Public management strategies for improving satisfaction with pandemic-induced telework among public employees

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJM-01-2022-0048
• Published date: 13 October 2022
• Date: 13 October 2022
• Pages: 558-575
• Subject Matter: Economics,Labour economics
• Author: Jungin Kim

Public management strategies for

improving satisfaction with

pandemic-induced telework among

public employees

Jungin Kim

Department of Public Administration, The University of Suwon,

Hwaseong, Republic of Korea

Abstract

Purpose –The author examined the association between public employees’satisfaction with pandemic-

induced telework satisfaction and job autonomy, organizational goal clarity, organizational justice, and

performance-basedculture. In addition, the author analyzed the moderating effects of generation and gender on

the relationships between job autonomy, organizational goal clarity, organizational justice, performance-based

culture, and pandemic-induced telework satisfaction.

Design/methodology/approach –This study used survey data collected from 4,339 Korean public

employees, comprising 1,983 central government officials and 2,356 metropolitan government officials, during

the COVID-19 pandemic. This study conducted a structural equation model to test hypotheses.

Findings –The author found that job autonomy, organizational goal clarity, organizational justice, and

performance-based culture were positively associated with pandemic-induced telework satisfaction. In

addition, this research found the moderating effects of generation and gender on the relationships between job

autonomy, organizational goal clarity, organizational justice, performance-based culture, and pandemic-

induced telework satisfaction.

Originality/value –This study’s results can guide public organizations in developing public management

strategies to improve pandemic-induced telework satisfaction. In particular, public organizations need to cope

effectively with the broad prevalence of telework triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic by establishing high job

autonomy, a performance-oriented culture, a fair evaluation system, and clear and measurable performance

goals and adjusting telework according to the generational and gender characteristics.

Keywords COVID-19 pandemic, Gender, Generation, Job autonomy, Pandemic-induced telework satisfaction

Paper type Research paper

Introduction

Telework emerged over a decade ago as a new form of work, and it has become an important

flexible work arrangement that is now fully accepted in the workplace. The rate of those working

from home has increased from 5.2% in 2009 to 9% in 2019 in the EU (OECD, 2021), and the

Telework Enhancement Act of 2010 was enacted intheUSasstrategicmanagementmeansfor

the federal government to achieve greater flexibility in managing the workforce [1] Most relevant

at the moment is the importance of telework during the COVID-19 pandemic, which is

transmitted through physical proximity and thrusts the workforce into telework. The sudden

appearance of the pandemic completely changed work patterns in Asian countries, which had

previously been reluctant to allow remote work. Asian countries, which tend to have a collectivist

organizational culture and prefer face-to-face work, have shown negative attitudes toward

telework. However, due to the pandemic, governments that have previously supported an

organizational culture of resistance to telework are willing to facilitate it (Mori and Hayashi, 2020).

The prevalence of telework following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic calls for

further research on the changing attitudes to telework in the public sector, as past research on

IJM

44,3

558

Funding: This work was supported by The University of Suwon, 2021.

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/0143-7720.htm

Received 23 January 2022

Revised 26 July 2022

Accepted 22 September 2022

International Journal of Manpower

Vol. 44 No. 3, 2023

pp. 558-575

© Emerald Publishing Limited

0143-7720

DOI 10.1108/IJM-01-2022-0048

telework has mainly focused on the possibilities, benefits, and limits of telework in

bureaucratic organizations (Taskin and Edwards, 2007). Despite the benefits and drawbacks

of telework, remote work has become mandatory in many instances since the beginning of the

COVID-19 pandemic, which has led us to embed social distancing into our lives (Schuster

et al., 2020). Unlike conventional telework concerned with workplace flexibility and voluntary

employee practices, pandemic-induced telework has specific features of mandatory stay-at-

home order (lockdown), full-time out-of-office work, and lack of employee agreement (Carillo

et al., 2021).

Mandatory telework needs to be judged separately from conventional telework offered as

an alternative flexible work arrangement because employees cannot choose to participate in

mandatory telework (Chong and Chang, 2020). In particular, the rapid implementation of

telework triggered by the pandemic sometimes affects productivity negatively, producing

task setbacks and emotional exhaustion relative to the status quo before the pandemic

(Chong and Chang, 2020). Because the COVID-19 pandemic has made working remotely

compulsory, the public sector needs to prepare public management strategies to increase

pandemic-induced telework satisfaction.

Our study examined the forces that increase pandemic-induced telework satisfaction of

public employees. More specifically, in the telework triggered by the pandemic, we focused on

the effects of job (job autonomy) and organizational (organizational goal clarity,

organizational justice, and performance-based culture) forces. Furthermore, because such

telework satisfaction varies by generation and gender (Kar

acsony, 2021), we examined the

moderating effects of generation and gender on relationships among job autonomy,

organizational goal clarity, organizational justice, performance-based culture, and pandemic-

induced telework satisfaction. These results can provide public organizations with public

management strategies to improve telework satisfaction of employees after working from

home has become mandatory in the public sector since the outbreak of the COVID-19

pandemic.

Conceptual framework on pandemic-induced telework satisfaction and its

causes

Characteristics of pandemic-induced telework

Telework is a “work arrangement in which employees perform their regular work at a site other

than the ordinary workplace, supported by technological connections”(Fitzer, 1997: 65).

Telework entails a shift from a centralized work mode in which employees are gathered in one

place to a dispersed and fragmented work mode (Sewell and Taskin, 2015). Telework has

contradictory effects on communication with colleagues, supervisors, and clients. More

specifically, some studieshave found that teleworkers who are isolatedfrom the office andtheir

colleagues perceive task setbacks, emotional exhaustion, and loneliness. Other research has

shown that remote work can positively affect employees’outcomes, such as job satisfaction and

work–life balance (Carillo et al., 2021;Chong and Chang, 2020;Cooper and Kurland, 2002;

Kar

acsony, 2021). Most studies on telework effects have focused on the positive relationship

between telework and job satisfaction. For example, empirical research showed that teleworkers

were satisfied because they had lower levels of work–life conflict, less stress due to meetings and

interruptions, and less awareness of organizational politics (Fonner and Roloff, 2010).

In particular, the public sector with bureaucratic organizational characteristics did not

have telework-specificities. Most of all, when we consider that public managers prefer to

observe and supervise their subordinates in the field (Taskin and Edwards, 2007), telework

could challenge traditional public organizational management practices, such as the exercise

of command and control of public managers, based on the visibility. Accordingly, public

sectors were hesitant to adopt telework because it might undermine bureaucratic control

Pandemic-

induced

telework

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