An exploration of the psychological factors affecting remote e-worker's job effectiveness, well-being and work-life balance

Purpose - The main goal of this study was to explore the impact of remote e-working on the key research areas of work-life balance, job effectiveness and well-being. The study provides a set of generalisable themes drawn from the key research areas, including building trust, management style and the quality of work and non-working life. Design/methodology/approach - The paper is an exploratory study into the psychological factors affecting remote e-workers using qualitative thematic analysis of eleven in-depth interviews with e-workers, across five organisations and three sectors. All participants worked remotely using technology independent of time and location for several years and considered themselves to be experts. Findings - The paper provides insights into the diverse factors affecting remote e-workers and produces ten emerging themes. Differentiating factors between e-workers included access to technology, ability to work flexibly and individual competencies. Adverse impacts were found on well-being, due to over-working and a lack of time for recuperation. Trust and management style were found to be key influences on e-worker effectiveness. Research limitations/implications - Because of the exploratory nature of the research and approach the research requires further testing for generalisability. The emerging themes could be used to develop a wide scale survey of e-workers, whereby the themes would be further validated. Practical implications - Practical working examples are provided by the e-workers and those who also manage e-workers based on the ten emerging themes. Originality/value - This paper identifies a number of generalisable themes that can be used to inform the psychological factors affecting remote e-worker effectiveness.