Telework and Work–Family Conflict during COVID-19 Lockdown in Portugal: The Influence of Job-Related Factors

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear author,

Thank you for the opportunity of reviewing the manuscript entitled 'Telework and work-family conflict during COVID-19 lockdown: The influence of job-related factors'. The article focuses on one of the drastic changes in everyday life in the past year in which working from home became ubiquitous. For this reason, the manuscript has a certain potential, but there are also some concerns that have to be adressed. I will enlist my comments chronological with the article outline. 

1. The introduction is fluently written and well paced. In my opinion, it misses the following characteristics:
   
   1. It is unclear what the research question is. I would like to read this (in a sentence with a question mark) at the end of the introduction, since it sets the focus for the rest of the article. 
   2. Sometimes the language appears to be hesitant as if you doubt whether you succeeded in your research plan. As an example, you write: "With this work, we attempt to analyze some of these potential factors, namely those related to the work context". This has to be adjusted (e.g. we analyzed potential factors related to the work context) and the manuscript should be checked throughout for similar sentences. 
   3. The introduction rightfully adresses that there are different types of telework (and hence, it is not always the holy grail for work-life balance). This is however, not entirely new and the difference between different types and context in which telework takes place should be adressed. I recommend using following study: Donnelly, N. and Proctor-Thomson, S.B. (2015), Home-based teleworking in disasters. New Technology, Work and Employment, 30: 47-61. https://doi.org/10.1111/ntwe.12040
2. The literature section was well-written but in my opinion somewhat incomplete. The following recommendations might improve the quality of the literature section. 
   1. There is a common positive connotation in the concept of flexibility that is present in a large strand of work-life research and you rightfully adress in the literature. Nonetheless, flexibility is also often described negatively (non-standard working schedules, unstructured flexibility, precarious work...). The main differences between both strands seem to be that a different public uses these types of flexibility and the control is delegated differently (employer - employee). I think your study is very interesting since it positions itself on the intersection of both strands of literature: now it are not only precarious workers who have no control about the flexibility of their work, but also high-end employees. Therefore, I would recommend introducing the different discourses on flexibility more in-depth instead of the rather small allinea about the often rosy picture of working at home. 
   2. The hypotheses are well articulated. 
3. Methodology
   1. There are many women in the sample, which must have had an impact on the results. I recommend writing down the strategies you used to have a more equal gender balance and to reflect in the limitations how this gender balance might have impacted your results. 
   2. There seems to be an overpresentation of higher educated respondents. Similar to the previous comment, this should be acknowledged in the limitation section. 
   3. Given the descriptive statistics of the dataset, I wonder whether an analysis on 'high educated women' would be better since this seems to be the majority of the study sample. 
   4. Please document whether weights are used. 
   5. It seems problematic that there is no comparison since the findings might be due to pre-existing differences as well (e.g. with a before covid-measurement). I suggest to include a couple of sentences to explain why this is not needed. It would be helpfull if this explanation relates to the research question I mentioned earlier. 
   6. A description of the analysis is missing. You describe how you measured certain concepts, but you did not describe how you analyzed them.  
   7. Given the own data collection, I recommend to write a section on reliability, validity and replicability as well, at the moment, there are many things unclear. 
4. The results section is very minimal and can be elabourated. As an example, it would be interesting to explore more in-group differences. 
   
   1. The first section of the results is used to describe that a regression analysis has taken place. I recommend to describe this in detail in the method section. 
5. Discussion
   1. The study confirms much of what is already known without the covid-19 context. 
   2. It is unclear how covid-19 lockdowns have been taken into account and which aspects of the lockdown actually contribute to the work-life conflict. 
6. There is no conclusion

Additional comments: 

A. I miss the country context. It is clear that each country reacted differently to the crisis and work-life conflict in between countries was different pre-covid as well. There should be a section dedicated to a detailed description of the covid-measures in the country in which this study took place, the presence of flexibility at the workplace before covid (e.g. was this already regulated?) and the prevalence of work-life conflict. 

B. There appears to be no comparison before covid-19, which makes it difficult to observe what lockdowns and mandatory homework contributes to work-life conflict. 

C. There should be more focus on how mandatory teleworking during the covid lockdown is different than regular teleworking.

D. The reference list seems somewhat outdated at some points. Especially since a lot has been published about the covid-19 pandemic. I suggest including some more recent papers, especially on the relation between teleworking due to covid-19 and work-life conflict. E.G. the following list of references: 

Irawanto, D. W., Novianti, K. R., & Roz, K. (2021). Work from Home: Measuring Satisfaction between Work–Life Balance and Work Stress during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Indonesia. Economies, 9(3), 96.

Palumbo, R. (2020). Let me go to the office! An investigation into the side effects of working from home on work-life balance. International Journal of Public Sector Management.

Putri, A., & Amran, A. (2021). Employees’ Work-Life Balance Reviewed From Work From Home Aspect During COVID-19 Pandemic. International Journal of Management Science and Information Technology, 1(1), 30-34.

Hjálmsdóttir, A., & Bjarnadóttir, V. S. (2021). “I have turned into a foreman here at home”: Families and work–life balance in times of COVID‐19 in a gender equality paradise. Gender, Work & Organization, 28(1), 268-283.

Como, R., Hambley, L., & Domene, J. (2021). An exploration of work-life wellness and remote work during and beyond COVID-19. Canadian Journal of Career Development, 20(1), 46-56.

Anderson, D., & Kelliher, C. (2020). Enforced remote working and the work-life interface during lockdown. Gender in Management: An International Journal.

Since there are rather quick turnaround deadlines, I limit myself to these comments at this moment. Good luck with further revisions of the manuscript. 

 

Author Response

We are very grateful to the reviewers for their positive and helpful suggestions. We felt that the quality of the manuscript could be significantly improved. As a result, below our answers to the questions and comments raised. All changes made in the text are highlighted.

Reviewer #1

C#1: It is unclear what the research question is. I would like to read this (in a sentence with a question mark) at the end of the introduction, since it sets the focus for the rest of the article. 

A#1: The goal of the study was deeper clarified, as suggested. Pg. 2 – highlighted 

C# 2 . Sometimes the language appears to be hesitant as if you doubt whether you succeeded in your research plan. As an example, you write: "With this work, we attempt to analyze some of these potential factors, namely those related to the work context". This has to be adjusted (e.g. we analyzed potential factors related to the work context) and the manuscript should be checked throughout for similar sentences. 

 

A#2. We thank you for the comment. We made the adjustments, as suggested. They are highlighted in the manuscript.

 

 

C#3 The introduction rightfully adresses that there are different types of telework (and hence, it is not always the holy grail for work-life balance). This is however, not entirely new and the difference between different types and context in which telework takes place should be adressed. I recommend using following study: Donnelly, N. and Proctor-Thomson, S.B. (2015), Home-based teleworking in disasters. New Technology, Work and Employment, 30: 47-61. https://doi.org/10.1111/ntwe.12040

 

A#3We thank you for the comment. We made the adjustments, as suggested. They are highlighted in the manuscript in the introduction section.

 

 

C#4 There is a common positive connotation in the concept of flexibility that is present in a large strand of work-life research and you rightfully adress in the literature. Nonetheless, flexibility is also often described negatively (non-standard working schedules, unstructured flexibility, precarious work...). The main differences between both strands seem to be that a different public uses these types of flexibility and the control is delegated differently (employer - employee). I think your study is very interesting since it positions itself on the intersection of both strands of literature: now it are not only precarious workers who have no control about the flexibility of their work, but also high-end employees. Therefore, I would recommend introducing the different discourses on flexibility more in-depth instead of the rather small allinea about the often rosy picture of working at home. 

 

A#4 We agree with the comment. We had already stressed the existence of positive and negative effects associated with flexibility in the paper, but has suggested, we have included one more statement in this sense, considering our focus in the present  study.

 

C#5 There are many women in the sample, which must have had an impact on the results. I recommend writing down the strategies you used to have a more equal gender balance and to reflect in the limitations how this gender balance might have impacted your results. 

 

A#5. We used a snow ball sample and, because of that there is an unbalanced gender representation in the final sample. We agree that this is a limitation of the study and, we added information the Limitations of the study section, as suggested.

 

 

C#6 There seems to be an overpresentation of higher educated respondents. Similar to the previous comment, this should be acknowledged in the limitation section. 

 

A#6. As suggested, we had information in the limitations of the study concerning this issue.

 

C# 7 Given the descriptive statistics of the dataset, I wonder whether an analysis on 'high educated women' would be better since this seems to be the majority of the study sample. 

 

A# 7. We thank you for this comment. We agree that despite the fact that we found no effects of gender the sample is gender unbalance thus, the results should be read taking into account this limitation. Also, despite the fact that we agree that it would be interesting to analyze the data from the female sample, we thought that would be more interesting to put gender as potential predictor factor into the regression analysis for work-family conflict.

 

C# 8 Please document whether weights are used. 

 

A# 8. Since we used snowball sample technique, we were not able to control for the representation of gender in sample. Thus, we used the sample as we got it, using no weights. We stressed out the importance of reading the results in the light of this limitation.

 

C#9 It seems problematic that there is no comparison since the findings might be due to pre-existing differences as well (e.g. with a before covid-measurement). I suggest to include a couple of sentences to explain why this is not needed. It would be helpfull if this explanation relates to the research question I mentioned earlier.

 

A#9 We thank you for this comment. The unexpected context of the pandemic and the enforced telework from workers’ homes have not allowed a measurement before covid.

As we point out in the introductory text, the unusual circumstances of forced telework in the COVID-19 lockdown caused a shift in the working context. And is in this providing a new context for expanding our knowledge in this field.

 

 

C# 10 A description of the analysis is missing. You describe how you measured certain concepts, but you did not describe how you analyzed them.  

 

A# 10. We agree with the comment, and we added a section on Data Analysis Procedure.

.

C #11 Given the own data collection, I recommend to write a section on reliability, validity and replicability as well, at the moment, there are many things unclear. 

 

A#11. In the section Data collection and sample we have a description about the procedure for data collection. We also have information about scale reliability in the section Instruments, and added a new section about data analysis procedure. We hope that is clear now, otherwise we can more information if needed.

 

C#12 The results section is very minimal and can be elabourated. As an example, it would be interesting to explore more in-group differences. 

 

A#12 We agree that it would be interesting to run analyses for in-group differences. However, since it is a small sample some groups would be very small in number or unbalanced, thus we thought it was better to have a general picture. We make a claim about this potential limitation.

 

C#13 The first section of the results is used to describe that a regression analysis has taken place. I recommend to describe this in detail in the method section. 

 

A#13 Thanks for the comment. We moved some information that was in Results section to the new section that was created on Data Analysis Procedure.

 

C#14 The study confirms much of what is already known without the covid-19 context. It is unclear how covid-19 lockdowns have been taken into account and which aspects of the lockdown actually contribute to the work-life conflict. 

 

A# 14 Thanks for the comment. We add some new information. Telework is understood as a work option, which allows flexibility in the place where the work is performed. As we point out " The previously gathered knowledge about teleworking was mainly derived from a context in which teleworking was only used sporadically or rarely, and was only used by some, but not all or most, employees inside a company. The unusual circumstances of forced telework in the COVID-19 lockdown caused a shift in the working context. "." So, in the present context, telework was no longer a worker's choice, the mandatory teleworks allowed us to understand the factors under study in these new circumstances.

 

 

C#15 There is no conclusion

A#15 Thanks for the comment. We added a conclusion section.

C#16. I miss the country context. It is clear that each country reacted differently to the crisis and work-life conflict in between countries was different pre-covid as well. There should be a section dedicated to a detailed description of the covid-measures in the country in which this study took place, the presence of flexibility at the workplace before covid (e.g. was this already regulated?) and the prevalence of work-life conflict. 

A#16. Thanks for the comment. We agree with the questions raised and added information about the low percentage of worker using telework, before the pandemic, in line with numbers from Eurostat. Moreover, we also added information about the high prevalence of work family conflict within the country. The added information is in the Introduction section.

C#17 There appears to be no comparison before covid-19, which makes it difficult to observe what lockdowns and mandatory homework contributes to work-life conflict. 

A#17. We agree with the comment. However, since teleworking is so uncommon (as we stated in the introduction in Portugal) we were not able to find studies that could give a clear picture about the teleworking and work-family conflict done with Portuguese samples.

C#18 There should be more focus on how mandatory teleworking during the covid lockdown is different than regular teleworking.

A#18. Thanks for the comment. We add a sentence stressing the mandatory teleworking during the covid lockdown forced workers to work from home once it was not a workers option, and often the lack of a management and regulatory structure concerning how telework could be accomplished.

C# 19 The reference list seems somewhat outdated at some points. Especially since a lot has been published about the covid-19 pandemic. I suggest including some more recent papers, especially on the relation between teleworking due to covid-19 and work-life conflict. E.G. the following list of references: 

Como, R., Hambley, L., & Domene, J. (2021). An exploration of work-life wellness and remote work during and beyond COVID-19. Canadian Journal of Career Development, 20(1), 46-56.

Anderson, D., & Kelliher, C. (2020). Enforced remote working and the work-life interface during lockdown. Gender in Management: An International Journal.

A#19 Thanks for the list of reference and we add some in this manuscript revision ( the ones mentioned above)

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

This work presents a current theme with a current bibliography appropriate to the theme.

Strengths: article structure, literature review and results.
Weaknesses: the sample; conclusions

Improvement proposals
The conclusions must be presented in a synthetic way if the seven hypotheses placed, if confirmed or not, at the end of the study.
Line 359 "We believe that these actions will have repercussions in minimizing work-family conflict and in contributing to a better balance between productivity and organizational well-being." Authors must justify how and how.
Line 316 “Thus, this study requires a more precise alignment not only related to tasks and levels of autonomy, which could be improved by organizations and managers” The authors must demonstrate with concrete examples.

Authors should include the value of this study for reflection on this theme. 

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

We are very grateful to the reviewers for their positive and helpful suggestions. We felt that the quality of the manuscript could be significantly improved. As a result, below our answers to the questions and comments raised. All changes made in the text are highlighted.

 

Reviewer #2

 

C# 1 The conclusions must be presented in a synthetic way if the seven hypotheses placed, if confirmed or not, at the end of the study.

A#1 We thank you the reviewer for the comment. We agree that there was missing a sum up section, thus, we added a new section – Conclusion (it is highlighted in the paper)

C# 2 Line 359 "We believe that these actions will have repercussions in minimizing work-family conflict and in contributing to a better balance between productivity and organizational well-being." Authors must justify how and how.

A# 2 As suggested we changed the paragraph and added more information in order to make it more clear.

C# 3 Line 316 “Thus, this study requires a more precise alignment not only related to tasks and levels of autonomy, which could be improved by organizations and managers” The authors must demonstrate with concrete examples.

A# 3 We thank the reviewer for making this point. As suggested, we added information to demonstrate concrete examples. Some examples are also presented in the section of practical implications for organizations and managers.

C# 4 Authors should include the value of this study for reflection on this theme. 

A#4 We thank the reviewer for making this point. We added a conclusion section where we also added information about the importance of the study for the reflection on the theme.

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors

Thank you for revising the manuscript and giving me the opportunity to read the manuscript for a second time. I think the manuscript is improved nicely but I also feel that there are still some notable shortcomings in the study. Whereas I do understand that the data poses some intrinsic challenges for the analysis, I want to add some suggestions that might improve the overall quality of the manuscript. I hope that you read these comments as a support to improve the paper and lift it to its highest potential because I write it in that spirit. 

1. My most important comment is that I still feel that the snowball sampling method is actually insufficient to make the claims that are made in the paper. There is no comparison, nor can claims be made that the sample is representative. This is problematic. Nonetheless, I do appreciate the own data collection. Therefore, I wonder whether any of the following options is possible: (A) Include a section about work life balance and telework before the pandemic in Portugal, based on existing data (e.g. the European Labour Force Survey?), (B) Include research about the Portuguese relation between telework and WLB before the pandemic in the literature section. (C) Relate in the discussion how this study concurs with other research on wlb during the pandemic, how it deviates and write a reflection on how the methodological limitations may have affected these changes.
   
   2. I recommend to adress in the title that the study is a report of the Portuguese case. This might seem as a minor change but it alters the expectations of readers and helps to contextualise this study amongst other studies in other country contexts (e.g. Irawanto et al. (2021) in Indonesia, Okubo et al. (2021) in Japan or Hjalmsdottir (2021) in Iceland). It has to be noted that this study is not the first one in its kind but it adds significantly to the literature for it's case dependent context (Portugal). This is a major contribution of the study and can be adressed accordingly. I think the overall emphasis on the Portuguese context is very good at the moment. 

3. You argue that, according to Eurostat, Portugal is not a traditional 'teleworking' country. Albeit I think the Portuguese context is important, I think it should also be noted that there are only a few teleworking frontrunners in countries such as Finland, Austria and the Netherlands, while other European countries have been scoring below 10% in the years before the pandemic. Nonetheless, it seems that the portuguese workforce experienced a very steep increase, which is relevant as well. 

4. Overall, it is needed that you discuss more about the similarities and differences with other studies on covid 19 and work-life balance. This paper bears the potential to assemble all covid-19 & Work-life balance papers by citing and comparing the results (of this analysis with the others) whereas they are now mostly standalone pieces. 

I will recommend a major revision, since this will allow you more time to revise the manuscript properly. I know the deadlines for mdpi journals are thight but I hope this letter motivates you to make a final push to lift the paper to a higher level. 

I look forward to reviewing a later version of this manuscript.

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We are very grateful for the positive comments and helpful suggestions. We felt that the quality of the manuscript could be significantly improved by addressing the issues that were raised. Our answers to the questions and comments raised are below. All changes made in the text are highlighted.

Kind Regards,

Cláudia Andrade & Eva Petiz Lousã

 

C#1 My most important comment is that I still feel that the snowball sampling method is actually insufficient to make the claims that are made in the paper. There is no comparison, nor can claims be made that the sample is representative. This is problematic. Nonetheless, I do appreciate the own data collection. Therefore, I wonder whether any of the following options is possible: (A) Include a section about work life balance and telework before the pandemic in Portugal, based on existing data (e.g. the European Labour Force Survey?), (B) Include research about the Portuguese relation between telework and WLB before the pandemic in the literature section. (C) Relate in the discussion how this study concurs with other research on wlb during the pandemic, how it deviates and write a reflection on how the methodological limitations may have affected these changes.

 

A#1 We thank the reviewer for the comment. We made an effort to address the issues raised and we added, in line with suggestion (B), to the theoretical background section, results from two studies carried out in Portugal, in pre-pandemic and pandemic context about telework, ICT use and impacts on worker and their work-family relations.  We also added a claim, based on a research about telework and managerial practices during lockdown, also carried out in Portugal, about the importance of work-life balance when telework is considered as a possible work option in the future. Moreover, as you suggest in (A), we Included a section about work life balance and telework before the pandemic in Portugal.

 

C#2 I recommend to adress in the title that the study is a report of the Portuguese case. This might seem as a minor change but it alters the expectations of readers and helps to contextualise this study amongst other studies in other country contexts (e.g. Irawanto et al. (2021) in Indonesia, Okubo et al. (2021) in Japan or Hjalmsdottir (2021) in Iceland). It has to be noted that this study is not the first one in its kind but it adds significantly to the literature for it's case dependent context (Portugal). This is a major contribution of the study and can be adressed accordingly. I think the overall emphasis on the Portuguese context is very good at the moment. 

 

A#2 We completely agree and thank the reviewer for this suggestion. We added “Portugal” to the title.

C#3 You argue that, according to Eurostat, Portugal is not a traditional 'teleworking' country. Albeit I think the Portuguese context is important, I think it should also be noted that there are only a few teleworking frontrunners in countries such as Finland, Austria and the Netherlands, while other European countries have been scoring below 10% in the years before the pandemic. Nonetheless, it seems that the Portuguese workforce experienced a very steep increase, which is relevant as well. 

A#3. Thank you for the comment. We think that the claim made by Gonçalves et al. (2021) in their study about teleworking and COVID-19 in Portuguese companies can help to explain why this transition from “regular work” to “telework” was rapid, despite the previous low numbers of teleworking practices in Portugal. We add more information according to the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work.,

C#4 Overall, it is needed that you discuss more about the similarities and differences with other studies on covid 19 and work-life balance. This paper bears the potential to assemble all covid-19 & Work-life balance papers by citing and comparing the results (of this analysis with the others) whereas they are now mostly standalone pieces. 

A#4 We agree with this comment and, to address it we added results and claims made by other research papers carried in the Portuguese context about common issues of telework and work-life interaction. This information was added in the theoretical framework and conclusion sections. 

 

 

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors

It has been my pleasure to read the original manuscript and see the progression in each re-submitted version. It is good to see the efforts that are taken to improve the quality of the manuscript and in my reading, you have now almost reached its full potential. 

I will recommend acceptance with minor revisions, but the revisions I suggest are very minor and only intended to increase the outreach quality of the manuscript. 

1. Your study is a good example of why we need longitudinal panel data on the relation between work arrangements and work-life balance. Therefore, I would add in the conclusion that the limitation of your study (having no  comparison and no representative sample) shows that panel data such as the Labour Force Survey is needed.
2. Your study shows that mandatory telework can be problematic for employees (in contrast with autonomous telework). For policy makers, it is important to note that the way telework is organized should be adressed in the future. Because downscaling working at the office can be financially interesting for employers, they might retain telework to some extent which can be detrimental for employees well-being. This can be adressed in the conclusion as a policy recommendation.

Kind regards

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We deeply thank the reviewer for the positive feedback and helpful suggestions. Thank you very much for the remarks raised in this review. We completely agree and added information accordingly (highlighted in the text).

Kind Regards,

Cláudia Andrade & Eva Petiz Lousã

 

C#1 Your study is a good example of why we need longitudinal panel data on the relation between work arrangements and work-life balance. Therefore, I would add in the conclusion that the limitation of your study (having no  comparison and no representative sample) shows that panel data such as the Labour Force Survey is needed.

 

A#1 We thank the reviewer for the comment. We added the information as suggested.

 

 

C#2 Your study shows that mandatory telework can be problematic for employees (in contrast with autonomous telework). For policy makers, it is important to note that the way telework is organized should be adressed in the future. Because downscaling working at the office can be financially interesting for employers, they might retain telework to some extent which can be detrimental for employees well-being. This can be adressed in the conclusion as a policy recommendation.

A#2 Thanks a lot for the suggestion. We added the information as suggested.