Fighting the 400-Year Pandemic: Racism Against Black People in Organizations.

Anti-Black racism is a pernicious problem that has plagued the USA throughout history. In 2020, we saw intense moments that highlighted the stark anti-Black racism and racial inequity in America. Namely, the murder of George Floyd coupled with the disproportionate levels of negative outcomes from the COVID-19 pandemic affecting Black people in the USA. These instances called attention to the considerable racial inequality in US society and reminded many people that racism seeps throughout all facets of life. Our first goal with this special issue was to call attention to research within in the organizational sciences that focuses on anti-Black racism. The articles in this issue call attention to some of the manifestations and consequences of anti-Black racism as well as ways to reduce its insidious effects. Our second goal was to intentionally highlight the work of Black scholars in the field of I-O psychology. As such, we engaged in targeted recruiting that allowed us to successfully curate articles from a racially diverse group of scholars, and we are able to highlight the work of Black scholars and practitioners in the field.

Fighting the 400-Year Pandemic: Racism Against Black People in Organizations

Anti-Black racism is a pernicious problem that has plagued the USA throughout history. In 2020, we saw intense moments that highlighted the stark anti-Black racism and racial inequity in America. Namely, the murder of George Floyd coupled with the disproportionate levels of negative outcomes from the COVID-19 pandemic affecting Black people in the USA. These instances called attention to the considerable racial inequality in US society and reminded many people that racism seeps throughout all facets of life. Our first goal with this special issue was to call attention to research within in the organizational sciences that focuses on anti-Black racism. The articles in this issue call attention to some of the manifestations and consequences of anti-Black racism as well as ways to reduce its insidious effects. Our second goal was to intentionally highlight the work of Black scholars in the field of I-O psychology. As such, we engaged in targeted recruiting that allowed us to successfully curate articles from a racially diverse group of scholars, and we are able to highlight the work of Black scholars and practitioners in the field.

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).

The fatiguing effects of camera use in virtual meetings: A within-person field experiment.

The COVID-19 pandemic propelled many employees into remote work arrangements, and face-to-face meetings were quickly replaced with virtual meetings. This rapid uptick in the use of virtual meetings led to much popular press discussion of virtual meeting fatigue (i.e., "Zoom fatigue"), described as a feeling of being drained and lacking energy following a day of virtual meetings. In this study, we aimed to better understand how one salient feature of virtual meetings-the camera-impacts fatigue, which may affect outcomes during meetings (e.g., participant voice and engagement). We did so through the use of a 4-week within-person experience sampling field experiment where camera use was manipulated. Drawing from theory related to self-presentation, we propose and test a model where study condition (camera on versus off) was linked to daily feelings of fatigue; daily fatigue, in turn, was presumed to relate negatively to voice and engagement during virtual meetings. We further predict that gender and organizational tenure will moderate this relationship such that using a camera during virtual meetings will be more fatiguing for women and newer members of the organization. Results of 1,408 daily observations from 103 employees supported our proposed model, with supplemental analyses suggesting that fatigue affects same-day and next-day meeting performance. Given the anticipated prevalence of remote work even after the pandemic subsides, our study offers key insights for ongoing organizational best practices surrounding virtual meetings. (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).