Development and validation of the Remote Working Benefits & Disadvantages scale.

The changes that are constantly occurring in the labour sector have led organisations and companies to move towards digital transformation. This process was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic and  conducted to a massive recourse to the practice of remote working, which in this study is understood as the term for the way of performing work outside the usual workplace and with the support of ICT. Currently, there are no flexible scales in the literature that allow measuring the benefits and disadvantages of remote working with a single instrument. Thus, the distinction between the positive and negative consequences of working remotely, substantiated by a solid literature, provides a framework for a systematical understanding of the issue. The aim of the present study is to develop and validate a scale on remote working benefits and disadvantages (RW-B&D scale). For this end, a preliminary Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) with 304 participants, a tailored EFA with a sample of 301 workers and a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) with 677 workers were conducted. Participants were all Italian employees who worked remotely during the period of the COVID-19 health emergency. Data were collected between October 2020 and April 2021. The psychometric robustness of the model was assessed through bootstrap validation (5000 resamples), fit indices testing and measurement of factorial invariance. The statistical analyses demonstrated the bifactorial nature of the scale, supporting the research hypothesis. The model showed good fit indices, bootstrap validation reported statistically significant saturations, good reliability indices, and convergent and discriminant validity. Measurement invariance was tested for gender and organisational sector. The results suggested that the novel scale facilitates the quantitative measurement of the benefits and disadvantages associated with remote working in empirical terms. For this reason, it could be a streamlined and psychometrically valid instrument to identify the potential difficulties arising from remote working and, at the same time, the positive aspects that can be implemented to improve organisational well-being.

Emotional Exhaustion and Engagement in Higher Education Students during a Crisis, Lessons Learned from COVID-19 Experience in Italian Universities

Italian university students face an uncertain future characterised by a competitive neoliberal academic environment with high demands and a weak labour market that often cannot hire those who are best qualified. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated students' uncertainty and negatively affected their well-being. The purpose of this study is to explore perceptions of academic life during the pandemic and to examine the relationship between study load, reduced academic performance, internet addiction, academic self-efficacy, and engagement and emotional exhaustion. A sample of university students (N = 10,298) from 11 Italian universities completed a self-report questionnaire about their academic and personal lives between May and June 2021. We performed two multiple linear regressions and one ANOVA to highlight gender differences. Results indicate that female students reported lower levels of engagement and academic self-efficacy, and higher levels of exhaustion and study demands compared to male students, while older students generally appear to exhibit higher levels of well-being. Study load, reduced academic performance, and internet addiction showed a negative association with engagement, particularly the first two, and a positive association with exhaustion, while self-efficacy was positively associated with engagement and negatively associated with exhaustion. The results suggest the need to introduce additional forms of support, such as psychological support, internet addiction awareness courses or counseling services.

A New Academic Quality at Work Tool (AQ@workT) to Assess the Quality of Life at Work in the Italian Academic Context.

The present study provides evidence for a valid and reliable tool, the Academic Quality at Work Tool (AQ@workT), to investigate the quality of life at work in academics within the Italian university sector. The AQ@workT was developed by the QoL@Work research team, namely a group of expert academics in the field of work and organizational psychology affiliated with the Italian Association of Psychologists. The tool is grounded in the job demands-resources model and its psychometric properties were assessed in three studies comprising a wide sample of lecturers, researchers, and professors: a pilot study (N = 120), a calibration study (N = 1084), and a validation study (N = 1481). Reliability and content, construct, and nomological validity were supported, as well as measurement invariance across work role (researchers, associate professors, and full professors) and gender. Evidence from the present study shows that the AQ@workT represents a useful and reliable tool to assist university management to enhance quality of life, to manage work-related stress, and to mitigate the potential for harm to academics, particularly during a pandemic. Future studies, such as longitudinal tests of the AQ@workT, should test predictive validity among the variables in the tool.

Workload, Techno Overload, and Behavioral Stress During COVID-19 Emergency: The Role of Job Crafting in Remote Workers.

The radical changes deriving from the COVID-19 emergency have heavily upset some of the most familiar routines of daily work life. Abruptly, many workers have been forced to face the difficulties that come with switching to remote working. Basing on the theoretical framework proposed by the Job Demands-Resources model, the purpose of this paper was to explore the effect of work overload (workload and techno overload), on behavioral stress, meant as an outcome linked to the health impairment process. Furthermore, the aim of the study was to explore the mediating role of job crafting, considered as a second-order construct consisting of two dimensions (increasing structural resources and increasing challenging demands) in the abovementioned relation. Participants were 530 workers experiencing remote working or work-from-home during the first COVID-19 lockdown in Italy (March-May 2020). Hypotheses were explored by using three different latent variables, measured reflexively through indicators on a 5-point scale, extracted from validated questionnaires. Data analysis was performed through Structural Equation Modeling; to test the mediation, bootstrap validation was computed (n = 2,000). Results showed that the mediation of job crafting was partial. More specifically, the direct effect between work overload and behavioral stress was positive; moreover, the indirect, negative effect through the mediation of job crafting was also significant. Therefore, results showed that job crafting can play a crucial role as a protective factor supporting the activation and adjustment of suitable resources; these resources can be useful to deal with the negative effects of work overload, particularly under the condition of heavy remote working and use of technologies, on individual outcomes. Starting from the current global scenario of the pandemic that has not yet ceased its effects, the study suggested decisive theoretical and practical implications. Accordingly, findings extended the current trends in occupational health psychology research, with special reference to the mainstream topic "work and COVID-19" in the Italian context. Finally, results can give suggestions to companies engaged in managing change, recommending that they build a collaborative workplace at the individual and collective level to implement job crafting interventions and enrich the personal and organizational resources of workers, which is useful cope with the current demands.

“Everything Will Be Fine”: A Study on the Relationship between Employees’ Perception of Sustainable HRM Practices and Positive Organizational Behavior during COVID19

Sustainable human resource management practices represent one of the main organizational strategy to survive and to prosper within the fast-moving current scenario. According to this view, sustainability is strictly linked to the consideration of the unique and distinctive value that each human resource means for organizations. The recent COVID19 pandemic is having a serious impact on organizations and on their employees, it is profoundly changing the working modalities, mainly introducing smart working practices that were showed to have significant consequences on workers’wellbeing. This study aims to investigate employees’perception of sustainable HRM in the frame of the COVID19 emergency, exploring if and to what extent perceptions of involvement and organizational support together with individual coping strategies associated with organizational change could influence positive organizational behaviors, namely organizational engagement and extra-role behavior. The research involved 549 participants who completed a self-report online questionnaire encompassing psycho-social measures of the abovementioned variables. Results confirmed the important role played by sustainable HRM practices both for the capitalization of human resources and of organizational performance in a time of great uncertainty and global crisis. Implications for theory and HRM practice development were also discussed.

Wellbeing Costs of Technology Use during Covid-19 Remote Working: An Investigation Using the Italian Translation of the Technostress Creators Scale

During the first months of 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic has affected several countries all over the world, including Italy. To prevent the spread of the virus, governments instructed employers and self-employed workers to close their offices and work from home. Thus, the use of remote working increased during the pandemic and is expected to maintain high levels of application even after the emergency. Despite its benefits for both organizations and workers, remote working entails negative consequences, such as technostress. The present study had a double aim: to test the psychometric characteristics of the Italian translation of the brief version of the technostress creators scale and to apply the scale to investigate technostress during the Covid-19 emergency. The research involved 878 participants for the first study and 749 participants for the second one;they completed a self-report online questionnaire. Results confirmed the three-factor structure of the Italian technostress creators scale and highlighted positive relationships between workload, techno-stressors, work–family conflict and behavioural stress. The role of remote working conditions has been analysed as well. The study provided a useful tool for the investigation of technostress in the Italian context. Moreover, it provided indications for practice in the field of remote working and workers’ wellbeing.