Safely remotely – occupational well-being and its management in telework

This research project examines employees’ and supervisors’ experiences of remote work during the coronavirus pandemic and explores factors that improve occupational well-being. A special goal is to develop practical information about managing remote work, focusing especially on improving psychosocial safety climate. Psychosocial safety climate (PSC) refers to employees’ shared perceptions regarding organisational policies, practices, and procedures for the protection of employee psychological health, well-being, and safety.  

The goals of this research project are:

• to investigate the effects of remote work caused by the coronavirus crisis on the long-term trajectories of occupational well-being;
• explore the factors that improve occupational well-being during remote work;
• examine the significance of psychosocial safety climate in occupational well-being; and
• analyse supervisors’ experiences of their own occupational well-being when working remotely. 

Research implementation and schedule 

This research project continues the data collection for two existing longitudinal data sets. In addition, new extensive cross-sectional data is collected from three different target organisations, and interview data is collected to provide more detailed insight into supervisors’ experiences of remote work management. 

The schedule for the project is as follows: 

1. Follow-up data is collected in February and March 2021 from the staff of Tampere Universities and the University of Turku. 
2. New cross-sectional data is collected from the staff and supervisors of Tampere Universities, the University of Turku, and the University of Eastern Finland in April 2021. 
3. Interviews with people in supervisor position are conducted in different target organisations in autumn 2021. 
    

Finnish Work Environment Fund