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The COVID‐19 pandemic has thrust millions of workers into high‐intensity telecommuting. While much research has examined the first months of the pandemic, little is known about how workers have responded to this new work arrangement over time. The stressor‐reaction perspective suggests that any strain related to the physical separation from coworkers may persist as long as the stressor is present, while the adaptation perspective implies that individuals adopt new behaviours that help them adjust once the initial shock is over. This research examines the changes in work belongingness, meaningful work, and emotional exhaustion following a shift to high‐intensity telecommuting, between September 2020 and March 2021. We conducted a four‐wave study among an organizational sample of 716 workers who transitioned to high‐intensity telecommuting during the pandemic. Latent growth modelling analyses showed that new high‐intensity telecommuters experienced declines in work belongingness over time, which in turn led to decreased perceptions that their work was meaningful and increased emotional exhaustion, supporting the stress‐reaction perspective. Contrary to theoretical predictions, trajectories were worse for those with a higher initial affective commitment to coworkers. We discuss how our findings can inform scholars and practitioners about the unfolding consequences of a collective shift to high‐intensity telecommuting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Answering calls to further explore the role of cognition in the work‐family interface, this study examines the cognitive work‐family spillover of satisfaction. Moreover, to date, theories have proposed identical effects and moderators for the work‐to‐family and the family‐to‐work directions of spillover, an assumption termed the bidirectional parallelism thesis, which we will test. The objective of this study is therefore to examine work‐family boundary strength and domain identity salience as moderators of the spillover of satisfaction from work to family and from family to work. First, while the literature has mostly focused on the positive consequences of boundary strength, we draw on boundary theory to posit that boundary strength of the receiving domain limits satisfaction spillover. Second, in accordance with the enactment effect derived from boundary theory, we argue that spillover originates more strongly from domains that are salient in one's identity. To test these hypotheses, 2637 Canadian workers participated in a two‐wave study. Structural equation modelling analyses showed that job satisfaction had a lagged relationship with family satisfaction irrespective of the levels of home boundary strength and work identity salience. Inversely, family satisfaction had a significant lagged relationship with job satisfaction only when work boundary strength was low or when family identity salience was high. This study contributes to work‐family theories by extending their propositions to satisfaction as a cognitive component of subjective well‐being, as well as testing its spillover in a time frame consistent with the greater stability of cognitive evaluations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has precipitated a massive adoption of high-intensity work-from-home (WFH), a form of work organization that is expected to persist. Yet, little is known about the predictors and mechanisms underlying employees' successful adjustment to high-intensity WFH. Drawing on signaling theory, we identify psychological climate for face time (i.e., an employee's perception that their organization values physical presence in the office) as an antecedent of WFH adjustment. We argue that when WFH employees perceive that their organization encourages face time, they may view availability as a signal of their dedication to work, replacing visibility. Consequently, they feel expected to be extensively available (e.g., check emails outside of regular working hours). In turn, these perceived expectations predict lower adjustment to WFH. We further explore whether this process differs in the US and two European countries, France and Spain, given different employment protection and right to disconnect legislations, and different meanings attached to work ethics. In a two-wave study on a sample of 532 full-time WFH employees, structural equation modeling analyses show that perceptions of availability expectations mediate the negative relationship between psychological climate for face time and WFH adjustment, and that this process is accentuated in the US. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]