Onderzoek aan de universiteit van Wisconsin naar telewerken, toont een moeilijk evenwicht tussen contact en rust. Wat bedoelen ze hier mee. Aan de ene kant geeft contact met de collega’s een goed gevoel, maar het mag niet een van de belangrijkste voordelen van telewerken in het gedrang brengen: rustig, ongestoord kunnen doorwerken. Forner, een van de onderzoekers, stelt: “It is often assumed that teleworkers need a lot of communication and contact with the organization in order to diminish their sense of distance and to develop a sense of belonging. But we found that the more teleworkers communicated with others, the more stressed they felt due to interruptions, and this was negatively associated with their identification with the organization.” (bron)

Volgens de onderzoekers is de eenzaamheid van telewerken trouwens een mythe. Wat kan je dan best als werknemer en werkgever doen?

“Teleworkers should strategically manage their connectivity in order to balance the benefits and drawbacks of communicating with others,” zegt Fonner, “while organizations should focus on streamlining communication. This may include limiting mass emails, diminishing the number of weekly meetings, creating information stores and fostering an environment where employees can schedule uninterrupted time to work.” (zelfde bron)

Abstract van het onderzoek:

Scholars emphasize the importance of rich communication media for the development of Teleworkers’ organizational identification, but tests of these relationships have produced inconsistent results. The connectivity paradox helps explain these findings. The paradox suggests that Teleworkers’ connectivity to others through communication media facilitates remote work by affording greater social presence, while also negating the benefits of telework by enabling stressful interruptions. These outcomes of connectivity may benefit and detract from identification. We propose a model linking the core features of the connectivity paradox to organizational identification. Teleworkers and office workers were surveyed, and a multigroup path analysis was utilized. Results indicate that connectivity increases stress from interruptions and indirectly diminishes Teleworkers’ identification.