Telework in academia – Opportunities and challenges for well-being at work

Abstract: Background:Telework reshapes the conventional work practice by providing the flexibility to perform work at new places and times. Telework can increase individual autonomy to control and organize work, but can also place higher demands on the ability to separate work-nonwork in time and space, physically and mentally. Leaders’ abilities to manifest trusting relationship with staff, and support them seems important during telework. Academic staff are frequent teleworkers, but little is known about how it may impact on their well-being. The overall aim of this thesis was to investigate how academic teaching and research staff practice telework and how telework affects their well-being at work. Another aim was to investigate the experiences of academic managers leading teleworkers in academia.Methods: Study I was a cross-sectional survey and examined the association between the amount and frequency of telework and perceived health aspects. Study II was conducted with assessments of psychophysiological activity, postures and movements, and with daily self-ratings on stress, fatigue, and recuperation, to compare exposures during telework and work at the conventional workplace. Study III and study IV had qualitative study design and were based on semi-structured interviews using an inductive phenomenographic approach.Results:Academics who teleworked several times per week or more reported more work-related stress related to indistinct organization and conflicts, and individual demands and commitment, compared to academics who teleworked less. The psychophysiological activity indicated more relaxation before and after workhours during teleworking days. Academics had overall sedentary behaviors regardless of work location, alternated more between sitting and standing during working hours during telework than at the ordinary workplace. The academics’ experiences of telework were related to work tasks, coping strategies, workgroup relationships, and policies/regulations, which were mostly interrelated. Collectively, the process of change of managers’ conditions and experiences of leading teleworkers before, during and after the pandemic were related to digital and social interaction, work performance, the work environmeny in, and regulations of, telework.Conclusions:The use of different research designs and methods showed that telework in academia could impact biological, psychological, social and professional aspects of academics’ well-being. The perspective of academic managers showed that the organizational context could impact on the conditions for providing academics with support in telework. We argue future studies to adopt different research designs and methods when studying well-being in telework, and especially consider the professional and organizational context in telework.