Employee Health in the Digital Era: Evidence on Relationships between ICT-induced Changes in the Workplace and Perceived Health

The digital era is accelerating the integration of new information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the workplace. These modern technologies determine how work is executed in the 21st century. Hence, employees see themselves confronted with complex ICT-induced changes which may threaten their health. The present work combines three studies addressing theoretical and methodological research gaps in three selected research streams that are particularly affected by ICTs and related to employee health: workplace flexibility, technostress and work-family conflict.
Study 1 follows the notion that prior research neglects to incorporate crucial contextual factors when examining the relation between workplace flexibility and employee health. The results indicate that a profound (virtual) communication behavior must be present for workplace flexibility to become beneficial. This connection becomes even more relevant in task interdependent work settings. Study 2 shows that the fear of losing ones’ job due to technologies (i.e., technological insecurity), is associated with detrimental effects for employee health. Yet, results show that organizations can assist employees in coping with these modern forms of stress by creating a supportive organizational environment, i.e., support employees in using their individual strengths and enable friendship opportunities. At last, Study 3 challenges the current state of research on the causal relationship between work-family conflict (WFC) and employee health (i.e., reciprocal effect). Applying latest statistical methods to analyze longitudinal data it provides empirical evidence that supports the existence of a unidirectional effect of WFC on employee health, and not vice versa.
Taken together, these results indicate that the analyzed ICT-induced changes in the workplace affect employee health. Yet, employees are not affected equally as the influence depends on contextual factors. This also implies that the changes taking place can be managed. However, it is important that initiatives, that intend to uncover the influence of the ‘new normal’, rely on state-of-the-art statistical methods in order to draw the best possible conclusions.

The digital era is accelerating the integration of new information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the workplace. These modern technologies determine how work is executed in the 21st century. Hence, employees see themselves confronted with complex ICT-induced changes which may threaten their health. The present work combines three studies addressing theoretical and methodological research gaps in three selected research streams that are particularly affected by ICTs and related to employee health: workplace flexibility, technostress and work-family conflict.
Study 1 follows the notion that prior research neglects to incorporate crucial contextual factors when examining the relation between workplace flexibility and employee health. The results indicate that a profound (virtual) communication behavior must be present for workplace flexibility to become beneficial. This connection becomes even more relevant in task interdependent work settings. Study 2 shows that the fear of losing ones’ job due to technologies (i.e., technological insecurity), is associated with detrimental effects for employee health. Yet, results show that organizations can assist employees in coping with these modern forms of stress by creating a supportive organizational environment, i.e., support employees in using their individual strengths and enable friendship opportunities. At last, Study 3 challenges the current state of research on the causal relationship between work-family conflict (WFC) and employee health (i.e., reciprocal effect). Applying latest statistical methods to analyze longitudinal data it provides empirical evidence that supports the existence of a unidirectional effect of WFC on employee health, and not vice versa.
Taken together, these results indicate that the analyzed ICT-induced changes in the workplace affect employee health. Yet, employees are not affected equally as the influence depends on contextual factors. This also implies that the changes taking place can be managed. However, it is important that initiatives, that intend to uncover the influence of the ‘new normal’, rely on state-of-the-art statistical methods in order to draw the best possible conclusions.