The Impact of Telework and Closure of Educational and Childcare Facilities on Working People During COVID-19
Abstract
Abstract. This study examines the impact of telework and closure of educational and childcare facilities on working people during COVID-19. We compare telework versus nontelework conditions and people with and without stay-at-home children. Data from 465 working people in Germany were collected via an online survey. People who do not work from home experience more stress, more negative and less positive affect, less life satisfaction and trust in government, and less loss of control over career success than those working from home. Concerning the conservation of resources theory, working from home can thus be seen as a resource gain, representing, in accordance with the self-regulation theory, a way to deal with pandemic threats. However, home office only seems to be beneficial if working conditions at home are supportive; otherwise, it is experienced as a resource threat or loss, especially with stay-at-home children.
Zusammenfassung. Diese Studie untersucht die Auswirkungen der Telearbeit und der Schließung von Bildungs- und Kinderbetreuungseinrichtungen auf Beschäftigte während der COVID-19 Pandemie. Personen im und ohne Home-Office sowie Personen im Home-Office mit und ohne Kinder zu Hause werden verglichen. Via Online-Umfrage wurden Daten von 465 Beschäftigten in Deutschland gesammelt. Personen, die nicht von zu Hause aus arbeiten, erleben mehr Stress, mehr negative und weniger positive Affekte, weniger Lebenszufriedenheit, weniger Vertrauen in die Regierung und einen geringeren Kontrollverlust über den Karriereerfolg als diejenigen, die von Zuhause aus arbeiten. In Anlehnung an die Theorie der Ressourcenerhaltung kann Home-Office als Ressourcengewinn angesehen werden und stellt gemäß der Selbstregulationstheorie eine Möglichkeit dar, mit den pandemischen Herausforderungen umzugehen. Das Home-Office scheint jedoch nur dann von Vorteil zu sein, wenn die Arbeitsbedingungen zu Hause förderlich sind. Andernfalls wird es als Ressourcenbedrohung oder -verlust empfunden, insbesondere bei gleichzeitiger Anwesenheit der Kinder zu Hause.
A novel type of coronavirus infection, called COVID-19, caused a global crisis, declared a pandemic on 11 March 2020 by the World Health Organization (WHO, 2020). Since then, the German government has implemented far-reaching measures to contain the virus. By mid-March 2020, universities, schools, daycares, and all non-essential businesses had to close. Many employees had to quickly adjust to remote working environments. Contact restrictions were issued, and public life came to a standstill. As a consequence, on the one hand, many people had to work reduced hours or even lost their jobs; on the other hand, many people suddenly had to assume an increased workload, either continuing to work at their workplaces or unexpectedly from home, partly under difficult conditions. As the numbers of COVID-19 infections improved, the measures were gradually eased since late April 2020. For instance, schools and childcare facilities opened in emergency mode for dependent people. These measures lasted through June 2020. However, when the number of infections began to rise again in November 2020, the government again decided to close many areas of the service industry. Because the situation did not improve with time, a new lockdown took place from 16 December 2020, which was still in effect when this paper was submitted (Federal Ministry of Health, 2020). These regulations have affected not only working conditions, for example, by increasing telework, but also the family life of many people as educational and childcare facilities were closed once again. About 60% of the employees (Statista, 2020) had to work from home, while many of these people simultaneously had to attend to childcare duties.
The theoretical background of this paper is based on the conservation of resources theory. It examines the impact of telework and closure of educational and childcare facilities on working people during the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of professional and family life, especially regarding well-being, stress, concerns, trust in government, and loss of control over work and career success. Special attention is given to comparing people working from home and those who do not. Furthermore, we focus on the home-based telework group and compare people who additionally have to take care of children at home with those who do not.
Working From Home and Its Effects
Because of COVID-19, many organizations encouraged their employees to work from home for several months. The proportion of people working from home in Germany increased by around 20% to ca. 60% (Statista, 2020). The benefits and drawbacks of telework are well-known. Telework can lead to reduced stress (e.g., Allen et al., 2015), less burnout, higher job and life satisfaction (Redman et al., 2009), and higher performance (e.g., Gajendran & Harrison, 2007; Gajendran et al., 2014). In addition, people working from home benefit from greater autonomy, flexible working hours (e.g., Allen et al., 2015), and less commuting time (Tavares, 2017). On the other hand, telework can lead to social and professional isolation and decreased knowledge sharing (Allen et al., 2015). Under high-intensity arrangements, telework negatively affects coworker relationship quality (Gajendran & Harrison, 2007) and can lead to decreased feedback from supervisors (Sardeshmukh et al., 2012). Thus, telework can weaken the interpersonal bond to the supervisor, lead to reduced visibility and networking opportunities, which in turn can hinder career development (Maruyama & Tietze, 2012).
Working from home also has an impact on the balance of work and family duties. Some researchers showed a positive relationship as people working from home can adapt flexibly to work and family responsibilities, particularly among dual-career couples (e. g., Gajendran & Harrison, 2007). Other researchers indicated a negative effect, as the separation between work and private life becomes more difficult (e. g., Standen et al., 1999), and showed that the higher the extent of telework, the more often family matters interfere with work in the sense of family-work conflict (Golden et al., 2006).
However, most of the research is based on voluntary and partial telework. In contrast, during the COVID-19 pandemic, many people were forced to work from home for months and had little or no power to decide autonomously whether, how, and when to work remotely. Baruch and Nicholson (1997) showed that not only individual factors, job factors, and organizational factors play a major role in successful telework but also the working conditions at home. It is therefore possible that the mandatory form of telework during the pandemic negatively affects people and causes stress if working conditions within the organization and at home are not supportive and if they cannot adjust them. In the following, we use the term telework in the context of the pandemic to refer to home-based telework.
The Conservation of Resources and Self-Regulating Behavior
In the definition of stress, the conservation of resources (COR) theory (Hobfoll, 1989) focuses on the impact of losses and gains. The COR theory is based on the principle that people strive to preserve, multiply, and protect things they value. This approach can be connected to the self-regulation theory (Carver, 2004), which assumes that people compare their current state with a desirable goal, and if the two deviate, people are motivated to reduce the discrepancy, for example, by taking action or asking for help (Carver & Scheier, 1982). If people expect a loss of resources relevant to them, revealing a discrepancy in the system, they strive to prevent the occurrence of this threat. People invest their time and energy to conserve resources or to keep the consequences of their resource losses as low as possible, and can end up in an area of excessive demands. The objective reality has an important meaning in the COR theory, and therefore the stressors are clearly to be found in the social and cultural circumstances of life (Buchwald & Hobfoll, 2013). As the losses and threats of individuals and groups are perceived as stressful, people create social conditions through cultural progress which make it much easier to cope with stress. Based on this approach, a social context creates a certain combination of resources that enables the achievement of individual and group goals. In our culture and concerning work these resources, anchored in structures, roles, and values, are aspects such as offices and well-equipped workplaces, attending meetings, and participating in personal communication with colleagues and supervisors as well as caring for children at school and in kindergarten at regular times. Under these assumptions, people take up work and try to achieve individual goals, such as earning a sufficient income and having a motivating job as well as group goals, such as contributing to the community.
The three principles of the COR theory (Hobfoll, 2011) state, that (1) resource losses are more important than resource gains, (2) people have to invest resources to protect themselves from resource loss, recover from it, and gain new resources, and (3) even the smallest gains become more important in situations where losses predominate. Resources are object resources (e. g., school, home, or office), condition resources (e. g., education, social networks, or work), personal resources (e. g., competencies or self-efficacy), and energy resources (e. g., time or money) (Hobfoll, 1989). Resource losses, such as the loss of school or the office (object), personal safety or social networks (condition) and time (energy), have a stronger impact than gains and affect people very quickly and then accelerate their effect. The measures taken against COVID-19 limited or completely deprived working people of these resources and activated negative feedback loops (Carver & Scheier, 1982). A key corollary of the COR principles is that people must invest resources to prevent resource losses, and that people with greater resources are less vulnerable to resource losses (Hobfoll et al., 2018). Consequently, during the COVID-19 crisis, people had to invest more resources, such as energy and time, to compensate for the loss of other resources, such as the office, personal contacts, or childcare. In some cases, people lacked the resources to compensate for the loss of other resources. Referring to Principle 2, people strive in their lives to create a pool of resources (Hobfoll, 2011). They maintain their resources and develop them further or they fail to do so. The reasons for failure then often lie in circumstances beyond their own control (Buchwald & Hobfoll, 2013), as it was the case in the spring of 2020, when the lockdown was mandated with measures that deeply penetrated and changed the world of work and private life. During perceived stress, personal resources play a minor role compared to the significant contribution of social support (Schwarzer & Knoll, 2007). Furthermore, it has been “shown that social support is especially important in the face of work-related stress as well as the stress that often occurs in juggling work and private life” (Hobfoll & Shirom, 2001, p. 61). However, precisely this social support in the workplace and in private life, for example, in the form of personal conversations and mutual support within the circle of friends and family, has disappeared during the lockdown, making coping with stress even more difficult.
Well-Being and Perceived Stress
Subjective well-being consists of three components: life satisfaction, positive affect, and negative affect (Diener, 1984, 2012). It promotes health, work success, and labor productivity, and has a positive effect on the quality of social life. A low level of subjective well-being increases the risk of suicide (Diener, 2012). Perceived stress is a related construct that can lead to far-reaching consequences, such as medical, psychological, or behavioral problems (e. g., Colligan & Higgins, 2006), and therefore should be reduced.
Many researchers argue that the pandemic may negatively affect people’s well-being (e. g., Brakemeier et al., 2020; Brooks et al., 2020; Zacher & Rudolph, 2020) and the perceived level of stress (e. g., Brakemeier et al., 2020; Holman et al., 2020; Sibley et al., 2020). People are confronted with more stressors, for instance, work-family issues, health-related and financial worries, and existential fear (Krüger, 2020; Rudolph et al., 2020; Zacher & Rudolph, 2020). Those worries negatively impact job participation and health and can even reinforce stress (e. g., Linden & Muschalla, 2007). Regarding the COR theory, we postulate that the assumed negative effect of the pandemic on well-being and stress does not apply equally to all people but rather varies under specific circumstances depending on whether a person experiences resource gains, threats, or losses, and thus whether the comparator in the person’s feedback loop detects a discrepancy between the actual and desired state (Carver, 2004). We believe that telework and the presence of children at home thereby play a crucial role.
For example, it is known that uncertainty negatively affects people’s well-being, especially while coping with difficult situations (Holt-Lunstad et al., 2015; Muldoon et al., 2017; Sibley et al., 2020). Moreover, worrying about health and safety is negatively associated with subjective well-being (Blasco-Belled et al., 2020). In light of these findings, we argue that the possibility of working from home has a positive impact on well-being as those people do not have to expose themselves to an increased risk of infection through physical contact with colleagues or other commuters on their way to work. Working from home can be seen as a resource gain as those people experience less uncertainty and need to be less concerned about their health, which in turn can have a positive effect on their well-being. In contrast, people who do not work from home experience the increased likelihood of infection as a threat or resource loss, which in turn can negatively affect their well-being.
H1: People working from home experience greater well-being than those who do not work from home, regarding (a) life satisfaction, (b) positive affect, and (c) negative affect.
The stress literature shows that autonomy (e. g., Thompson & Prottas, 2006), flexible working hours (e. g., Grzywacz et al., 2008), and less commuting time (e. g., Evans & Wener, 2006) reduce stress. This agrees with the COR theory, which sees these aspects as resource gains. We therefore postulate that people working from home experience less stress by benefitting from the above-mentioned aspects and can additionally reduce the risk of infection, which itself can represent another resource gain.
H2: People working from home experience less stress than those who do not work from home.
Narrowing the focus on people working at home, Baruch and Nicholson (1997) showed that working conditions at home, which according to the COR theory represent a form of resources, play a major role in whether people experience telework as positive or negative. School and daycare centers, which represent objective resources, were closed, leading to increased parental duties for employees with stay-at-home children and making the separation of work and private life more difficult. During the pandemic, many people who work from home and additionally have to provide childcare move their working hours to off-peak hours (Frodermann et al., 2020), resulting in resource losses in the form of condition resources (e. g., education and supervision of children) and energy resources (e. g., time for work and recreation). Thus, to avoid a resource threat or compensate for a resource loss and close a negative feedback loop in terms of the self-regulation theory, such people would be particularly dependent on support from family or friends. However, contact restrictions, the recommended isolation of at-risk populations, and quarantine effectively limited the opportunities for support. A low level of social support is negatively associated with well-being (Diener, 2012), and it has been shown that social support is an important condition resource when confronted with stress that often occurs in juggling work and private life (Hobfoll & Shirom, 2001). We therefore assume that the unexpected form of mandatory telework can lead to decreased well-being and a high level of stress for those with stay-at-home children since resources are being lost and family-work issues may arise (e.g., Golden et al., 2006). Moreover, our assumptions may reinforce the results of other preliminary studies indicating that during the pandemic people with children experience more stress (Kowal et al., 2020).
H3: People working from home with stay-at-home children experience less well-being than people working from home without stay-at-home children, regarding (a) life satisfaction, (b) positive affect, and (c) negative affect.
H4: People working from home with stay-at-home children experience more stress than people working from home without stay-at-home children.
Trust in Government
The regulations by the government to control the disease may have an impact on people’s trust in government. Trust in general can be defined as “a person’s belief that another person or institution will act consistently with their expectations of positive behavior” (OECD, 2017, p. 42). Trust in government refers to “the degree to which people perceive that government is producing outcomes consistent with their expectations” (Hetherington, 2005, p. 9). The construct expresses people’s confidence and satisfaction with the governmental performance (Bouckaert & Van de Walle, 2003) and is recognized “as one of the most important foundations upon which the legitimacy and sustainability of political systems are built” (OECD, 2013, p. 21). Trust in government is an important predictor for people’s adherence to rules and regulations (e. g., Marien & Hooghe, 2011), and a low level of trust in government can impede emergency and recovery measures (OECD, 2013).
Events such as natural disasters, financial crises, or pandemics can negatively impact the extent of trust in government (Bangerter et al., 2012; Foster & Frieden, 2017). However, we assume that the impact on employees varies depending on current working conditions. We believe that the trust in government is higher within the telework group than among people who do not work from home, as they experience a resource gain since they feel more protected and secure. Furthermore, we assume that people who do not work from home experience a resource loss, in form of a health threat, and that this resource loss leads to a more negative trust shift in comparison to those who work from home.
H5: People working from home experience greater trust in government than those who do not work from home.
H6: People who do not work from home experience a more negative trust shift than those who work from home.
The Feeling of Loss of Control Over Career Success and Work
Perceived control can be defined as the subjective perception of being able “to determine or influence important events or situations […], including […] own actions or those of other people” (Wallston, 2007, p. 148) and is an essential human need (Ryan & Deci, 2000; Skinner, 1996). Reviews (Chipperfield et al., 2012; Skinner, 1995, 1996) show that a feeling of control is associated with a variety of positive outcomes, for example, health, life satisfaction, persistence, morale, achievement, and coping with stress. On the other hand, perceived uncontrollability can produce negative emotions, anxiety, depression, and stress. The construct plays the same major role in the work context: It predicts job satisfaction, performance, motivation, commitment, and coping with stress (Ng et al., 2006). Perceived control represents an important resource whereas a loss of control depicts a resource threat or loss and can result in a discrepancy in the person’s feedback system.
It is assumed that the pandemic may lead to a perceived loss of control for certain people (Brakemeier et al., 2020). We focus on perceived control over one’s career success and work to analyze whether changing work conditions may affect these work-specific constructs. We believe that people working from home experience a greater loss of control over their career success than those who do not work from home, as the permanent form of telework can reduce performance feedback from supervisors (Sardeshmukh et al., 2012), weaken the interpersonal bond to the supervisor, and lead to reduced visibility and networking opportunities, which in turn can hinder career development (Maruyama & Tietze, 2012). Moreover, telework can lead to professional isolation and decreased knowledge sharing (Allen et al., 2015), which in turn can also increase the feeling of a loss of control over career success.
H7: People working from home experience a greater loss of control over their career success than those who do not work from home.
Furthermore, because of the increased likelihood of a family-work conflict, as illustrated above, we assume that people working from home with stay-at-home children experience a greater loss of control over their own work than do people working from home without stay-at-home children. The former lost important resources such as undisturbed time for work and opportunities for social support were reduced. Thus, the additional demand for childcare while working may prevent them from doing a proper job and keeping control of their work.
H8: People working from home with stay-at-home children experience a greater loss of control over their work than people working from home without stay-at-home children.
Method
Design and Participants
We conducted an online survey from 22 May to 16 June 2020 in Germany. During this time, schools and daycare centers were closed, and contact restrictions existed nationwide. The survey was shared via social media and through personal contacts. To be eligible for study participation, participants had to be employed, including so-called mini-jobs, self-employment, apprenticeships, and independent professions (freelancers), or had recently lost their jobs because of the pandemic. We chose this inclusion criterion in order to include only those who were somehow dependent on the current labor market and the contemporary job situation. All respondents agreed to participate in the study, which was voluntary and anonymous. The completion of the questionnaire took an average of 9:24 minutes.
The total sample consists of 465 people who provided complete questionnaires. The sample consist of 306 females (65.8 %), 158 males (34.0 %), and 1 diverse person (0.2 %), with the indicated age ranging from 16 to 66 years (M = 36.04, SD = 11.36). Among those were 387 people (83.2 %) regularly employed, 23 (4.9 %) self-employed, 12 (2.6 %) apprentices, 29 (6.2 %) people working in mini-jobs, 8 (1.7 %) freelancers, and 6 (1.3 %) job seekers. 323 people (69.5 %) worked full-time and 109 (23.4 %) part-time. 111 people (23.9 %) were single, 174 (37.4 %) were married, 157 people (33.8 %) had a partner, 3 people (0.6 %) lived in a registered civil partnership, 19 people (4.1 %) were divorced, and 1 person (0.2 %) was widowed. 184 participants (39.6 %) had at least one child. 85 participants (18.2 %) had children who were being home-schooled during the pandemic, and 80 participants (17.2 %) were affected by their children’s daycare closure. 296 people (63.7 %) worked from home during the pandemic. 139 of them (29.9 %) indicated that both themselves and their partner worked from home. 155 people (33.3 %) worked in system-relevant occupations. We found no significant differences in demographics (e. g., age, sex, family conditions, full-time vs. part-time) between our subgroups, except for the proportion of system-relevant occupations (telework group 20.9 %; nontelework group 55.8 %) and education (telework group 74.7 % academics, nontelework group 23.2 % academics). A possible relationship between these differences and the results is considered within the Discussion section.
Measures
Because the pandemic was an external shock, i. e., an unexpected and sudden event with immense consequences, our study could not be preceded by a prior measurement at times before the pandemic. However, in order to perhaps draw possible comparisons, we intended to use comparable studies conducted before the pandemic which used the same scales.
Satisfaction with Life
We used the full set of 5 items of the German Version of the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) from Janke and Glöckner-Rist (2014). We instruct the respondents to evaluate the items based on their current condition in times of the COVID-19 crisis. Example items are “I am satisfied with my life” and “My living conditions are excellent”. Participants answered the questions on a 7-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree). Cronbach’s alpha was α = .87.
Positive and Negative Affect
The German version of the Scale of Positive and Negative Experience (SPANE) by Rahm et al. (2017) was applied. Respondents were asked to indicate to what extent they had experienced the stated emotions (e. g., joyful for positive affect or angry for negative affect) in the past 2 months. We chose this timeframe to refer to that point of time when the first COVID-19 measures became noticeable in Germany. The items were answered on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = never or very rarely; 5 = very often or always). Cronbach’s alpha was α = .94 for positive affect and α = .88 for negative affect.
Perceived Stress
We measured worries, tension, joy, and demands with 5 items each by the short version of the Perceived Stress Questionnaire from Fliege et al. (2001). All five subscales result in the overall score of perceived stress (α = .93). The participants were asked to indicate how often a statement, such as “You feel tense,” applies to their life in the last 2 months. Responses were provided on a 4-point Likert scale (1 = almost never; 4 = usually) and were, according to the authors’ manual, transformed into a range of 0 to 100.
Trust in Government
First, we asked the participants how much they trust the government in general (1 = do not trust at all, 10 = trust very much); second, we assessed dichotomously whether the current COVID-19 pandemic had changed their governmental trust. Those who answered “yes” were additionally asked to what extent their trust in the government had changed (referred to as trust shift) as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic (1 = I trust the government now, compared to before the pandemic, significantly less to 5 = significantly more).
The Feeling of Loss of Control
The feeling of loss of control over career success and work was assessed by two independent items: “I have the feeling that I no longer have the success of my career under control because of the current COVID-19 pandemic” and “I feel like I no longer have control over my own work as a result to the current COVID-19 pandemic”. Responses were provided on a 5-point Likert-scale (1 = strongly disagree; 5 = strongly agree).
Concern About Losing One’s Job
This was assessed with a single-item “How concerned are you about losing your job because of the current COVID-19 pandemic?” on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = not concerned at all; 5 = very concerned).
Results
Table 1 provides the means, standard deviations, internal consistencies, and correlations for all study variables. The internal consistencies of the scales proved to be satisfactory (cf. measures).
Group Differences Between the Telework and Nontelework Conditions
Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was used to examine whether there were differences in the effects of the study variables (H1, H2, H5, H7) between people working from home (n = 296) and those who did not (n = 138). Solely for analyzing the trust shift within those groups (H6), we used an independent t-test since this hypothesis was based on a subsample (cf. measures).
The one-way MANOVA showed a significant difference between the telework and nontelework condition, F(6, 427) = 10.623, p < .001, partial η² = .130, Wilk’s Λ = .870. Post-hoc univariate ANOVAs were conducted for every dependent variable (depicted in Table 2). The results indicated that those who do not work from home experienced significantly less life satisfaction, more negative and less positive affect, more stress, a smaller loss of control over their career success, and less trust in government than those working from home. These results support the hypotheses H1, H2, H5, and H7.
To analyze in which direction people’s trust in government has changed within both groups (H6), we used an independent t-test. That is because this question was asked only if respondents stated that the current COVID-19 pandemic had changed their governmental trust (subgroup). The groups compared are people working from home (n = 118) and those who do not work from home (n = 71). The results indicated that those who do not work from home experienced a significantly more negative trust shift (M = 2.69, SD = 1.34) because of the pandemic than those working from home (M = 3.46, SD = 1.25), t(187) = -3.991, p < .001, d = 0.60, 95 % CI [–1.15, -0.39]. This result supports hypothesis H6.
Group Differences Between People Working From Home With and Without Stay-at-Home Children
For analyzing hypotheses H3, H4, and H8, we compared people working from home with (n = 37) and without stay-at-home children (n = 102) by using a MANOVA.
The MANOVA showed a significant effect of the presence of stay-at-home-children, F(5, 133) = 8.936, p < .001, partial η² = .251, Wilk’s Λ = .749. Considering the independently analyzed test scores, all dependent variables revealed significantly different means between the two groups, except for life satisfaction (Table 3). The results indicated that those with stay-at-home children experienced significantly more negative and less positive affect, more stress, and a greater loss of control over work than those without stay-at-home children. We found no significant difference in life satisfaction. These results supported hypotheses H4 and H8, whereas only partial support was found for hypothesis H3.
Furthermore, we conducted some explorative analyses. We found no significant difference between the telework (M = 1.76, SD = 1.18) and nontelework condition (M = 1.99, SD = 1.38) regarding the concern about losing one’s job because of the pandemic (t(224.43) = 1.660, p = .098, d = 0.17, 95 % CI [–0.04, 0.49]). The correlations between study variables (Table 1) showed that the feeling of a loss of control over career success and work is accompanied by less positive and more negative affect, more stress, and more concerns.
To compare our results to results at times before the pandemic, we used comparable studies conducted before the pandemic with similar samples and cultural background that applied the same scales as we did (see Table E1 in the Electronic Supplement 1). We combined the earlier samples and compared them with our subgroups (see Table E2 in the Electronic Supplement 1). The values for life satisfaction, positive and negative affect, and perceived stress of our subgroups mostly significantly differ compared to the results of the combined pre-COVID-19 studies in a negative way.
Discussion
The present study analyzed the impact of telework and closure of educational and childcare facilities on working people during COVID-19. Regarding the COR and self-regulation theory, it argues that not all people are equally affected but rather that the effects of the measures vary under specific circumstances depending on whether a person experiences resource gains, threats, or losses, and whether the comparator in the person’s feedback loop detects a discrepancy between the actual and the desired state. Results show that telework and the presence of children at home play a crucial role.
In accordance with our hypotheses, results indicate that those who do not work from home experience significantly less life satisfaction, more negative and less positive affect, more stress, less trust in government, and a more negative trust shift than those who work from home. Telework can be seen as a resource gain in this pandemic situation as people working from home can benefit from the well-known advantages of teleworking and, more importantly, can reduce the risk of infection and in turn experience less uncertainty. In contrast, people who do not work from home are at a disadvantage. Their lower level of subjective well-being and higher level of perceived stress can have far-reaching consequences, such as impairing health, work success, and productivity (cf. Colligan & Higgins, 2006; Diener, 2012). One explanation could be that those who do not work from home feel less protected from the virus and thus experience more uncertainty, which in turn can diminish well-being (Holt-Lunstad et al., 2015; Muldoon et al., 2017; Sibley et al., 2020). An alternative explanation could be that people who do not work from home could belong to occupations that are more negatively affected by the pandemic, such as manufacturing or the service industry. Those jobs are more insecure and have a higher likelihood of imminent short-time work (cf. Behrend, 2020; Mergener, 2020), which could explain the negative results. However, our results reveal that they are no more concerned about losing their jobs than those in the telework group. Regarding all the identified negative impacts on people who do not work from home during the pandemic, the government and employers need to protect particularly this group. This might also foster their trust in government, which, based on our results, is lower for people who do not work at home. As trust in government is an important predictor of people’s adherence to rules and regulations (Marien & Hooghe, 2011), it is of particular importance to strengthen people’s trust in government to ensure compliance with the COVID-19 measures.
Although people working from home show better results in many areas, they experience a greater loss of control over their career success. One might see some inconsistency between the previously mentioned positive effects and this negative consequence. We believe this might be the downside to the new permanent form of telework that might lead to reduced performance feedback from supervisors (Sardeshmukh et al., 2012), reduced visibility and networking opportunities, and could weaken the interpersonal bond to the supervisor, which in turn can hinder career development (Maruyama & Tietze, 2012).
Moreover, telework per se is not always experienced positively. The working conditions at home are crucial (Baruch & Nicholson, 1997). Within the telework group, we identified differences between people with and without stay-at-home children. People with stay-at-home children experience significantly more negative and less positive affect, more stress, and a greater loss of control over work than those without stay-at-home children. Furthermore, the correlations between study variables (Table 1) show that the feeling of loss of control over career success and work seem to act as drivers for less positive and more negative affect, more stress, and more concerns. Those results agree with the literature, indicating an increased likelihood of family-work conflict the higher the extent of telework (e. g., Golden et al., 2006; Wang et al., 2021). Even if working from home is perceived as a resource gain, resource losses, such as the loss of childcare, have a stronger effect (Hobfoll, 2011). For people working from home with stay-at-home children, resource losses occur in the form of condition resources (e. g., education and supervision of children) and energy resources (e. g., finding time for work, childcare, and recreation). Because social support, which is important for coping with resource losses and threats (Hobfoll & Shirom, 2001), was not possible during the pandemic, the perceived losses are even reinforced. Based on the COR theory, our findings explain the results of other preliminary studies indicating that, during the pandemic, people with children experience more stress (Kowal et al., 2020). Only for life satisfaction did we find no significant difference between the groups. An explanation might be that life satisfaction is a more superordinate construct, and changes sometimes only occur in the long-term (Fujita & Diener, 2005), or that having children at home might come with other positive aspects such as more family time.
The comparison between our results and those of similar studies conducted before the pandemic seems to indicate that most of the study variables for both subgroups are negatively affected by the pandemic (see Electronic Supplement 1), though the differences were small. However, the COVID-19 measures do appear to be affecting professionals overall in a rather debilitating way.
One might argue that our results could be traced back to major differences in demographics or core job characteristics between our subgroups. While we cannot make any assertion about the latter because we did not collect the data (cf. limitation), we found no significant differences in the demographics (e. g., age, sex, family conditions, full-time vs. part-time), except for two aspects: First, the proportion of system-relevant occupations was higher for the nontelework group, which is logical since the regulations for working from home during the pandemic are per se designed in such a way that especially those who are not system-relevant are expected to work from home. Second, the telework group consisted of more academics. However, we found no difference between the two groups in their concern about losing their job because of the pandemic, indicating that different education in our subgroups does not seem to be a driver of job insecurity.
Finally, it should be noted that telework during the pandemic differs from that practiced before the pandemic as many people were now forced to work from home permanently. Therefore, our results may be transferred to nonpandemic times only to a limited extent. However, our study helped to generate knowledge of the effects of a pandemic and showed that the working conditions at home are important. This will also be relevant after the pandemic as some organizations plan to remove on-site workplaces and establish permanent telework (e.g., Herz & Schnell, 2020).
Implications
Our results indicate that working from home represents an important resource gain during a pandemic and should be promoted by employers and governmental decision-makers. However, working from home seems to be beneficial only if the working conditions are supportive, as otherwise it is experienced more as a resource threat or loss, especially with stay-at-home children. Similarly, Wang et al. (2021) propose key work design elements that need to be considered for achieving effective telework during a pandemic. They suggest increasing job resources, such as social support and job autonomy. Employers and governments need to provide assistance, for example, by installing helplines for people in need, offering alternative childcare programs, or increasing the availability of child-related absent days with continued payment.
Referring to Principle 3 of the COR theory, resource losses have a stronger effect than resource gains, so that gains become more important in situations where losses predominate. Thus, the otherwise rather weak effect of resource gains becomes more important for people when they suffer many resource losses. That this paradoxical increase in the importance of gains becomes particularly apparent has been demonstrated, for example, in the case of latent stress processes such as burnout (Buchwald & Hobfoll, 2004). Thus, when resource losses are high, efforts – even if they lead only to small profits – generate positive expectations and hope and encourage further targeted efforts. Resource gains that are considered trivial under less stressful conditions now become a lifeline for survival and recovery under very stressful conditions. Organizations could contribute by protecting their employees at work when working from home is no option, for instance, by implementing strict hygiene rules, providing masks and other protective equipment, and reducing unnecessary contacts. Other possibilities include increasing employees’ physical distance or offering driving services, organized by the companies to reduce the risk of infection during the commute. Further resources include establishing flexible working arrangements, reducing the work pressure, for example, by expanding deadlines, offering corporate childcare – even if it is a remote program to entertain stay-at-home children during important meetings of their parents – and financial rewards to honor the special work efforts.
Because the COR theory suggests that resources exist in caravans, it is important for employees’ work satisfaction, engagement, and the reduction of family-work conflicts that organizations foster resource caravan enrichment. Aspects supporting the creation of resource caravans are organizational support, stability, and safety. Organizational failure leads to less productive or counterproductive work behavior (Hobfoll, 2011). Thus, during times of a pandemic, support from leaders, means of contacting supervisors and colleagues, enjoying certainty about one’s own work and processes at work, and the security of continuing to have a job could mitigate a loss of resource caravan. Especially based on the findings of the leader-member exchange (LMX) theory (Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995), it is known that the exchange relationship between superiors and employees is highly relevant for successful work performance. The exchange of resources (e.g., social support, trust, motivation) between managers and employees is of great importance (Hobfoll et al., 2018; Wang et al., 2021) According to the LMX model, employees with good exchange relationships receive more resources than others. This might mitigate the ascertained feeling of a loss of control over career success for people working from home, which often comes from decreased feedback from supervisors (Sardeshmukh et al., 2012), a weak interpersonal bond to supervisors, and reduced visibility because of telework (Maruyama & Tietze, 2012).
Limitations and Further Research
Limitations are, first, the cross-sectional design (since psychological consequences of the COVID-19 measures may only show in the long run) and the missing pre-COVID-19 measurement. The long-term consequences of the pandemic must be analyzed further, and it might be interesting to examine how the study values change after the pandemic. Moreover, a longitudinal design with a follow-up on the participants to observe the long-term effects would generate valuable insights. Nevertheless, to make comparisons, we used comparable studies conducted before the pandemic which applied the same scales as we did (see Electronic Supplement 1). However, comparability is limited because of different samples, though they can provide initial indications of change over time. Although this does not replace actual within-subject manipulation, it is a viable approximation that involves some elements of the quasiexperimental designs suggested by Cook and Campbell (1979) to overcome threats to internal validity. Furthermore, this study includes a between-group comparison that is a fundamental element of a quasiexperiment and thus an alternative way to establish causality (Cook & Campbell, 1979). Second, another limitation lies in the self-selected nature of the sample. For example, it remains unanswered how many people did not participate because they were too stressed and burdened by the pandemic situation and thus did not find the necessary time. To minimize this problem, the questionnaire was deliberately kept short to include as many people as possible. Nevertheless, the values of the study variables within our sample may have been more positive than in reality. Furthermore, because our survey was conducted online, we could capture only people who have access to the internet and mobile devices. Third, we did not record the extent of telework and therefore do not know whether the respondents worked from home fully or partially. The intensity of telework may be a mediator between the relationship of working conditions and study variables. Another limitation lies in the violation of some prerequisites for the t-test and MANOVA, for example, regarding the normal distribution and homogeneity of the error variances. However, it has been shown that both statistical methods are relatively robust against those violations (Ateş et al., 2019; Finch, 2005; Salkind, 2010). Moreover, further studies should also request the industries, core job characteristics, and socioeconomic status of the respondents to determine whether certain occupational groups are particularly affected. With our data, we were unable to compare different employment forms or job types. It might be interesting to analyze the effects of remote work while holding the type of job constant (i. e., restricting comparison on jobs where telework is a realistic option). Regarding the current dispute, this could help to decide whether or not companies should be legally forced to allow telework. Moreover, as the feeling of a loss of control over career success and work seems to act as drivers for less positive and more negative affect and more stress, it might be interesting for future research to analyze whether telework as a resource gain and stay-at-home children as a resource loss moderate this relationship.
Now that we are gaining insights into the impacts of telework during the pandemic, further research is needed to understand how organizations and governments can assist employees to reduce their perceived discrepancy between the current state and desirable standard (Carver & Scheier, 1982), and to work under the conditions of a pandemic with high telework intensity without impairing their well-being, stress, trust in government, and the feeling of a loss of control over career success and work. Regarding the intentions of large companies to introduce teleworking as a new permanent standard, this is also relevant after the pandemic (e. g., Herz & Schnell, 2020).
Conclusion
This study extends the emerging literature on the effects of working under the conditions of a pandemic, which is still in its infancy. It sheds light on the far-reaching impacts of the COVID-19 measures on working people, such as telework and closure of educational and childcare facilities. We showed that those regulations represent a resource gain for some and a resource loss for others: On the one hand, working from home represents an important resource gain during a pandemic and should therefore be promoted; on the other hand, working from home seems to be beneficial only if working conditions at home are supportive, as otherwise it is experienced as a resource threat or loss, especially with stay-at-home children. It is now up to companies and governments to assist people working under pandemic conditions without impairing their professional and family life.
Electronic Supplementary Material
The electronic supplementary material is available with the online version of the article at https://doi.org/10.1026/0932-4089/a000370
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