The employee wellbeing in face-to-face and virtual work: an exploration of the role of SMART work design

Tsai, Ashley Yi-Chen

The employee wellbeing in face-to-face and virtual work: an exploration of the role of SMART work design

Thesis / Dissertation

2024

Publisher

University of Cape Town

Department

Organisational Psychology

Faculty

Faculty of Commerce

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to assess to what degree SMART work design and its individual dimensions can predict wellbeing, and the relative importance of the five dimensions (stimulation, mastery, agency, relationship, tolerable demands) in predicting wellbeing, amongst individuals working either mostly face-to-face or virtually. The descriptive, online survey study recruited participants (N = 160) with purposive and snowball sampling techniques. Regression results, as expected, revealed that SMART work design was a significant predictor for wellbeing in both working modes. Only mastery and tolerable demands predicted unique variance in the wellbeing of employees working mostly face-to-face (N = 109) and tolerable demands was the only predictor explaining unique variance in mostly virtually working employees' wellbeing (N = 51). Relative weight analysis revealed that these differences resulted from the different sample sizes as the relative importance of the five SMART work design dimensions did not differ significantly across the two working modes. The study results suggested that it might be beneficial for organisations to allocate appropriate resources to create work which meets SMART work design standards regardless of employees' working mode to improve employee wellbeing.

Keywords

organisational psychology

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