Cognitive demands of flexible work: Risks and challenges (CODEofWORC)

Over the last decades, a more flexible work organization has been implemented in many organizations. Top management control has been decentralized and decisions about work (its scheduling, location, methods, etc.) have been delegated to the workers themselves. Although the associated rise in decision latitude gives workers more control over their work, it may also have a downside. The flexible way of organizing work poses specific cognitive demands for planning, structuring, and coordinating work on individuals. Such cognitive demands of flexible work organization may have the potential for both, positive and negative effects on workers and may thus be ambivalent by nature. Cognitive demands of flexible work organization may promote learning because they provide challenge and the opportunity to exercise higher level skills and may cause strain because they require time and effort. In the research project CODEofWORC, we use observational and self-report data, short-term and long-term longitudinal studies as well as an intervention study to (1) investigate employees perception of cognitive demands of flexible work organization, (2) assess work-related (i.e., job exhaustion, job performance) and work-home outcomes (i.e., work-home conflict and enrichment) of cognitive demands of flexible work organization, (3) investigate short-term and long-term underlying mechanisms (i.e., strain and learning processes) that link cognitive demands of flexible work organization to their outcomes, (4) assess individual and organizational resources that help enhance the positive and mitigate the negative effects of cognitive demands of flexible work organization, and (5) derive propositions for reducing the straining effects of cognitive demands of flexible work organization without losing their potential to spark on-the-job learning.

Flexible working has recently gained considerable importance due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the widespread use of home office/telework. The CODEofWORC project investigated the cognitive demands of flexible work before and during the pandemic. Flexible work offers employees the opportunity to decide for themselves when, where, how and with whom they work. This flexibility increases individuals' discretion, but also requires additional planning, structuring and coordination and thus places cognitive demands on employees. The central assumption of CODEofWORC was that cognitive demands of planning, structuring and coordinating in flexible work have both positive and negative effects on employees. On the one hand, the demands consume mental resources and thus are stressful; on the other hand, they offer learning potential and contribute to personal development. The aim of CODEofWORC was to investigate, if, when, and why cognitive demands of flexible work have negative or positive effects. In several empirical studies with Austrian employees, we show that cognitive demands of flexible work are related to cognitive flexibility and an enrichment of private life. People with high cognitive demands of flexible work found it easier to adopt different perspectives and to cope with private and family obligations. However, the cognitive demands of flexible work were also associated with less detachment from work, more frequent work-related rumination and the feeling of not having enough time and energy for private life. The results thus show that the cognitive demands of flexible work promote personal development, but are also strenuous. On a positive note, the positive effects in terms of personal development were not only evident in the short term, but also in the medium term. Cognitive flexibility increased over a period of several months due to high levels of cognitive demands of flexible work. The stressful effects, on the other hand, were short-lived. They only appeared on the specific work days, but not over several months. This leads to the assumption that employees learn to cope with cognitive demands of flexible work and to avoid long-term negative effects. Furthermore, the results show that cognitive demands of flexible work are associated with different positive or negative consequences in different occupational fields. In many occupational fields, structuring and coordinating were either only perceived as stressful or only perceived as conducive to learning. Interestingly, these perceptions were not consistent across occupational fields as the same specific cognitive demand sometimes was perceived as only stressful in one occupational field and as only conducive to learning in another occupational field. More research needs to explain these differences. Overall, the project shows that cognitive demands of flexible work can be stressful but also have the potential to promote employees' personal development by contributing to cognitive flexibility and enriching employees' private lives.