The Benefits of Teleworking in the Public Sector: Reality or Rhetoric?

• Author: Lars Tummers,Hanna de Vries,Victor Bekkers
• Date: 01 December 2019
• Published date: 01 December 2019
• DOI: 10.1177/0734371X18760124
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371X18760124

Review of Public Personnel Administration

2019, Vol. 39(4) 570 –593

© The Author(s) 2018

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DOI: 10.1177/0734371X18760124

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Article

The Benefits of Teleworking

in the Public Sector: Reality

or Rhetoric?

Hanna de Vries1, Lars Tummers2,

and Victor Bekkers1

Abstract

Many public organizations implement teleworking: an organizational innovation

expected to improve the working conditions of public servants. However, it is unclear

to what extent teleworking is beneficial for public servants. This study adds to the

literature by studying the effects of teleworking on a day-to-day basis. We used a

daily diary methodology and followed public servants across five consecutive working

days. Studies that apply a daily survey method are more accurate than cross-sectional

measures because they reduce recall bias. The results highlight that public servants

experience quite negative effects from teleworking, including greater professional

isolation and less organizational commitment on the days that they worked entirely

from home. Contrary to predictions, working from home did not affect work

engagement. We also found that higher leader–member exchange (LMX) reduced the

impact of teleworking on professional isolation. These findings not only contribute to

the literature by showing the unfavorable effects of teleworking but also highlight that

LMX can, to some extent, reduce these negative effects.

Keywords

diary study, LMX, organizational commitment, professional isolation, teleworking,

work engagement

Introduction

Currently, one of the major challenges facing public organizations is adapting to the

societal, administrative, and technological changes confronting them (Osborne &

1Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands

2Utrecht University, The Netherlands

Corresponding Author:

Hanna de Vries, Department of Public Administration and Sociology, Erasmus University Rotterdam,

P.O. Box 1738, 3000 DR Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

Email: devries@essb.eur.nl

760124ROPXXX10.1177/0734371X18760124Review of Public Personnel Administrationde Vries et al.

research-article2018

de Vries et al. 571

Brown, 2005). For instance, due to more women in the workplace, two-career fami-

lies, and employees wanting to manage and/or balance work and life responsibilities,

there is a growing employee demand for more flexible work–life programs (Baltes,

Briggs, Huff, Wright, & Neuman, 1999; Caillier, 2013b). This calls on public organi-

zations to innovate, that is, to develop and adopt new practices that create a discontinu-

ity with the past (de Vries, Bekkers, & Tummers, 2016; Osborne & Brown, 2005).

In this regard, one organizational innovation that is increasingly being adopted in

public organizations is teleworking (Caillier, 2012; de Vries, Tummers, & Bekkers,

2017). With teleworking, “employees have been given the opportunity to perform

some or all of their duties at home or at an alternative location” (Caillier, 2012, p. 461).

Telework can be seen as a typical “magic concept” (see Pollitt & Hupe, 2011) in that

its use both inspires and seduces policymakers. For instance, Barack Obama stated

that “attracting and retaining employees who are more productive and engaged through

flexible workplace policies is not just good for business or for our economy—it’s good

for our families and our future” (The White House, 2010). However, what is really

known about the effects of teleworking on the working life of public servants (see

Caillier, 2012)—is teleworking truly beneficial?

This study aims to partly fill this knowledge gap by examining the effects of public

servants’ teleworking on organizational commitment, on work engagement, and on

professional isolation. We focus on the most often used aspect of telework: the possi-

bility to work from home (home-based teleworking). In studying the relationship

between home-based teleworking and the three above-mentioned outcomes, this study

is both theoretically and methodologically innovative.

Theoretically, our study adds to the public administration literature by providing a

more complete overview of the effects of teleworking by including both positive (i.e.,

work engagement) and negative (i.e., professional isolation) effects, along with an

effect for which the findings in the literature have been mixed (i.e., organizational

commitment). These specific effects of teleworking were chosen because they are fre-

quently discussed in the teleworking literature and often the subject of extensive dis-

cussions (e.g., Demerouti, Derks, ten Brummelhuis, & Bakker, 2014; Golden, 2006;

Golden, Veiga, & Dino, 2008; ten Brummelhuis, Bakker, Hetland, & Keulemans,

2012; for overviews, see T. D. Allen, Golden, & Shockley, 2015; Gajendran &

Harrison, 2007). In so doing, we deliberately chose to include the work engagement

dimension, rather than related concepts such as work motivation, because, particularly

in work and organizational psychology, teleworking has been frequently linked to

increased work engagement (e.g., Demerouti et al., 2014; ten Brummelhuis et al.,

2012). However, this has not been tested in the public administration field. In this

regard, Vigoda-Gadot, Eldor, and Schohat (2013) express surprise that the concept of

employee engagement is seldom used by public administration scholars. Moreover,

given that scholars have hinted that the cognitive-psychological dimensions of leader-

ship may be key to ensuring employee satisfaction and commitment in a teleworking

environment (e.g., Golden & Veiga, 2008; Green & Roberts, 2010), we also include

one potential mechanism that might influence the effects of working from home on the

aforementioned outcomes, namely, leader–member exchange (LMX; Graen & Uhl-

Bien, 1995). This aspect has not been previously studied despite the possibility that