Teleworking nowadays: what are the impacts on professional performance, well-being and work context?

ABSTRACT

From the pandemic imposed by the new coronavirus, teleworking proved to be a promising and desirable work arrangement alternative in times of social isolation, so that it has received increasingly priority attention in human resources management research agendas in the public sector. Federal Data Processing Service (Serpro) was one of the pioneers in adopting teleworking in Brazil and, therefore, it was the locus of this study. This study explored the positive and negative sides of teleworking in Serpro from the point of view of managers, teleworkers and colleagues and also compared teleworkers and no teleworkers with regard to the professional performance, work context and work well-being. The research method included questionnaires and textual analysis, analysis of variance and Mann-Whitney tests. About the positive sides of teleworking, the most relevant points were productivity increase and quality of life increase. About negative sides, technical difficulties and social interaction limitations can be pointed out. Results also showed that teleworkers have more positive perceptions about work context, professional performance and work well-being. This study provides a reflective look on adopting and implementing teleworking for public managers.