Telecommuting during COVID-19 and the JD-R model Previous research has demonstrated that telecommuting can positively affect employee well-being when it provides employees with greater flexibility, reduces the stress and time costs of commuting, increases employee productivity, and allows employees to better balance their home and work lives (for a review of the benefits of telecommuting, see Mann & Holdsworth, 2003). Job demands refer to the physical, social, or organizational characteristics of the work itself (e.g., role overload, ambiguity, time pressure) that require prolonged physical and/or mental effort by employees and are subsequently associated with significant decrements in employee health and performance over time. Both role ambiguity, defined as a lack of information or unclear information about a given worker’s job or expectations, and role conflict, defined as an individual’s experience of incompatible demands from the different roles they have (e.g., employee and parent), have been consistently associated with decreased job satisfaction and commitment, as well as increased mental health issues (e.g., depression, anxiety;Fisher & Gitelson, 1983;Tubre & Collins, 2000). [...]it is important for managers to be as transparent and clear as possible when communicating with their teams about how project timelines, priorities, and tasks may be affected during this time.
Using the job demands-resources model to understand and address employee well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic