Telework Implications on Work-Life Balance, Productivity, and Health of Different Generations of Romanian Employees

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

My review on the manuscript focused the attention on the high quality of presentation, content, discussion, findings, analyses, etc.

However, the paper must be revised due to the next reasons:

1.     The paper seems like a draft – different colours, wrong symbols, etc.

2.     The citation must be improved according to the journal instructions for authors.

3.     Abstract is unclear about the purpose of the research, methodology, research objects, results, paper structure, etc.

4.     Rows 142-143 – need revision.

5.     Fig. 1 is not finished, it must be improved or excluded.

6.     The Introduction section sounds incomplete because of the missing research object, aims, tasks, thesis, limitations, etc. I recommend to briefly explain the topics just to engage the readers’ attention from the beginning.

7.     The section Conclusion – it is incomplete, please check the journal requirements and revise the conclusions based on the literature, give suggestions for future research, limitations of the research.

8.     Please state clearly what is the research gap that your paper gives. Explain what the scientific and practical contribution of the paper is.

9.     The hypothesis development must be grounded on a deep literature review. The only one hypothesis in the research is not enough.

10.  Revise rows 230-234 – the text is in red.

11.  Author contributions – please check he journal requirements.

12.  Please provide information about the Ethical Committee – the research is with humans.

In summary, the paper is very interesting, and I think that my recommendations will not be a problem for you.

Author Response

Please see the attachement.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

I read the paper with great interest. This study focuses on the research Implications on Work-Life Balance, Productivity, and Health of Different Generations of Romanian Employees. Following are the observations.

Introduction

-          The current introduction is missing substantial background literature. The author(s) should provide additional background literature in the introduction.

Methods

-          Please provide a few more sentences about the rationale for the inclusion criteria.

-          Were there any inclusion/exclusion criteria regarding time of publication?

-          What is your data analysis process to review?

Result and discussion

-          In the Method, please include more description in the qualitative method used.

Conclusion

-          Conclusion should be précised and based on the findings.

References & in text citations

-          In text citations are missing and references are incomplete.

Overall Comments:

-          In manuscripts lot of grammatical errors which need to be fixed before publications.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments to the Author(s)

Recommendation: Major revision

First, I would like to thank the Editor for trusting me with the opportunity to review this research, "Telework Implications on Work-Life Balance, Productivity, and Health of Different Generations of Romanian Employees.” The manuscript addresses the timely and prevalent topic of Telecommuting. The study claims to have used a mixed-methods approach, in-depth-interviews (qualitative technique) followed by survey-based data (quantitative method) to assess the influence of Telework on employees’ work-life balance and productivity; however, the authors have nowhere proposed the hypotheses and tested the above-mentioned relationships. The study needs a thorough revision. Below are some suggestions that need to be taken care of.  

1- The introduction seems a bit weaker and does not explicitly build upon the research problem. I suggest the authors improve the introduction by building a bit more on the research problem while highlighting the study's need.

2- Throughout the manuscript, here and there, texts are highlighted and track changed. Some of the texts are also in Romanian instead of English. These things need attention.

3- The literature should be a bit more critical, covering more current literature on telecommuting and work-life balance. Some suggested references are given below.

Jamal, M.T., Anwar, I., Khan, N.A. and Saleem, I. (2021), "Work during COVID-19: assessing the influence of job demands and resources on practical and psychological outcomes for employees", Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Administration, https://doi.org/10.1108/APJBA-05-2020-0149

Hayes, S. W., Priestley, J. L., Moore, B. A., & Ray, H. E. (2021). Perceived Stress, Work-Related Burnout, and Working From Home Before and During COVID-19: An Examination of Workers in the United States. SAGE Open, 11(4), 21582440211058190.

Jamal, M. T., Alalyani, W. R., Thoudam, P., Anwar, I., & Bino, E. (2021). Telecommuting during COVID 19: A Moderated-Mediation Approach Linking Job Resources to Job Satisfaction. Sustainability, 13(20), 11449. https://doi.org/10.3390/su132011449

Kumar, P., Kumar, N., Aggarwal, P., & Yeap, J. A. L. (2021). Working in lockdown: The relationship between COVID-19 induced work stressors, job performance, distress, and life satisfaction. Current Psychology, 40(12), 6308–6323.

4- The study should formulate and present the hypotheses that propose to test the influence of Telework on employees’ work-life balance and productivity.

5- The study should also establish the measurement model (convergent and divergent validity) using CFA and report the same.

6- The study should test the hypotheses and report the results.

7- Discussion would need to be restructured as per the results of the hypotheses testing.

8- Following the discussion (based on the results of hypotheses testing), the study needs to offer suggestions for the theory and practice (in a separate section).

9- The study also needs thorough language checks and proofreading. 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Thank you for the opportunity of reading and reviewing your interesting manuscript. The paper addresses a corona-related topic which is relevant for the current trends in research, although many previous papers had addressed the same topic. My comments are as follows:

 Regarding the content:

- please clearly state the research gap you have identified, how you intend to contribute to filling it, and in this context which are the aims of your research

- clarifying which is the place of your research in the pletora of studies on the same topic is necessary

- you mention one hypothesis of your reserach but the literature addresses many other topic then the generational issue

- in the Methodology section you mention a questionnaire consisting of 18 questions? Variables? Please clarify this and add the questionnaire at the end of the paper as appendix

- please consistently revise the Conclusions section, as now it does not present the conclusions of your research.

Formal comments:

- there are parts not translated in English

- there are typos (e.g. Mars instead of March etc.)

Good luck!

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 5 Report

The COVID-19 emergency has created requirements in the workplace that are showing their true colours in the medium term. In the face of unavoidable work-from-home activity to protect the population during the aggressive phase of the COVID-19 pandemic as the health control pressure has eased in many developed countries or the epidemic has waned in terms of variant potency, there has been a two-fold pressure: companies have seen an updated gain in their employees working at home, and the latter have preferred the comfort zone at home.

A number of psychological and social issues emerged, however, which the manuscript thoroughly addresses, except for the personal health and well-being part in the medium to long distance.

In this regard, I suggest reading and discussing some prototypes of social pathologies that have been negatively affected by teleworking:

PMID: 32969707

PMID: 34024799

PMID: 35758896 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors had improved the paper quality. I confirm that the manuscript is ready for publication.

Author Response

We would like to express our gratitude for your help and thank you for your concerns regarding our research theme. Your comments and suggestions were very useful for us in refining the manuscript.

Reviewer 3 Report

I would like to commend the authors for putting in serious efforts in improving the manuscript by incorporating the suggested changes. I have gone through the revised manuscript thoroughly and I found it acceptable for publication. The study seems to have the potential to contribute to the extant literature. I congratulate the authors for this commendable work and thank the editor for providing me the opportunity to review this manuscript. 

Author Response

We would like to express our gratitude for your help. Your comments and suggestions were very useful for us in refining the manuscript.

Reviewer 4 Report

Thank you for providing the revisedversion of your manuscript. My comments and suggestions were addressed.

Author Response

We would like to express our gratitude for your help. Your comments and suggestions were very useful for us in refining the manuscript.