and how WFH might be designed to improve those experiences.
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