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This article studies how experience and frequency of telework influence the acceptance and self-reported productivity of this mode of work in a context of pandemic-induced remote work.

The authors use a 2021 dataset of 542 professionals with previous or current experience in home-based telework. Two linear regression models are fitted using the willingness to telework and self-reported productivity as dependent variables.

The findings support the idea that previous telework specific experience and frequency of telework have a positive impact on the willingness to telework and self-reported productivity.

This paper questions the widely accepted idea according to which employees who telework occasionally experience the best outcomes. The authors have identified a “time after time” effect that shows the relevance of telework specific experience and frequency for the development of this mode of work.

This study aims to measure quality of life (QOL) at the individual level in African countries in relation to the accessibility of mobile phones and the internet. QOL is proxied by self‐reported data on household income, participation in decision‐making and productivity, which is measured in additional working hours.

The main methodology is a descriptive analysis that presents a cross‐tabulation of the QOL indicators before and after access to mobile phones and the internet. A specific index of the Gini coefficient and Lorenz curve is also presented in relation to income distribution.

The study found that access to telecommunication devices has contributed very little to closing the income gap in places where the mobile phone has had a slightly higher impact than internet access. The impact on self‐reported participation and productivity is also similar in places where there is no strong evidence that access to both devices is sufficient to motivate users to become more involved and productive.

The choice of the QOL variables is still under discussion. It also has to be said that the proxies for QOL are still very raw, as is the way of measuring it. The descriptive analysis does not provide the causality between the variables, and is rather an indication of the phenomenon – whether access to telecommunication devices leads to a better QOL index.

This paper indicates a need to design policies for the telecommunications sector in African countries with a stronger connection between access to and use of the devices and economic activities. The policy should also aim to reduce the polarisation of access and use by providing a telecommunications infrastructure in all the countries, thereby decreasing the cost of access and usage. Such policies require close collaboration between the governments and the private sector.

This paper attempts to answer the research question of whether access to telecommunication devices, particularly mobile phones and the internet, has led to a better QOL in African countries. It indicates a need for telecommunications policies and infrastructure to reduce the polarisation of access and use.

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the impact that office comfort has on office occupiers' productivity.

The author evaluates the literature that claims to make a linkage between the physical comfort of the office environment and the effect on the productivity of the office occupiers. Office comfort will initially be discussed as a generic concept and subsequently be broken down into sub‐components.

The review of the literature reveals that the evaluation of office comfort is a complex one. There appears to be no universally accepted definition of office comfort, and there is a clear lack of agreement as to how office comfort should be measured. This paper establishes that, there is enough evidence to support the claim that office comfort can affect productivity.

This paper adds to the debate by identifying the need for a common and universally accepted measurement of office comfort. It is proposed that this can largely be achieved by evaluating office comfort with a multi‐item scale, and adopting an office occupier perspective to any future research.

The purpose of this study is to examine the use of IoT technology (RFID technology, sensor networks, wearable devices and other smart items) in office settings and its respective impact on the optimization of employees’ productivity and workspace effectiveness.

The paper reviews 41 relevant publications reporting IoT use in office settings to identify how this technology has been applied in office settings and what topics are mostly addressed in the literature; how IoT technology improves employees’ productivity; and what the benefits and risks associated with IoT use in the workplace environment are.

Two main areas of application of IoT technology in the workplace environment were identified. The first one concerns the influence of the physical characteristics of workplaces on aspects related to workspace effectiveness. The second one is employee-centered and concerns the use of IoT data to identify employees’ social behavior, physiological data and emotional estates associated with productivity. IoT technology provides real-time data with speedy information retrieval. However, its deployment in office settings is not exempt from risks. Employee workplace surveillance, re-individualization of the IoT data and employee refusal of IoT technology in office settings are the main risks associated with this technology.

This literature review categorizes IoT application in office settings according to two perspectives and highlights employees' attitudes, user-experience of IoT technology and the risks associated with this technology. These results will help researchers and workplace managers interested in the deployment of this technology in the workplace environment.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the feasibility and comparability of daily self‐report and objective measures of work performance in complex office tasks, and factors affecting the correlation between these measures.

Medical bill auditors provided daily information for 12 weeks through interactive voice response (IVR) on their speed, concentration and accuracy at work, compared to their best job performance.

The paper found that 124 of 142 recruited subjects (87 percent) completed > 50 percent of daily IVR reports. Concentration, speed and accuracy were highly inter‐correlated (R=0.75), and right‐skewed (mean speed=7.7, SD=1.5). Mean adjusted daily productivity rate (MAP) was 34 bills/hour (range 4.7 to 111, SD12.6, 61 percent within‐person variation). Subject‐specific speed – MAP correlation varied from R=−0.20 to +0.75 (mean, 0.28). Health status, years on job, age, IVR completion rate, site, month of study, or total hours worked were not associated with these variations.

This paper provides an unprecedented level of detail in the comparison of self‐reported and objective daily measures of work performance, demonstrates the feasibility of data collection and analysis, and identified significant inconsistencies among workers in the correlation between the two types of measures. Results demonstrated that daily self‐reports cannot be used as a direct surrogate for objective performance measures.

This paper has three aims: Firstly, it puts the pandemic-induced surge in homeworking into context by charting trends in homeworking in the UK since the early 1980s. Secondly, it examines what effect the growth in homeworking during the pandemic has had on employees' self-reported levels of productivity. Thirdly, it assesses whether the spike in homeworking is a flash in the pan or a permanent feature of the post-pandemic world.

The paper uses cross-sectional and longitudinal data taken from three nationally representative surveys of workers: (1) the Labour Force Survey (LFS), an official government survey carried out between 1981 and 2019; (2) a special module of the Opinions and Lifestyle Survey (OPN), also an official government survey, which has been run every week since the pandemic began in March 2020; and (3) the Understanding Society Covid-19 Study, an online survey of the same people interviewed on six occasions during 2020.

The recent surge in homeworking in the UK during the pandemic has been dramatic. Before 2020, it had taken almost 40 years for homeworking to grow by three percentage points, but its prevalence grew eight-fold virtually overnight as people were instructed to work at home if they can because of the pandemic. Despite theories and predictions to the contrary, employees reported that their productivity was not adversely affected. Seven out of ten employees said that they were able to get as much done while working at home in June 2020 as they were able to do six months earlier. By September 2020, this proportion had risen to 85%. However, around one in six homeworkers reported that their productivity had fallen.

While there are solid theoretical reasons for the paper's findings, these data do not allow us to test all of the mechanisms involved. In addition, our outcome measure relies on employees' self-reports of how their hourly productivity changed when working at home and is not based on a direct measure of changes to output per hour. However, surveys of employers also suggest that, on average, productivity has not been reduced by the pandemic-induced surge in homeworking.

This paper argues that a higher level of homeworking is here to stay. Nine out of ten employees who worked at home during the pandemic said that they would like to continue working at home when they did not have to. Furthermore, those keenest to continue working at home were the most productive, hence providing a business case for a sustained increase in the prevalence of homeworking after the pandemic has passed. Nevertheless, the experience of homeworking varies with those with higher domestic commitments reporting significantly lower levels of productivity.

There is an urgent need to investigate what effect enforced, as opposed to voluntary, homeworking has had on employee productivity. In addition, in order to decide whether continued homeworking should be encouraged or discouraged, policymakers and employers need to know what effect continuing with these arrangements is likely to have on employee productivity. This paper answers these questions using robust survey data collected in the UK throughout 2020, complemented by evidence taken from a variety of employer surveys.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships between theoretically grounded telework factors and various individual and organizational outcomes of telework (overall satisfaction with telework, perceived advantages of telework, career opportunities and self-reported productivity).

Based on a literature review, ten telework factors that may affect individual and organizational telework outcomes were identified and empirically tested using the survey data of 128 teleworkers exercising different telework intensity and representing various sectors of the economy.

The bundle of theoretically selected variables explained a significant part of the variance of telework outcomes. Reduced communication with co-workers, supervisor’s trust and support, suitability of the working place at home were found to be the most important telework factors impacting different telework outcomes. Higher self-reported productivity was related to reduced time in communicating with co-workers, a suitable working place at home and the possibility to take care of family members when teleworking.

This study provides insights about the management of telework in organizations by highlighting the factors that promote the satisfaction, productivity and perceived career opportunities of teleworkers.

This paper challenges the results of previous research on the factors related with telework and its outcomes. Based on the job demands-resources theory, the authors identified the factors that serve as resources in generating positive telework outcomes, and the factors increasing job demands and reducing satisfaction with telework.

To assess: (1) the prevalence of specific work practices that incorporate use of information and communication technology (ICT), (2) whether these practices are connected to employee distress or productivity via work extension or social network processes; (3) the implications of ICT-based work practices for the work/family interface.

We draw on the 2008 Pew Networked Workers data collected from a nationally representative sample of workers and use logistic regression methods to investigate links among use of specific ICT-based practices and increases in distress or productivity.

(1) Use of e-mail, instant messaging, texts, and social networking sites at work varies by demographic, organization, and job characteristics, and (2) ICT-based work extension, social network expansion, and connectivity to work colleagues are linked to increases in distress and productivity. Connecting with family or friends while at work can reduce the likelihood that an employee reports an increase in work stress.

Limitations include a cross-sectional design, age of the data, missing data, and measurement issues. Even with these limitations, there are few investigations drawing from national samples of employees that can assess work-related ICT use with this level of depth.

Findings point to technological innovation as an important factor influencing work extension and social network processes and connect this to changes in employee distress and productivity. The focus on productivity is especially important given the emphasis that previous research has placed on linking ICT use and employee distress.

There is growing interest in the economic impact of workplace physical activity interventions, but the evidence is still lacking — especially in Europe. Although, some evidence on the return on investment (ROI) is found in literature, the included studies may not be applicable to the Europe situation. Therefore, the objective of this study was to review current evidence on the economic impact of workplace physical activity interventions in European countries.

A systematic review on the economic impact of worksite health promotion programs aiming at increasing physical activity was conducted. Five electronic databases (MEDLINE (Ovid), MEDLINE (PubMed), EMBASE, NHS-EED and Emerald Insights) were searched for relevant studies published between 2000 and 2020.

A total of 953 abstracts were screened, and 28 were reviewed, 11 of which met all inclusion criteria. The studies varied substantially in sample size, intervention type, duration and frequency of follow-up measurements, valuation methods and assessed economic outcomes. There is inconclusive evidence for decreasing absenteeism, positive net benefit (NB) and positive ROI. No evidence was found to indicate an effect on self-assessed productivity or job satisfaction.

This study is the first try to take the different working conditions from Europe into consideration. The authors found that working conditions could have some impact on the valuation of absenteeism costs and thereof on the ROI. Further, this study provides insight into how to deploy effective and efficient workplace physical activity interventions, based on a standardized and validated methodology and program scope.

This paper aims to examine the critical question of how to increase productivity without also increasing the burnout risk. A systems thinking framework was applied to explore individual perceptions of team dynamics and how they relate to morale, work–life balance (WLB) and hours worked.

Using an online survey, data from 1,222 Australian workers were analysed using hierarchical multiple regression and principal components analysis (PCA).

Self-reported productivity was found to be predicted by engagement whereas burnout and morale had minimal impact. Burnout risk was not related to hours worked but was reduced when WLB, quality work and trust is higher. Co-worker effort impacted morale and a factor labelled as team “sense of accomplishment” (SoA) was identified.

The results of this research have limited generalisability to wider populations due to sampling methods, being conducted in the Australian context and respondents coming from a diverse range of occupations. The sample being skewed towards younger age groups and the acknowledged use of single-item measures may also restrict drawing broader conclusions from the results.

A socio-technical systems thinking model to diagnose the link between workplace burnout and productivity is applied. The approach involved understanding the importance of trust and how the connection between people and systems can influence morale.