Cifre, Eva
Área de Psicología Social/ Universitat Jaume I de Castellón/ Campus Riu Sec, s/n/ 12071 Castellón, España
Tel.: 34 964 729 588 / cifre@psi.uji.es
Salanova, Marisa
Área de Psicología Social/ Universitat Jaume I de Castellón/ Campus Riu Sec, s/n/ 12071 Castellón, España
Tel: 34 964 729 583 / Marisa.Salanova@psi.uji.es
Martínez-Pérez, Mª Dolores
Dpto. de Psicología Social y de las Organizaciones/ Facultad de Psicología/Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia/ C/ Juan del Rosal, 10/ 28040 Madrid
Tel: 34 913 986 285/ mdmartinez@psi.uned.es
Martínez, Isabel
Área de Psicología Social/ Universitat Jaume I de Castellón/ Campus Riu Sec, s/n/ 12071 Castellón, España
Tel: 34 964 729 585 / imartine@psi.uji.es
Llorens, Susana
Área de Psicología Social/ Universitat Jaume I de Castellón/ Campus Riu Sec, s/n/ 12071 Castellón, España
Tel: 34 964 729 569 / llorgum@psi.uji.es
Grau, Rosa
Área de Psicología Social/ Universitat Jaume I de Castellón/ Campus Riu Sec, s/n/ 12071 Castellón, España
Tel: 34 964 729 584 / rgrau@psi.uji.es
ABSTRACT
The WONT-Research team has developed a general well-developed new tool, called RED (Resources, Emotions and Demands) to assess psychosocial risks at work. However, it needs to be specified to different collectives. In this line, it has been developed the RED-TT, addressed to assess the psychosocial risks associated to telework. This version of the RED questionnaire concretes in some cases, and adds new variables to the general version some of them associated mainly with working at home. Thus, the aim of this presentation is to show the structure of this specific questionnaire and the functioning of its on-line version.
Keywords
Telework, psychosocial risk assessment, questionnaire
INTRODUCCIÓN
The use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) at the workplace is something assumed as usual in most of the office jobs. The decade of the 90's has been specially productive in the assumption of innovations in the workplace, and the consequent changes (in the person, in the job and in the organization) that they involved. Although widely spread in North America, this new millennium seems to open definitively the doors of the high-tech ways of organization with high tech jobs, which include the role of different degrees of teleworking. In this sense, besides providing the potential for more flexibility within organizations, structures underlying telework can support the evolution of virtual enterprises and cooperative joint ventures [1], [2].
Teleworking refers to a specific mode of employment where the employee is located remotely from a central office or production facility, has limited or no face-to- face contact with co-workers but is able to communicate via the use of high technology, telematic systems [3]. The activities performed by telework might be performed partially or full time.
Teleworking is commonly assumed as “home work”. However, there are more ways of applying teleworking. The common element in all of them is the use of computers and telecommunications, and not the “home” by itself [4]. Thus, a necessary joined word to telework is ICT. As that, teleworking only exists when there is a telematic connection between the remote equipment and the organisation [5]. Thus, resides the “well-known” home work, some other possibilities of teleworking arise as the combined teleworking (when the working place is at the same time both the office and the home), the mobile teleworking (when the teleworker can be everywhere, with the only requirement of getting in touch with his/her company or customer via mobile services of telecommunication), or the teleworking centres (which includes satellite offices, neighbourhood offices, resources shared centres and offshore offices).
Teleworking mean substantial differences to the office work. Research shows [6] that telework generally increases job performance and productivity, motivation and job satisfaction, helps employees have higher dedication and morale and a higher energy level on the job due to elimination of wasted time. In addition, several factors have been identified associated with telework that tend to negatively influence job motivation: negative impact on social networks, decreased teamwork, and resentment by those who do not telework.
Some of the negative consequences of teleworking are related to [6] the career progress, professional isolation, the possibility of become workaholic, receiving less pay/benefits, having less job security. Besides, changes in supervision and evaluation techniques when employees work at home might increase work-family conflict due to the disappearing of physical boundaries between work and home, and greater risk of burnout since start and stop times for work are not specified.
So, although at first sight it seems a good idea for all employees with a job that would allow teleworking to perform their activities in this way (above all because of the advantages of avoiding the need of commuting at work everyday, and the possibility of managing better professional and personal lives), not all the employees are ready to assume this new way of working and all the changes that it mean. Besides, not all the
organizations that propose this alternative of work situation taking into account the psychosocial risks that could arise in this new situation. According to the first approach, the ideal teleworker profile should match some characteristics. For example, this person should be a well-organized worker, constant, with a high adaptation capability (because of the rapid changes related to the use of TICs and the need of new knowledge that it means), a high aptitude to work in a media with little social contact, without colleagues feedback and high self-control to organize his/her work almost without supervision, the adequate training to the activity to be performed, self- motivated, good decision-taker, technological skills and with a high experience in these kind of activities and in the organization in the traditional way, which might increase self-efficacy [7]. These individual characteristics might be summarized into [8]: familiar and comfortable with his/her job (not newly contracted or promoted), self- motivated, effective communicator (both speaking and writing), connoisseur of organizational processes of his/her organization, adaptable, and technically self- sufficient. The mismatch between these characteristics as resources to face the new teleworking demands and the real ones might lead to a lack of physical and mental health.
Besides, as mentioned before, companies should taken into account some organizational characteristics before to implement telework. These dimensions [9] are related to mainly to the degree of knowledge required by the job, the degree in which could result easy to obtain outputs measures and the autonomy of the job. Besides, organizations should take care of the effective management of the distance that virtual work creates [10]. This management of distance is based on two kinds of factors: structural factors (work independence and clarity of evaluation criteria) and relational factors (interpersonal trust and organizational connectedness)
Because of all the factors needed to be taken into account in order to avoid the negative consequences of teleworkers and to promote the psychosocial health of teleworkers, a specific questionnaire was developed which design will be shown following.
THE RED-TT QUESTIONNAIRE (JOB RESOURCES-EMOTIONS-DEMANDS IN TELEWORKERS)
One of the main objectives of the WONT-Team members (Universitat Jaume I of Castellón, Spain) is to develop tools that allow a scientific-supported psychosocial risk assessment. In the chapter of this book of proceeding entitled
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