Telework safeguards employee performance

Caroline Biron, Professor and director of the Centre d'expertise en gestion de la santé et de la sécurité du travail at Université Laval, has observed that telecommuting “seems to have protective effects on work performance.”

Biron shared the highlights of the fourth wave of a longitudinal study on work in Quebec during a pandemic with Insurance Journal. Conducted by a group of researchers, the study is longitudinal in that the same people are contacted for each survey. The first phase of data collection took place in April-May 2020, with 1,450 employed individuals. The data was gathered by the research firm SOM. Only people who worked in the seven days prior to each of the four phases of the study were surveyed. The study thus does not include people who lost their jobs.

Of the 1,450 people surveyed in the fourth wave, conducted in January-February 2021, 837 responded. In the second wave, in June 2020, 893 had responded, and 518 did so in the third wave, in December 2020. "I will take a measure this fall, and probably another in the winter of 2022," Biron said. Across the study, the sample reflects the working Quebec population in terms of age, gender, and employment sector distribution. The four waves are designated chronologically as T1, T2, T3 and T4.

In T4, Caroline Biron and her colleagues measured the difference between people who worked at home versus in office. Among other things, they looked at the effects of the pandemic on performance and stress levels at work.

Teleworkers perform better...  

The study examined the proportion of workers who rated their performance at less than 70 per cent, on a scale of 0 to 100 per cent. Biron set 70 per cent as the threshold below which performance is considered poor. Across the sample, a larger proportion reported performance below this threshold in January-February 2021 (26 per cent) than in December 2020 (21 per cent).

Biron adds that performance was better among people who were mostly teleworking at the time of the January-February 2021 survey. She defines teleworkers as people working from home full-time for 80 per cent of their total work time. They represent 35 per cent of the sample.

Early in the pandemic (T1: April-May 2020), teleworkers were lagging behind, with 31 per cent reporting poor performance compared with 23 per cent for people who worked in the office. The gap then narrowed and reversed in T3. By the last survey, 25 per cent of teleworkers reported poor performance, versus 27 per cent of in-office workers.

“We see how well teleworkers have adapted during the pandemic. Performance-wise, there's no reason to stop them from working remotely,” Biron says.

More distress among workers...  

As in previous phases, the fourth wave of the longitudinal study measured psychological distress. The Kessler (K6) scale indicates that distress has increased. The study found that 46 per cent of the surveyed population reported a high level of distress in January-February 2021. The proportion of people in high distress was 42 per cent during the previous measurement in December 2020.

At the fourth measurement time, more women than men reported high levels of stress, at 51 per cent versus 40 per cent.

Also in T4, young people were more likely to report high distress than older people. The rate was 60 per cent for 20-34 year olds, versus 42 per cent for 35-54 year olds and 27 per cent for those 55 and older.

... But less in telecommuting  

Teleworkers experience less psychological distress than people who work in the office. People in the workplace report a high level of distress (50 per cent), compared with 44 per cent for teleworkers. 

The education factor may also play a role, because it often eases access to better jobs. “Telecommuting has a protective effect against distress, especially among more highly educated people,” Biron points out. “In my sample of telecommuters, there is a higher proportion of academics, professionals in finance, insurance, government, and knowledge workers.”

She reports that her sample of teleworkers has a smaller proportion of participants in the trade and health care sectors. The sample also includes people who hold jobs normally considered more stressful: nursing, teaching, delivery, and cashiers, for example. Is it telecommuting or having a less stressful job that protects against distress? “It's a little bit of both,” Biron says.

The gap is even more pronounced for women. Among those working onsite, 57 per cent reported high distress, compared with 42 per cent of teleworkers. Among men in the workplace, 40 per cent reported high distress, versus 41 per cent of teleworkers.

Much less distress in caring environments  

Caroline Biron says she has observed a 24 per cent decrease in psychological distress in organizations she describes as caring. “Many studies show that caring is always a very positive thing for mental health.”

She also sees caring as an indicator of the quality of work and that top management cares about people's mental health. “They make it a high priority with a strong commitment and communication strategy to ensure that people can talk about it in the organization. It's everybody's business, not just the immediate manager or supervisor,” Biron emphasizes, referring to the work Psychological Safety Climate: A new stress theory.

She adds that the organization must also be concerned about its managers, who are often overwhelmed and struggle with communication issues with senior management. They are given guidelines and are responsible for implementing them. “Everyone can participate in stress prevention. Managers should not have to shoulder the whole burden all the time,” she explains.