THE EFECTS OF TELEWORK ON THE SATISFACTION OF EMPLOYEE NEEDS
Master thesis, specialization Human resource management University of Groningen, Faculty of Economics and Business
October 18, 2010 MICHIEL SCHUCK Student number: s1465430 Meeuwerderweg 73 9724 EP Groningen Tel. +31 (0)628681889 e-mail: m.s.schuck@student.rug.nl Supervisor/university B.Nijstad Supervisor/field of study E.Brus Scaudit, Ede
THE EFECTS OF TELEWORK ON THE SATISFACTION OF EMPLOYEE NEEDS
Michiel Schuck
ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION
In an attempt to cut personnel costs, an increasing number of companies is introducing telework practices. Offering telework arrangements results in fewer workplaces that have to be provided by the employing organization, while employing an equally high number of employees. This can result in lower rent on office space or lower real estate costs as well as lower utility costs (Shepherd, 2009). Furthermore, the employees themselves save valuable commuting time by performing their jobs at home (Hill, Miller, Weiner & Colihan, 1998). However, perhaps even more beneficial is telework’s potential to increase employees’ job satisfaction, quality of work life and work-life balance. This is not only beneficial for the employee, but it may also affect the organization in a positive way. Indeed Sirgy, Efraty, Siegel and Lee (2001) argue that a happy employee is generally a productive employee.
The society for Human Resource Management indicates that currently about 21% of employers in the US allow teleworking on a full-time basis and 35% do so on a part-time basis. In the past two years, the number of US teleworkers has risen with 39% and compared with the number of teleworkers in 2005, the numbers increased with 74% (Shepherd, 2009). CBS figures indicate that in the Netherlands, almost 50% of the Dutch companies in 2007 provided work for employees who teleworked on a regular basis. The increase in telework can be explained by developments such as rapid technological progress, growth in knowledge producing jobs, the spread of virtual operations and changes in labour supply that demand more flexible work arrangements (Mamaghani, 2006, Mello, 2007, Shin, Shen & Higa, 2000). These facts indicate that telework is becoming an important business trend. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the effects that telework has on both the organization and the employee. One of these effects, which forms the basis for this study, is the effect of telework on the employee’s quality of work life.
This employee oriented approach chosen for this study can be justified by the resource-based view of the firm (Barney, 1991). This theory is based on the notion that the success of a firm is determined by the resources it owns and controls that are valuable, rare, difficult to imitate and difficult to substitute. These resources can be either assets or capabilities (Martínez-Sánchez, Pérez-Pérez, Vela-Jiménez & de-Luis-Carnicer, 2008). Chan and Wyatt (2007) argue that the only asset capable of maintaining a company’s source of competitive advantage in today’s business environment is high quality personnel. This can be seen as a company’s hidden value. Because human capital is argued to be the most important factor in determining a firm’s success, this study focuses on the effects of telework on employees assuming that telework alters employees’ quality of work life.
in team based settings (Hill et al., 1998). Havlovic (1991) found that employee productivity and morale are both largely based on the employee’s perceived quality of work life. The differing results of the studies about the effects of telework thus indicate that there is little clarity about telework’s influences on the quality of work life. Igbaria and Guimaraes (1999) note that while many studies emphasize the benefits and drawbacks of telework, there is no consensus among researchers about the impact of telework on career outcomes such as job satisfaction, commitment and turnover intentions. These career outcomes have proven to be highly related to the level of quality of work life of the employee (Chan & Wyatt, 2007, Che Rose, Beh, Uli & Idris, 2006, Sirgy et al., 2001, Zin, 2004).
The inconsistency of these earlier research results may imply that the relation between telework and employees’ quality of work life is moderated by other variables. Because quality of work life is a subjective concept and differs from person to person, it might be the case that different demographic groups are affected in different ways by telework. Little is known about whether the effects of telework on employees’ quality of work life are influenced by demographic variables. By means of this research, it is therefore attempted to find out whether demographic variables such as age, gender and marital status moderate the effects of telework on employees’ quality of work life.
However, because quality of work life differs from person to person, the effects of telework can only be analysed when individual employee needs are taken into account. This is the case because it is not necessarily true that if one employee perceives a high quality of work life, this automatically applies to others working for the same organization, or even in the same job, as well. Others may value completely different aspects of their job which may lead to a different perception of quality of work life. Because quality of work life is highly dependent on individual employee needs, this study focuses on the effects of telework on the satisfaction of these employee needs. Since the effects of telework might even differ per life domain, this research focuses on five specific forms of need satisfactions. This results in the following problem statement for this research:
“In what ways does telework affect employees’ work related needs satisfaction and how is this relation moderated by demographic variables such as gender, age and marital status?”
TELEWORK
The Development of Telework as a Concept
The concept of telework was introduced in the 1950s and gained large scale publicity in the USA in the 1970s when a national oil crisis led researchers to consider telecommuting as an alternative to commuting physically (Bailey & Kurland, 2002, Haddon & Brynin, 2005). Jack Nilles, who first coined the term telecommuting, believed that offering the opportunity to knowledge and information workers to work from home or any other location besides the office, had the potential to reduce traffic congestions and to safe large amounts of energy and time that otherwise would have been wasted commuting between home and the job (Nilles, 1997).
In the 1980s, the focus shifted from the possibility to safe energy towards the point of view that telework could form an important tool in the rising demand for flexible employment which came into vogue because of the need for firms to adapt more easily to market changes (Haddon & Brynin, 2005). Martínez-Sánchez et al. (2008) argue that this flexible employment is primarily a mechanism for managing human resources more efficiently and has been seen as a mechanism for improving firm performance. The shift in interest in telework towards flexible employment leads to the contemporary point of view that telework can be seen as part of an overall strategy towards workplace flexibility.
Martínez-Sánchez et al. (2008) suggest that workplace flexibility should be divided into functional and numerical flexibility. Functional flexibility encompasses variation in functions that makes the possibilities for the deployment of employees to certain tasks more diverse. An example of functional flexibility is the implementation of job rotation. Numerical flexibility on the other hand relates to the possibilities to adjust labour volume to changes in demand. This can for instance be done through the employment of temporary employees or flex workers. A major benefit of telework as a flexible employment tool is that it offers both functional and numerical flexibility, because it offers the possibility to externalise activities and it also enhances employee working time and space flexibility (Martínez-Sánchez et al., 2008).This stresses the value of telework as a means to achieve workplace flexibility and explains the rising popularity of the use of telework arrangements.
Defining Telework
The second element in defining telework identified by Haddon and Brynin (2005) is location. Haddon and Brynin (2005) note that the issue with this element is whether telework should only include homework or that other variants such as work carried out in so called telework centres or in other remote places should be included in the definition as well. However, most researchers seem to include these different variants in their definitions.
A third element of discussion among researchers is a matter of contractual arrangements (Haddon & Brynin, 2005). The problem here is whether telework is only performed by employees working under an organizational contract or that self-employed individuals working outside their conventional workplace should be included in the telework definition. In contrast with the previous elements mentioned, there is little consensus among researchers regarding this element of contractual arrangements. The present research has not excluded any of these two groups in the research sample, although there were predominantly employees and few self-employed individuals among the participants.
The final element in defining telework is time (Haddon & Brynin, 2005). The main issue with this element is that some researchers (e.g. Martínez-Sánchez et al., 2008) establish a cut-off point, by means of which it becomes possible to determine whether someone can be classified as a teleworker or not. Such a cut-off point enables measuring the absolute number of teleworkers, but is highly subjective since different cut-off points are used in each research paper.
Others (e.g. Golden, 2007) however, measure the average number of hours that employees spend teleworking. This is also the approach chosen in this study, since it is not the purpose of this study to measure the absolute number of teleworkers. Instead of measuring telework in absolute terms, this study takes the number of hours spent teleworking in relation to the total number of hours worked as a starting point for determining telework’s effects on employees’ quality of work life. Therefore, in this case, the question of when someone must be classified as a teleworker is less important. The reason for not focussing on classifying whether someone should be categorised as a teleworker or not, is that even a small number of hours teleworked might have an impact on employees’ quality of work life. Establishing a cut-off point for determining who should be perceived as a teleworker and who does not, excludes individuals who score below the cut-off point but who nevertheless experience a change in their quality of work life as a result from teleworking. The use of a cut-off point in measuring telework might therefore lead to different, but less accurate research results. Therefore, the number of hours spent on telework in relation to the total number of hours worked seems to be a more appropriate measure for this study.
For that reason, this research applies the definition of telework as stated by Kurland and Bailey (2002). These authors define telework as:
“working outside the conventional workplace and communicating with it by way of
telecommunications or computer-based technology”.
The elements of technology and location are clearly present in this definition, although the elements of contractual arrangements and time are excluded from this definition. For this research however, these elements are of less relevance because, as stated earlier, the aim of this study is not to measure an absolute number of teleworkers, but to measure the effects that telework has on employee’s quality of work life. Determining whether someone should be categorised as a teleworker, which is in essence what the other two elements are useful for, is less relevant for this study.
The clarification of the concept “telework” paves the way for exploring the effects of telework on employees’ quality of work life perception. Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart and Wright (2004) argue that telework has the potential to increase employee productivity, encourage family friendly work arrangements and help reduce traffic and air pollution. However, at the same time the technologies enabling and supporting telework may result in employees being on call twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week. These opposing effects of telework make it necessary to further study the effects of telework on employees’ perceived quality of work life. Studying the effects of telework on employees’ quality of work life however, calls for a further elaboration of quality of work life theory. This will be presented in the next section of this research paper.
QUALITY OF WORK LIFE
The Development of Quality of Work Life as a Concept
In 1933, the first foundations towards a policy of humanizing employees’ work conditions were formed by the famous “Hawthorne studies” of Elton Mayo, who studied the influence of environmental factors on employees’ performance (Martel & Dupuis, 2006). Mayo concluded his studies with the interpretation that positive treatment of employees improved their productivity and motivation (Daft, 2004). However, it was not until the late 1960’s that human dimensions of work started to become a more widespread research subject and that researchers started to focus more on the relationship between the work environment and the employee, resulting in the introduction of the term “quality of work life” (Che Rose et al., 2006, Martel & Dupuis, 2006, Zin, 2004). Since then, an increasing acknowledgement of the value of quality of work life can be observed.
Wyatt, 2007, Noe et al., 2004). Therefore, organizations should be aware of the importance of a high quality of work life among employees.
For many years, it was thought that quality of work life could be measured by measuring the presence of certain key elements of which researchers thought that quality of work life consisted of. Most research focused on the prevalence of elements such as job security, earnings and benefits and employability rates. The goal was to develop an objective measure of quality of work life, that could be applied to compare jobs and even organizations regarding their level of quality of work life.
Nowadays however, it is generally accepted that quality of work life is a subjective construct that can even vary among individuals who work under highly similar work conditions. This means that it is impossible to simply determine the level of quality of work life by measuring some objective key elements of a job or organization. Nowadays, it is deemed important to consider the needs and values of individual employees when measuring quality of work life (Fruytier & ter Huurne, 1983, Martel &Dupuis, 2006, Zin, 2004). Since generalisation among individuals based on objective measures does not consider employees’ individual needs regarding the job, researchers concluded that it is no longer justifiable to use objective measures of quality of work life. As phrased by Sashkin and Burke (1987)
“A quality work life may mean different things to different people in different roles or to the same
person in different roles. Even more troublesome, different people in the same role may have discrepant views of quality of work life, not merely on the basis of different personal values but as a result of different abilities and aptitudes’’.
Sashkin and Burke (1987), (from Martel & Dupuis, 2006, p. 340-341)
It was first recognised by Lawler (1975) that employee needs are essential in determining quality of work life. Lawler argued that it was necessary to consider employees’ job satisfaction as an important part of their quality of work life. However, he noted that job satisfaction and quality of work life are not the same. Sirgy et al. (2001) add that quality of work life differs from job satisfaction because job satisfaction is one of many outcomes of quality of work life. Furthermore, these authors state that quality of work life not only affects employees’ job satisfaction, but also influences their family life and social life for example. Since these arguments point to the fact that quality of work life can not merely be measured by focussing on employees’ job satisfaction, the concept has to be elaborated in a different way. A dominant theoretical approach towards quality of work life was proposed by Sirgy et. al (2001).
The Needs Satisfaction Approach
actually met by organizational supplies determines the degree of quality of work life perceived by the individual employee.
In scientific literature about quality of work life, one of the leading models that takes employee needs into account was proposed by Sirgy et al. (2001) and has later been refined by Chan and Wyatt (2007). Sirgy et al. (2001) divide employee needs into seven main categories. However, one of these categories, namely aesthetic needs, turned out to be a weak predictor of the level of quality of work life. This led Chan and Wyatt (2007) to reject this need category from their revised version of the quality of work life construct based on employee need satisfaction. The remaining categories of employee needs are the following:
- Health and safety needs: include factors such as prevention and protection from injuries and
poor health as result from the job
- Economic and family needs: include factors such as an adequate wage, job security and
enough time to attend to family needs
- Social needs: include factors such as collegiality at work and enough leisure time off work
- Esteem needs: include the appreciation of one’s work both inside and outside the organization
- Actualization needs: include factors such as the realization of one’s potential within the
organization and as a professional
- Knowledge needs: include factors such as learning to enhance skills important for the job as
well as professional skills
Chan and Wyatt (2007), Sirgy et al. (2001)
According to the need satisfaction approach the level of employees’ quality of work life is dependent on the level of satisfaction of these six need categories. Thus, the level of fit between these employee needs and organizational supplies determines the level of quality of work life.
For this research, the theory of need satisfaction raises the question as to which extent the perception of fit between employee needs and organizational supplies is affected by the extent of telework, since this determines the individual’s perception of quality of work life. This means that in order to elaborate the problem statement of this research, it is important to consider employee needs as a crucial factor in studying the effects of telework on employees’ quality of work life.
However, it is not sufficient to merely focus on the role of employee needs in the relationship between telework and quality of work life, without paying attention to the background variables that influence these needs. Schmitt et al. (1978) argue that individual needs are predominantly affected by gender and socioeconomic status. Therefore, this study takes three demographic variables into account that are associated with an individual’s socioeconomic status. These demographic variables that are believed to affect the employee’s needs to some extent are gender, age and marital status. This can be translated in the earlier presented problem statement of this research:
“In what ways does telework affect employees’ work related needs satisfaction and how is this relation moderated by demographic variables such as gender, age and marital status?”
RESEARCH HYPOTHESES
The step from conducting on-site work towards telework has several important consequences for the employee’s work environment. This influences the employee’s job experience and therefore, has its implications for employees’ need satisfaction and ultimately affects the employees’ perceived quality of work life. Therefore, this study focuses on the effects that telework has on the satisfaction of five from the original six need categories that have been introduced by Sirgy et al. (2001). It was decided to exclude one of these needs, namely “health and safety needs” from this research, because of a high number of research items and the risk of a low participation rate as a result. Moreover, when compared to the other needs identified by Sirgy et al. (2001) and Chan and Wyatt (2007), health and safety needs were regarded to be least important in the context of telework.
Telework and the satisfaction of economic and family needs
An important characteristic of telework as opposed to on-site work is that the employee often has more time flexibility. This means that the teleworker has the ability to determine not only where to work, but also when to work, although this is of course bound to certain restrictions from the employing organization. This time flexibility increases the ability to establish a balance between work life and personal or family life. Therefore, telework is often claimed to reduce inter-role conflict between work and family roles, because a better balance can be maintained between the two roles (Shamir & Salomon, 1985). This is especially the case with working at home, which is also one of the most usual forms of telework. This means that in case of homework, the teleworkers’ time flexibility enables the employee to better attend to family matters. Telework therefore has a positive effect on the employee’s ability to satisfy economic and family needs. In general, this would lead to the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 1a: Telework positively affects the satisfaction of economic and family needs
However, some research has argued that telework increases work-family conflict because of simultaneous conflicting demands on teleworkers’ time, attention, and energy resulting from greater proximity and accessibility (Golden, Veiga & Simsek, 2006, Shamir & Salomon, 1985). Crandall and Gao (2005) state that while telework offers a distraction-free environment for some individuals, others might experience the opposite if family members are home during the day. Instead of stimulating a balance between work and family life, these researchers argue that telework might instead aggravate the conflict between work and family demands and negatively impact the satisfaction of economic and family needs.
Because of these conflicting ideas about the effect of telework on work-family balance and the satisfaction of economic and family needs, it is interesting to explore who is most susceptible to distraction when conducting telework. From the three demographic variables taken into account in this study, especially differences based on gender are interesting. Since in most households women are still more involved in activities such as keeping house and raising children, it might be that women are also more susceptible to distraction when conducting homework. This would mean that telework would not be beneficial for satisfying economic and family needs, but instead create a conflict between work and family demands and therefore it would negatively affect the degree of satisfaction of work and family demands. The second hypothesis regarding the satisfaction of economic and family needs is therefore:
Another demographic variable that might act as a moderator in the relationship stated in hypothesis 1a is marital status. It is argued that couples generally have more to gain from telework then singles do, because having a partner generally means having higher family needs. Since telework has the potential to provide the employee more flexibility to attend to such family matters, it makes sense to state that couples benefit more from telework in terms of satisfaction of economic and family needs then singles do. This can be stated as follows:
Hypothesis 1c: The degree to which telework positively affects an employee’s satisfaction of economic and family needs is moderated by the demographic variable “marital status”. The satisfaction of economic and family needs of employees who are single is less positively affected by the degree of telework than the satisfaction of economic and family needs of employees who have a partner.
Telework and the satisfaction of social needs
The transition from onsite work towards telework may have some serious implications for the satisfaction of social needs. Conducting telework more often implies a decrease in face-to-face contact with co-workers, because teleworkers’ presence at the conventional workplace declines. The effect of not being physically present at work removes a significant component of social interactions at work. This loss of interactions can result in the perception that social support from colleagues declines. This perception is based on the fear that the teleworker is both “out of sight” and “out of mind” (Baruch, 2000, Baruch, 2001, Crandall & Gao, 2005). Mello (2007) states that telework can have a serious impact on the dynamics of office politics and that it is known to alter the social, physical and psychological contexts of work. This potentially affects the individual’s experience of social support offered by colleagues, which in terms may have implications for the satisfaction of social needs.
Because work provides the employee opportunities for social relations beyond the primary group (e.g. family), the reduced social relations with peers that result from teleworking, may result in the teleworker’s social needs remaining unsatisfied, which is likely to have a negative impact on the teleworker’s quality of work life. This is the case because teleworkers are most likely to be denied at least some of the benefits of having a peer support group (Shamir & Salomon, 1985). This leads to the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 2a: Telework has a negative effect on employees’ satisfaction of social needs.
with co-workers and superiors in order to expand the contact network and to stay up to date with the latest office news. Therefore, it can be argued that younger employees generally have more to gain from social contacts then their older co-workers. This means that telework will have a more profound negative effect on the satisfaction of social needs of younger employees than would be the case with older employees. This would lead to the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 2b: The degree to which telework negatively affects an employee’s satisfaction of social needs is moderated by the demographic variable “age”. Younger employees’ satisfaction of social needs is more negatively affected by the degree of telework than older employees’ satisfaction of social needs.
Telework and the satisfaction of esteem needs
In some cases, telework has been shown to result in doubts of co-workers over the employee’s credibility as a serious employee (Baruch, 2000, Mello, 2007), which potentially influences teleworkers’ quality of work life. One of the main reasons for co-workers’ doubts about teleworkers’ performance is that the productivity of teleworkers is often less visible for on-site working colleagues. Because co-workers and even superiors have less insight in the effort that teleworkers put into their jobs, it is likely that teleworkers are, to a certain extent, underappreciated by the organization. The lack of appreciation from others for work carried out can have an impact on teleworkers’ work-related self-esteem. This may result in the teleworkers’ esteem needs remaining unsatisfied. Following the need satisfaction theory, this may have a negative impact on the individual’s quality of work life. The following hypothesis can therefore be formulated:
Hypothesis 3a: Telework has a negative effect on employees’ satisfaction of esteem needs.
As opposed to the satisfaction of all the other needs, no moderating effect of any demographic variable is expected regarding the effect of telework on the satisfaction of esteem needs. Therefore, only the above mentioned hypothesis is formulated regarding the satisfaction of esteem needs.
Telework and the satisfaction of actualization needs
more likely to hear the latest developments and changes within the organization, but they are also more able to lobby with superiors to gain personal benefit than their teleworking colleagues. This gives the teleworker a disadvantage when it comes to pursuing career improvements and opportunities for personal development. The reduced chances for promotions and other personal benefits or at least the perception of having smaller chances than on-site working co-workers are likely to negatively influence the teleworker’s quality of work life, because this may have its’ consequences for the satisfaction of teleworkers’ actualization needs..
In case of homework, one of the most prevalent forms of telework, another possible influence of telework on employees’ satisfaction of actualization needs is mentioned by Shamir and Salomon (1985). They conclude that:
“… it could be claimed that the requirement to play different roles in front of different audiences at
home, in the community, and at the workplace contributes to the development and enrichment of the individual's identity, because it is through playing such roles that an individual's identity and self-image are established. Being limited to one audience and to one combined role thus may result in reduced opportunities for self-development”
(Shamir & Salomon, 1985, p. 460-461)
Again the potential negative effect of telework on employees’ opportunities to satisfy their actualization needs stems from a decline in social interaction, leading to decreased opportunities for self-development. This can be translated in the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 4a: Telework has a negative effect on employees’ satisfaction of actualization needs.
Because self-actualization is something that can only occur over time, younger employees generally have had fewer opportunities for self-development then their older colleagues. This means that they also have had fewer opportunities to satisfy their actualization needs. Because older employees may already have reached a certain level of self-development due to their age, it is likely that their actualization needs are lower then those of young employees. Therefore, it is likely that telework has a more profound negative effect on young employees, than would be the case with older employees. This is stated in the following hypothesis:
Telework and the satisfaction of knowledge needs
Telework may also have an effect on the satisfaction of knowledge needs. Although the modern organization is capable of sharing knowledge and communicate at distance thanks to modern technology, there will always be certain skills or certain knowledge that are best learned by doing. The best way to learn such skills or knowledge may be through face-to-face contact with co-workers. Therefore, the employee might partially miss out on such learning opportunities when conducting telework. This would lead to knowledge needs remaining unsatisfied. It is therefore hypothesized that:
Hypothesis 5a: Telework has a negative effect on employees’ satisfaction of knowledge needs.
This negative effect is likely to be more severe with younger employees since in many cases, they have less experience and still need to learn more skills when compared with older employees. This means that their knowledge needs are generally higher and remain unsatisfied in case of telework. This can be stated as:
Hypothesis 5b: The degree to which telework negatively affects an employee’s satisfaction of knowledge needs is moderated by the demographic variable “age”. Younger employees’ satisfaction of knowledge needs is more negatively affected by the degree of telework than older employees’ satisfaction of knowledge needs.
RESEARCH METHODS
Data collection
Data collection for this study was carried out by means of an online questionnaire that was distributed among organizations that have implemented telework practices in the Netherlands. The participating organizations were asked to distribute a web link among employees who made use of the different telework arrangements offered within these organizations and to encourage their employees to fill in the online questionnaire. The participating organizations were approached by e-mail, by telephone or by means of a face-to-face conversation. This way, an estimated total amount of 1700 employees was encouraged to fill in the questionnaire.
Respondents
From the estimated 1700 people approached for participating in this research, only 22 employees eventually filled in the questionnaire, resembling a response rate of about 1,3 %. From these respondents, 63,6% were male and 36,4% were female. Respondents were between 23 and 68 years old. The average respondents’ age was 40,86 years with a standard deviation of 14.02 years. Furthermore, 50% of the respondents were unmarried, whereas 45,5% of the respondents were married. The remaining 4,5% regarding the respondents’ marital status were missing values. The majority of the respondents, namely 90,9%, had either a university degree or a professional degree.
Questionnaire measures
Telework
As outlined earlier, telework was measured in terms of an average number of hours spent teleworking per week. This was divided by the average total number of hours spent working per week, which resulted in an average percentage of work hours spent teleworking per week by the individual. This percentage was labelled “the intensity of telework”. This newly created variable was the telework measure that has been used throughout the further process of data analysis.
Need satisfaction
This research based its measure of quality of work life on the measure proposed by Sirgy et al. (2001) and the revised version of this measure proposed by Chan and Wyatt (2007). As already pointed out in the theory section of this research, the quality of work life measure of these authors is based on need satisfaction theory. During questionnaire design for this research, the implementation of the need satisfaction approach towards measuring quality of work life was based on Chan and Wyatt’s (2007) proposition of the measurement of the degree of satisfaction of five employee needs, namely, economic and family needs, social needs, esteem needs, actualization needs and knowledge needs.
This approach enabled us to calculate whether employee needs were satisfied or not. The result was called the “performance index” The calculation of this performance index is based on the Scaudit technique. This is a unique and valid approach that allows for combining respondents perceived importance of items with the degree to which they perceive that these items are brought in practice in their organization (Scaudit, 2010). This unique method of data collection is patented and validated by Scaudit and has proven to be highly accurate in performance research.
Sirgy et al.’s (2001) original questions were in most cases somewhat rephrased, to ensure that all questions in the questionnaire were asked in the same specific manner in accordance with the Scaudit technique. However, the questions were stated such that respondents were asked to provide the same information regarding the specific question as would be the case with the original Sirgy et al. (2001) need satisfaction measure. This was deemed important to ensure the questionnaire’s validity. Regarding knowledge needs for example, an initial question from Sirgy et al.’s (2001) need satisfaction measure asked respondents to indicate on a 7 point scale whether the following statement was true: “My job requires me to learn new things”. This question was rephrased in a way that respondents were first asked to rate on a 10-point scale how important it is for them to learn new things on their job, resulting in a so called “importance score”. Thereafter, respondents were asked to rate on a 10-point scale whether their job required them to learn new things. This was labelled the “current status score”.
The five need satisfaction scales consisted of a different number of items. The satisfaction of economic and family needs scale consisted of seven items, whereas eight items were related to the satisfaction of social needs scale. There were five items covering the satisfaction of esteem needs and four items dealt with the satisfaction of actualization needs. Finally, the satisfaction of knowledge needs scale also consisted of four items. The complete questionnaire used for this research can be found in appendix a.
RESULTS
Table 1 presents descriptive statistics and correlation among variables. The table also presents the reliability of the need satisfaction scales. It shows that the five need satisfaction scales have a high reliability. All need categories have a reliability level between α = 0.77 and α = 0.94. No striking differences are found between the average respondents’ scores on the different need categories. All average scores on these categories are between 6,4 and 7,07 on a 10-point scale.
satisfaction of one need category has its influences on the satisfaction of other need categories as well. The strong correlation found in this study endorses this claim.
The research hypothesis of this study are tested by means of multiple regression analyses.
Regression results
Hypothesis 1a and 1 b
Hypothesis 1a predicted that telework generally has a positive effect on the satisfaction of economic and family needs. However, hypothesis 1b predicted that women, when compared with men, might experience a less positive effect of telework on their satisfaction of economic and family needs because of work-family conflict. To test these hypotheses, a multiple regression analysis was conducted. The dependent variable in this regression analysis was the satisfaction of economic and family needs, whereas the variables telework, gender and their interaction served as predictors. The analysis revealed a significant effect of gender (b = -0.40, t = -3.30, p = 0.005), but no significant effect of telework (b = -0.02, t = -0.12, p = 0.889). These results do not confirm hypotheses 1a. It was stated that telework, in general, has a positive effect on the satisfaction of economic and family need, but no significant effect of telework on the satisfaction of economic and family needs was found.
These results indicate that men’s level of need satisfaction of economic and family needs is positively affected by telework, whereas telework has a negative effect on women’s level of need satisfaction of economic and family needs. This means that hypothesis 1b is confirmed, since it states that women might experience a less positive effect of telework on the satisfaction of economic and family needs than men.
Hypothesis 1c
Hypothesis 1c predicted that telework’s positive association with the satisfaction of economic and family needs would be moderated by the variable marital status. It was argued that telework would be more beneficial for the satisfaction of economic and family needs of employees who have a partner than would be the case for singles. Again, this hypothesis was tested by means of a multiple regression analysis. The dependent variable remained the satisfaction of economic and family needs, while telework, marital status and their interaction where used as predictors in the analysis.
The regression analysis showed a significant effect of marital status (b = 0.33, t = 2.38, p = 0.031), but again no significant effect of telework (b = -0.11, t = -0.87, p = 0.398). However, in line with hypothesis 1c, a significant interaction effect of marital status and telework was found (b = 0.45, t = 3.36, p = 0.004). The graphical display of this interaction can be seen in Figure 2.
It becomes apparent from figure 2 that hypothesis 1c is supported by the regression results. As expected, telework has a more positive effect on the satisfaction of economic and family needs of employees who have a partner than on those who are single.
Hypothesis 2a and 2b
Hypothesis 2a predicted that telework generally has a negative effect on the satisfaction of social needs. However, hypothesis 2b predicted that the variable age would act as a moderator in the negative association of telework on employees’ satisfaction of social needs. It was stated that, in comparison with older employees, younger employees are more likely to experience a negative association of telework with the satisfaction of their social needs. These hypotheses were tested by conducting a multiple regression analysis with the satisfaction of social needs as the dependent variable in the regression analysis and with the variables telework, age and their interaction serving as predictors.
The regression analysis showed a significant effect of age (b = -0.34 , t = -2.03, p = 0.058), although no significant effect of telework was found (b = 0.03, t = 0.18, p = 0.86). Hypothesis 2a, which predicted that telework would negatively impact the satisfaction of social needs in general is rejected because of the insignificant p-value. As predicted in hypothesis 2b, a significant interaction between age and telework was found (b = 0.50, t = 3.91, p = 0.001). This interaction effect on the satisfaction of employees’ social needs is plotted in figure 3.
The moderating effect of age on the relationship between telework and the satisfaction of social needs, as hypothesized in hypothesis 2b, is supported by the regression results. It was predicted that younger employees’ satisfaction of social needs would be more negatively affected by the degree of telework when compared with older employees’ satisfaction of social needs. Figure 3 clearly indicates that this is the case. Surprisingly, Figure 3 also shows that satisfaction of social needs of older employees seems to be positively affected by the degree of telework. The discussion section will further elaborate on this unexpected result.
Hypothesis 3a
Hypothesis 3a stated that telework would have a negative effect on the satisfaction of esteem needs. Table 1 indicates that no significant effect of telework has been found regarding the satisfaction of esteem needs, because a correlation coefficient of -0.16 and a reliability level of p=0.48 were found. These results mean that hypothesis 3a is disconfirmed.
Hypothesis 4a and 4b
The analysis showed no significant effect for both age (b = -0.16, t = -0.73, p = 0.474) and telework (b = 0.05, t = 0.23, p = 0.819), which disconfirms hypothesis 4a. However, as was already predicted in hypothesis 4b, the effect of the interaction between age and telework on the satisfaction of actualization needs turned out to be significant (b = 0.69, t = 4.14, p = 0.001). Figure 4 represents a graph of this interaction effect on the satisfaction of actualization needs.
Hypothesis 4b predicted that younger employees’ satisfaction of actualization needs would be more negatively affected by the degree of telework when compared with older employees’ satisfaction of actualization needs. Figure 4 shows that this is the case. Therefore, hypothesis 4b is confirmed.
Furthermore, Figure 4 seems to indicate that telework positively affects older employees’ satisfaction of actualization needs although this was not expected. This result will return in the discussion section.
Hypothesis 5a and 5b
Hypothesis 5a predicted that, telework has a negative effect on the satisfaction of employees’ knowledge needs. Furthermore, hypothesis 5b predicted that the variable age would act as a moderator in the negative association of telework on employees’ satisfaction of knowledge needs. It was assumed that the negative association of telework with the satisfaction of knowledge needs would be stronger at lower ages than would be the case at higher ages. Similar to the other hypotheses, hypotheses 5a and 5b were tested by means of a multiple regression analysis. The dependent variable in this analysis was the satisfaction of knowledge needs and the variables telework, age and their interaction served as predictors. The final regression showed no significant effect of age (b = -0.22, t = -0.74, p = 0.469) and no significant effect of telework either (b = -0.23, t = -0.85, p =0.407), which means that hypothesis 5a is not confirmed. Hypothesis 5b however, is confirmed, because the regression results
reveal a significant effect of the interaction of age and telework (b = 0.59, t = 2.64, p = 0.017). This interaction effect is plotted in figure 5.
Hypothesis 5b predicted that younger employees’ satisfaction of knowledge needs would be more negatively affected by the degree of telework when compared with older employees’ satisfaction of knowledge needs. This effect is depicted in figure 5. However, it was not hypothesized that older employees would benefit from telework in terms of need satisfaction of knowledge needs. Although, this was initially not expected, the fact that Figure 5 seems to indicate that this is nevertheless the case calls for a further elaboration in the discussion section.
Discussion
Overall, the results from this study reveal that there is no support for any of the hypotheses that predicted a main effect of telework on the satisfaction the five employee needs. For that reason, the hypotheses 1a, 2a, 3a, 4a and 5a had to be rejected. However, all hypotheses that predicted a moderating effect of the demographic variables were confirmed by the regression results. In line with expectations, the results show that an interaction effect of telework and the demographic variables on the satisfaction of employee needs is found. This research indicated that the effect of telework on the satisfaction of economic and family needs is moderated by the demographic variables gender and marital status. It was found that men and married employees seem to benefit from telework in terms of satisfaction of economic and family needs, whereas women and unmarried employees seemed to experience a negative effect of telework. Although it was hypothesized that women and unmarried employees would experience a less positive effect of telework on their satisfaction of economic and family needs, it was surprising to find that telework seems to have a negative effect on the satisfaction of economic and family needs of women and unmarried employees. The negative effect of telework on
women’s level of satisfaction of economic and family needs might be explained by the earlier mentioned argument that women are more susceptible to conflicts between work and family demands than men, because they are generally more involved in activities such as keeping house and raising children. However, no sensible argument was found for the negative effect of telework that was found for unmarried employees’ satisfaction of economic and family needs. This surprising result might therefore be interesting to elaborate on in future research.
The effect of telework on the satisfaction of employees’ social needs, actualization needs and knowledge needs was found to be moderated by the demographic variable age. In these cases, it was found that older employees’ needs satisfaction seemed to be positively affected by telework, whereas younger employees seem to experience a negative effect of telework on their needs satisfaction. Although it was expected that younger employees’ satisfaction of these needs would be more negatively affected by the intensity of telework than older employees’ need satisfaction, it was surprising to find that older employees’ need satisfaction seems to be positively affected by the intensity of telework. Unfortunately, we were unable to find a good explanation for these surprising research results. Again, this would therefore be an interesting subject for future research.
Since no significant main effect of telework on the satisfaction of the employee needs was found, it would seem at first glance that telework does not have any effect on the quality of work life of the employee. However, the interaction effects that telework and the demographic variables have on the satisfaction of employee needs signifies that telework might differently affect the satisfaction of employee needs of different demographic groups.
In practice, the results from this study may have its implications for hr-managers, because an interaction effect of telework and the demographic variables might not be as clearly observable as a direct main effect of telework on employees’ need satisfaction. This means that in practice some significant effects of telework on the satisfaction of employee needs might be overlooked by hr-managers. Therefore, it would be interesting to find out whether managers are aware of the effects of telework and demographic variables on employees’ need satisfaction and whether they use this knowledge in telework policies or not. In order to get a better understanding of managers’ awareness of this, a second qualitative study was conducted. In this study HR managers were interviewed within two organizations that have extensively implemented telework practices. The next section discusses these interviews.
INTERVIEWS
telework arrangements to its employees. Telework especially began to play an important role within HP after a takeover of Compaq, because many employees who used to work for Compaq and who were mainly living in the eastern parts of the Netherlands, now had to work in the western parts of the Netherlands where HP’s main office is located. The increased travel distance of these new employees led HP to embrace telework as a solution.
The second interviewee was the relationsmanager of Sogeti Netherlands in Amersfoort. Being also one of the recruiters of Sogeti Netherlands, the relationsmanager has extensive knowledge of the labour conditions and telework program of Sogeti Netherlands as well. Sogeti is currently running a pilot concerning telework and is therefore closely monitoring its benefits and potential drawbacks.
The interview questions were roughly divided into two topics. These topics were the design of the teleworkpolicies within the organization and second, the personal experiences of the interviewee with these policies and their impact on personnel. The interview questions can also be found in appendix b. Both organizations applied a policy in which telework is allowed and encouraged for knowledge workers. Limitations to the intensity of telework were not defined by the organizations themselves, but were dependent on preferences from department managers or customers. Within their restrictions, the employee can chose to telework as much as he or she wants. However, both organizations occasionally plan a day on which presence is mandatory so that important matters can be discussed.
Because many employees use the possibility to telework, both organizations were able to reduce office space. Within both HP Netherlands and Sogeti Netherlands, it would even result in problems if every employee decided to work at the office on the same day, since there would not be sufficient workspace for every employee. This illustrates that telework has become indispensable for both organizations.
A major benefit of telework mentioned by the interviewees is an increase in organizational flexibility. Telework enables the employee to work outside regular working hours, which also helps the organization to better satisfy customer needs. For example, because of the international character of HP and international time differences, it is sometimes necessary for HP’s employees to participate in a videoconference that takes place outside regular working hours. Telework enables the employee to participate in such meetings without having to be present at the office. Furthermore, the employees themselves have a large degree of freedom to work whenever they want which is helpful in balancing work and family life.
There were two key elements within both organizations that were reported to be essential for the success of the teleworkprograms. First of all, telework was only believed to be effective when there is trust from a management point of view. Managers have to trust that employees are working even though they are not present at the office. The second element is that managers have to stop making employees accountable for the number of hours they work and instead make them accountable for their results. This element also helps managers to partially overcome the element of trust since it is no longer important whether employees have worked enough hours or not. Instead, it becomes important whether employees have reached their goals or targets. The lack of direct control over the number of hours worked, which is a consequence of telework and can be a source of distrust, can be compensated by a management style in which employees are accountable for results.
One of the only disadvantages of telework that was recognised by both HP and Sogeti is a decline in face-to-face interactions. At HP is was pointed out that this lack of face-to-face contact makes it particularly more difficult for department managers to identify changes in employee behaviour that might indicate that an employee experiences stress or does not feel well emotionally. Furthermore, the decrease of contact with co-workers and the decline of presence at the office were regarded to be potentially harmful for employees’ organizational commitment. That is why at both HP and Sogeti the occasional days on which employees’ presence is mandatory were also considered very important. Despite these potential disadvantages, it was remarked by the interviewees that employees generally were very positive about the possibility of telework within their organizations.
However, hardly any differences between demographic groups regarding the effects of telework on employees’ quality of work life were recognized at either HP or Sogeti. The moderating effects of the demographic variables age, gender and marital status on telework’s effect on the satisfaction of employee needs, that were found in the quantitative part of this study, were not recognized by the interviewees. Neither did the interviewees perceive that one demographic group teleworked more than others, nor did they perceive that one group seemed to benefit more from telework than others do. This might mean that the results from this study are difficult to observe in practice. As already stated in the earlier discussion, this might be because there is only support for an interaction effect of the demographic variables and telework on the satisfaction of employee needs and hardly any support for any main effects. Therefore, it might be the case that the interaction effects are less clearly observable then main effects would be.
GENERAL DISCUSSION
This research aimed to answer the following question:
“In what ways does telework affect employees’ work related needs satisfaction and how is this relation moderated by demographic variables such as gender, age and marital status?”
It was attempted to provide an answer to this problem statement by means of a quantitative part of this study in which questionnaires were distributed among several organizations that have implemented telework practices. Thereafter, it was attempted to find practical evidence for the results from the quantitative part of this study by means of a small qualitative study in which two interviews were held with HR-professionals of two organizations that have extensive experience with telework.
The results of the quantitative part of this study provided an answer to the problem statement The quantitative part of this study found several interaction effects of telework and the demographic variables gender, age and marital status on employees’ work related needs satisfaction. However, no main effects of telework on the satisfaction of employee needs’ were found. There was only support for the hypotheses that presumed moderating relations of telework and the three demographic variables on employees’ need satisfaction. Regarding the satisfaction of employees’ economic and family needs it was found that telework seems to be beneficial for men and married employees, whereas it may negatively affect women and unmarried employees. Telework also seemed to be beneficial for the satisfaction of social needs, actualization needs and knowledge needs of older employees. Younger employees on the other hand seem to experience a negative effect of telework on the satisfaction of these needs. These findings support the hypotheses of this research. It was for example expected that younger employees would experience negative effects of telework on their levels of need satisfaction because social contacts and learning moments at work are more important for them and telework generally reduces both factors.
The results from the quantitative part of this study indicate that there are varying effects of telework on the satisfaction of different employee needs. Furthermore, the effects of telework on the satisfaction of these needs are predominantly moderated by the demographic variable age, although the satisfaction of economic and family needs seems to be moderated by the demographic variables gender and marital status.
There are two possible explanations for this. First of all, it might have been the case that the setup of one of the studies was inadequate. However, this is not a probable explanation. The quantitative part of this study was based on the valid need satisfaction measure of Sirgy et al. (2001) and the research results showed high reliability results. For the qualitative part of this study, information was gathered within two organizations that have extensive experience with telework practices and are closely monitoring employees’ job satisfaction. These facts do not support a claim of research inadequacy.
A second and more probable explanation is that the discrepancy in findings is caused by a focus difference between this study and organizational practice. Whereas most organizations tend to monitor employees’ quality of work life by focussing on job satisfaction, this study applied a narrower focus by measuring the satisfaction of five different needs. It is highly likely that separately measuring the satisfaction of different employee needs, which was done in this study, gives a more detailed insight in teleworks effect on employees’ quality of work life than an approach based on measuring general job satisfaction. The specific approach adopted in this study possibly provides information that does not become clear with the broader perspective of measuring job satisfaction in general. This possibly explains the differences between results from the quantitative and the qualitative part of this study.
This explanation gives rise to a practical implication. Since an overall measure of job satisfaction seems to overlook some important effects on employees’ needs satisfaction, it seems advisable for organizations to focus on measuring the satisfaction of the separate employee need categories. Although this might imply a change in employee monitoring instruments and/or satisfaction assessments, it is likely to result in a more accurate measure that can help organizations to better understand the effects of practices such as telework on employees’ quality of work life. Because improving employees’ quality of work life for example has the potential to improve employees’ productivity, job performance and organizational commitment, the effort that has to be put into implementing these changes will be worthwhile.
Another implication is that telework may also have its drawbacks. Whereas many studies focus on the positive effects of telework on the organization and the employee, the results of this study indicate that telework may also have negative effects on the satisfaction of employee needs. For managers it is important to become aware of these drawbacks of telework practices, since knowledge of potential drawbacks enables managers to closely monitor employees’ need satisfaction and allows them to interfere in time when negative effects of telework are signalized.
would not have supported the notion that telework influences employees’ need satisfaction, since no main effect of telework was found. This means that it is essential to take demographic variables into account when researching the effects of telework on the employee.
Limitations and suggestions for future research
Of course, one should bear in mind that the results of the quantitative part of this study were based on a rather small number of respondents. However, the fact that these results had high confidence levels, despite a low number of respondents, indicates that the results are not unreliable. Yet, it is not unimaginable that the results of the quantitative part of this study are somehow influenced by influential data points. Such data points, that are often extreme values, might be responsible for a correlation between variables, while in reality such a correlation does not exist. A small sample as was used in this quantitative research is generally more susceptible for such influential data points. Therefore, an interesting suggestion for future research would be to repeat the setup of this research with a larger number of respondents. Besides functioning as a replication of this research, a second research on a larger scale has the potential to reveal even more interesting results regarding the influence of telework on the satisfaction of employee needs. It is not unimaginable that other demographic variables that remained outside the scope of this study will also prove to be of significant importance in the relationship of telework and the satisfaction of employee needs in a study with a larger number of respondents.
Another limitation of this quantitative part of this study is a problem of causality. In this study, the point of view was adopted that telework influences employees’ level of need satisfaction to some degree. However, in reality it might be the case that the level of need satisfaction somehow affects employees’ intensity of telework. For example, the results of this study were interpreted in a way that women’s satisfaction of economic and family needs would be lower as their intensity of telework would rise. However, it can also be argued that women with low satisfaction of economic and family needs increase their intensity of telework. The research results of the quantitative part of this study do not exclude the possibility of causality and can therefore be interpreted in different ways. This problem of causality therefore calls for a further elaboration of this research’s topic and longitudinal research designs.
There is one final limitation of this study. It is possible that the relations that were obtained are not causal relations, but that there is a third variable that remained out of the scope of this study that influences both other variables. This would mean that at first glance, it would appear that a correlation between the two variables exists, while in fact the relation between the two variables is influenced by the third variable. This limitation therefore underscores the importance of more extensive future research of this topic.
Furthermore, many negative effects of telework found in this study may possibly be reduced by providing employees the freedom to determine their own telework intensity. This way, employees can intervene themselves when they experience any negative effect from telework regarding their needs satisfaction. This approach was also adopted within the two organizations from the qualitative part of this study and seems to be working well.
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