Repository logo
 

Remote work mindsets predict emotions and productivity in home office: a longitudinal study of knowledge workers during the Covid-19 pandemic

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

No Thumbnail Available

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Howe, LC 
Menges, JI 

Abstract

Millions of employees across the globe, including a large proportion of knowledge workers, transitioned to remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic. As remote work continues to characterize work post-crisis, it is imperative to understand how employees adjust to remote work. The current research explores the extent to which knowledge workers hold a fixed mindset about remote work (e.g., that a person either is or is not suited to remote work and this cannot be changed) and tested how this mindset shaped well-being during coronavirus-related lockdown. In a longitudinal five-week study of 113 knowledge workers transitioning to remote work, we find that knowledge workers who endorsed a more fixed mindset about remote work experienced more negative and less positive emotion during remote work. The increased negative emotion prompted by fixed mindsets was associated with lesser perceived productivity among these knowledge workers in subsequent weeks. We conclude that understanding how fundamental beliefs (e.g., beliefs about the learnability of remote work) affect employee experiences can help create a brighter future as technology further enables remote work. Encouraging employees to view remote work as a skill that can be learned and developed could help people thrive in the new world of work.

Description

Keywords

46 Information and Computing Sciences, 4608 Human-Centred Computing, 8 Decent Work and Economic Growth

Journal Title

Human–Computer Interaction

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0737-0024
1532-7051

Volume Title

Publisher

Informa UK Limited