Remote worker communication during COVID-19: The role of quantity, quality, and supervisor expectation-setting.

Given the huge increase in remote work that has accompanied the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, understanding predictors of performance and wellbeing among remote workers has never been more timely. Effective communication is commonly cited as key to remote worker success, yet communication variables are rarely incorporated into remote work research. In the present study, we examined the relationship between communication frequency, communication quality, and supervisor-set communication expectations with daily job performance and burnout in an occupationally-diverse sample of employees. We used an experience sampling design and our hypotheses were tested with data collected over a 4-week period with a sample of 471 employees who shifted to full-time remote work due to COVID-19. Results indicated that daily communication quality was associated with daily performance and burnout. In addition, the extent to which supervisors established expectations about communication practices (e.g., expected response times to email) at the onset of the transition to remote work was positively associated with performance, but not burnout. Task interdependence was also tested as a moderator. Task interdependence moderated the relationship between communication quality and performance, such that the relationship was stronger when task interdependence was higher than when it was lower. Task interdependence also moderated the relationship between supervisor-set expectations and performance such that the relationship was stronger when task interdependence was lower than when it was higher. Expected curvilinear relationships between communication frequency and outcomes were not detected. Based on our findings, we provide recommendations for practice and future research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Work-family strategies during COVID-19: Examining gender dynamics among dual-earner couples with young children.

There are several existing typologies of dual-earner couples focused on how they dually manage work and family; however, these all assume that couples can outsource childcare during normal work hours and that work is largely conducted outside of the home. Early attempts to control COVID-19 altered these assumptions with daycares/schools closing and the heavy shift to remote work. This calls into question whether couples tended to fall back on familiar gendered patterns to manage work and family, or if they adopted new strategies for the unique pandemic situation. We addressed this question using a sample of 274 dual-earner couples with young children. We content coded couples' qualitative responses about their plans for managing childcare and work commitments and used these codes in a latent class analysis to identify subgroups. Seven classes were identified, with 36.6% of the sample using strategies where women did most or all childcare, 18.9% of the sample using strategies that were not clearly gendered or egalitarian, and 44.5% of the sample using unique egalitarian strategies. We also obtained data from 133 of these couples approximately 7 weeks later regarding their well-being and job performance. Results suggested that women in the Remote Wife Does It All class had the lowest well-being and performance. There were nuanced differences between the egalitarian strategies in their relationships with outcomes, with the Alternating Days egalitarian category emerging as the overall strategy that best preserved wives' and husbands' well-being while allowing both to maintain adequate job performance. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).