Looking for people, places and connections:
hindrances when working in multiple
locations: a review
Johanna Koroma, Ursula Hyrkkänen and
Matti Vartiainen
Mobile multi-locational workers move a lot spatially, utilise different locations for work and communicate with others via electronic tools. This article presents an analysis of previously published empirical studies focusing on mobile workers’ experiences of hindrances in five types of locations. Our review shows that some of the hindrances are unique for certain types of locations, while others recur in all or most of them. The change of physical locations results in continuous searching for a place to work and remaining socially as an outsider in all communities, including the main office. Limited connections and access in used locations seem to be the main challenges of virtual spaces despite of the recent developments in technology. In addition, we discuss the importance to consider hindrances caused by changing contexts as job demands, which can be influenced in work re/designing process.
Keywords: hindrances, mobile work, multi-locality, physical, virtual, social environment, space.
Introduction
The increasing number of smart mobile devices and wireless connections influences the way people approach their work and their life. Mobile technologies and wireless connections in particular make it possible to work not only in and from multiple places but also when moving between locations. This has been advertised to employers and employees as the positive potential to work ‘anytime, anywhere’. From a time perspec-tive, mobile technologies allow employees to work evenings, weekends and during vacations from different locations even after spending a full day or week working at the office (Towerset al., 2006). The positive expression of potentials, however, underesti-mates the contextual constraints that mobile workers may experience when working from different locations and while ‘on the move’ (Perryet al., 2001; Axtellet al., 2008). In this review, which is based on published empirical studies, we show that mobile workers often find themselves in places where the possibilities to accomplish
work-Johanna Koroma ([email protected]) is a Ph.D. student in Virtual and Mobile Work Research Unit at BIT Research Centre of Aalto University, Espoo, Finland. Ursula Hyrkkänen (ursula [email protected]), Ph.D., is a director of research and development at the Turku University of Applied Science, RDI Centre, Turku, Finland. Matti Vartiainen ([email protected]) is a professor of work and organizational psychology at the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, Aalto University School of Science, Espoo, Finland.
New Technology, Work and Employment 29:2 ISSN 0268-1072
related tasks are limited or even impossible due to environmental constraints and a lack of resources (Brown and O’Hara, 2003; Perry and Brodie, 2006). We use the concept of a mobile multi-locational worker to refer to those employees who frequently move spatially, who use different locations for work and who communicate with others via electronic tools as they are both physically and virtually mobile (e.g. Hyrkkänen and Vartiainen, 2005; Gareiset al., 2006). Virtual mobility makes it possible to collaborate with others from multiple locations in virtual and widely distributed teams (Lipnack and Stamps, 2000).
A limited amount of research results are available on the effects that mobile and multi-locational work have on the everyday working life of the worker and, especially, what the workers perceive as the greatest hindrances in their working environments. Current research (e.g. Becker and Sims, 2000; Hill et al., 2003; Harrisonet al., 2004; Felsteadet al., 2005; Uhmavaara et al., 2005; Hislop and Axtell, 2009; Bosch-Sijtsema
et al., 2010; Vartiainen and Hyrkkänen, 2010) is controversial as it shows that while the company and employee recognise that there are benefits to mobile working, there are also drawbacks, which very often are experienced on an individual level as an increase in workload. Our study provides a thorough exploration of the empirical studies and describes the everyday work life of a mobile multi-locational worker. The main contri-bution of the review is to identify the hindrances that arise due to workload factors in the multiple locations used on a daily basis and, therefore, to distinguish the require-ments of this type of work from collocated work. For the purposes of this study, we draw on the job demands–resources model (the JD-R model) developed by Demerouti
et al. (2001) and Bakker and Demerouti (2007), and we concentrate on the job demands that employees perceive as hindrances that result in exhaustion and a loss of vigour (Van den Broecket al., 2010) and engagement (Crawfordet al., 2010). Even though the reviewed articles are written from different perspectives, together they offer a com-prehensive understanding as to why working in different locations and spaces cannot be summarised by the ‘anytime, anywhere’ expression.
Conceptual background
Workload factorsIn mobile multi-locational work, workload factors are influenced not only by the complexity of one organisation, its resources and its tasks (Carayon and Zijlstra, 1999) but also by the multiple work environments from which the work is executed (Hyrkkänen and Vartiainen, 2005; 2007; Axtellet al., 2008; Vartiainen and Hyrkkänen, 2010). External workload factors refer to those factors that impinge upon a human being and result in mental strain, which may have either positive, short- or long-term consequences (such as increased vigour, engagement and motivation) or negative, short- or long-term consequences (such as fatigue and exhaustion) on employee being (Richter and Hacker, 1998). According to the JD-R model, the employee well-being outcomes can be operationalised as experiences of work engagement (i.e. vigour, dedication and absorption) (Maslach and Leiter, 1997; Schaufeliet al., 2002) or burnout, including exhaustion, cynicism and reduced personal efficacy (Maslach et al., 1996; 2001). The extant research indicates that the JD-R model is suitable for studying the process that causes the draining of employees’ mental and physical energy (Hakanen and Roodt, 2010). In the JD-R model, job demands denote the physical, psychological, social and organisational aspects of a job that require sustained physical and/or psychological efforts or skills (Demeroutiet al., 2001). Job demands may turn into job stressors when meeting those demands requires considerable efforts from which the employee has not adequately recovered or when the work does not provide sufficient job resources to counterbalance the strain (Bakker and Demerouti, 2007). For example, the individual’s ability to control (Karasek, 1979; Karasek and Theorell, 1990; Bakker and Demerouti, 2007) the multiple environments encountered or the lack of such control results in either well-being or stress.
The category of job demands has been found to be not as homogeneous as initially suggested, but rather it is divided into two factors: challenge-related and hindrance-related stressors (e.g. Cavanaughet al., 2000; Podsakoffet al., 2007; Van den Broecket al., 2010). Challenge demands are stressors that stimulate to put effort on the task and help to achieve goals. They relate positively to well-being but do not protect from the ill-health (Van den Broecket al., 2010). The extant literature suggests that hindrances (Crawford et al., 2010), daily issues (Zohar, 1999; Mark et al., 2005), discontinuities (Watson-Manheimet al., 2002), discrepancies (Mandler, 1990; Jett and George, 2003) and interruptions (Perlow, 1999; Ziljstraet al., 1999) constitute similar phenomena as they all constrain work-related accomplishments by affecting goal-directed activities, action regulation and, consequently, employee well-being. According to recent studies, job demands that employees perceive as hindrances are positively associated with exhaustion and negatively associated with vigour (Van den Broecket al., 2010) and engagement (Crawfordet al., 2010). However, hindrances related to working in fre-quently changing physical locations and social work environments and impediments related to using various virtual environments are not considered job demands in the current literature.
Spaces and places
The concept ‘ba’, introduced by Nonaka, Toyama and Konno (2000), provides the opportunity to analyse multi-locational work environments and their workload factors in a systematic manner. ‘Ba’ refers to a shared space in which knowledge is created, shared and exploited by those who interact and communicate within that space. The concept of ‘ba’ combines physical spaces with virtual and social spaces shared by people working alone or together towards common goals and helps to understand the embeddedness of spaces used to complete the tasks in different locations. Physical space refers to the specific characteristics of each location where a mobile and multi-locational worker necessarily exists as a corporeal being. Virtual space refers to the availability and use of digital tools and infrastructures as a layer of the working context, while social space includes those people in each location as well as those in the virtual working environments with whom one can communicate and collaborate. In our analysis, we divide physical workspaces into five types of places to work, and we use the concept of ‘ba’ to be able to add the virtual and social spaces to the analysis framework (Hyrkkänen and Vartiainen, 2005; 2007; Nenonen, 2005). The physical places include non-traditional places such as (1) various means of transportation including cars, trains, planes and ships (‘moving places’); (2) a customer or partner’s premises or the company’s remote, satellite or telework offices (‘secondary places’); and (3) hotels, cafés, parks, etc. (‘third places’) as well as the more traditional places; (4) the main workplace (‘main office’); and (5) home. In these locations, the available electronic working environment, infrastructures, devices and media (virtual spaces) are used for knowledge sharing and collaboration. Both physical and virtual spaces include a social communicative layer that involves people engaged either in face-to-face communications or in communications mediated by technologies. The salient point in the conception of multi-locality is that these spaces are embedded in the working environment. The nature of the tasks and contextual factors together with the charac-teristics of the work environment influence the internal regulative processes that indi-viduals and collective subjects, such as teams, must use as they seek to optimise their relationships and boundaries with other subjects performing the same tasks, to attain their objectives, and to complete the tasks (Vartiainen, 2014). This study focuses on identifying tasks to be conducted and hindrances arising from the contextual factors in five types of physical places: moving places, secondary places, third places, the main workplace and home (Vartiainen and Hyrkkänen, 2010). The purpose of our research is to conceptually integrate new job demands that arise from hindrances originating from the use of multiple embedded spaces using the JD-R model, as shown in Figure 1.
We are interested in the hindrances that are externally induced and developed from the operational environment. These hindrances are not controlled by an individual
worker, thus disrupting or preventing the goal-oriented activities of mobile workers (Zohar, 1999; Market al., 2005). Disturbances are, for example, equipment malfunc-tions, unscheduled changes in task assignments, information difficulties and non-work-related interruptions. As the perceived hindrances can be related to the task at hand, we first ask, what tasks are to be performed in the five types of physical spaces? The second research question is what are the perceived hindrances that arise from working in these locations? The hindrances are expected to associate with the physical, virtual and social spaces of each location. We proceed as follows. First, we describe the data and the analysis used for this review. Second, we review the findings regarding the area of contextual complexity of multi-localities. Finally, based on the findings, we formulate suggestions for future research and theoretical development.
Research data and methods
This article is based on the analysis of empirical studies. We identified articles on mobile and multi-locational work using three different means. These methods include the following: (1) a manual search of the leading textbooks and journals on manage-ment and work, real estate and facilities managemanage-ment, computer science, sociology, ergonomics, psychology, and organisational psychology; (2) a systematic search of several electronic multidisciplinary databases (Scopus, Abi/Inform, Academic Search Elite, Web of Science, Google Scholar) using a broad list of relevant terms (e.g. mobile work, multi-locational work, nomadic work, hybrid workspace); and (3) a scan of the reference lists from the articles identified through the first two methods. In studies dealing with mobile, multi-locational work, the four main sources included manage-ment, real estate and facilities managemanage-ment, social science, and information technology. As we are interested in how the various work places are used, we did not want to exclude any of the disciplines, but rather we wanted to adopt a multidisciplinary scope providing that the concept of changing work environments was discussed. Of the studies identified, we included only recent empirical articles (1999–2011) from peer-reviewed journals and relevant studies that were included in two leading textbooks (Andriessen and Vartiainen, 2006; Hislop, 2008). Ultimately, we identified 20 empirical articles relevant to our study. Three of these met our inclusion criteria, but the empirical findings did not discuss the concept of mobile multi-locational work. Therefore, we
Challenge demands
Job resources Job demands arising from
1. Tasks 2.Organizaon 3. Work environment in mulple locaons • physical • virtual • social Burnout Engagement Hindrance demands
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+
+
-3. Work environment in mulple locaons • physical • virtual • social Hindrance demands
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Figure 1: Hindrances in the physical, virtual and social work environments as related to job demands (modified based on Crawford, LePine and Rich, 2010: 841)
excluded these studies from our review. Although most of the remaining 17 studies (Appendix 1) are qualitative case studies, some also present quantitative data.
We focus on studies that address mobile workers who use multiple places for working rather than using one place outside the main office, such as teleworking from home, and their perceptions of the hindrances in the places they use. The analysis was conducted in the following manner. First, each of the three researchers independently read an article and summarised its contents into an excel spreadsheet (Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA, USA) with four columns. The columns were defined as follows: (1) the authors’ aims, research questions, methods and data; (2) the nature of the multi-locality, for example, ‘the article focuses on employees moving within New York City working in third places such as cafés, parks and airport lounges’; (3) the hindrances associated with each place, for example, ‘difficulty placing calls because of noise and queuing of a table because of peak hour’; and (4) the outcomes of the study, for example, the answer to the research question and the identified impacts on well-being. Second, upon completing the individual analyses, the researchers shared their summaries with each other, and a joint meeting was held to cross-check the analyses of each article. Each meeting took approximately one hour. The jointly agreed-upon findings for each article were then recorded on aexcelspreadsheet. Third, the identi-fied hindrances were categorised based on the five types of physical locations used for working. The hindrances were then classified according to their source in the embed-ded physical, virtual and social spaces based on the ‘ba’ model. In addition, the tasks performed in the five types of physical places were listed. A summary of our findings showing the tasks performed and the hindrances associated with the different places is presented in the next section.
Tasks and hindrances in multiple workplaces
The fundamental differences from collocated work are the use of secondary and third places to meet other people, to conduct work and to move between locations. The places used by mobile workers can be globally or locally dispersed, but to perform their work, the employees must be ‘on the move’. In this chapter, we first show the tasks and hindrances related to the physical and social spaces when a mobile worker uses different modes of transportation, visits secondary and third places as well as when a mobile worker returns to the main workplace or home. The hindrances related to virtual spaces are described at the end of the chapter.
On the move visiting customers and colleagues
Meeting with other people requires two types of preparations: the planning of activities for each place and preparing to be available. Mobile workers typically engage in multiple tasks in all work places, including micro-tasks, such as short messages and emails, to fill spare time. However, several hindrances were identified with respect to the modes of transportation and secondary and third work places.
Mobile workers experience unexpected changes in timetables and routes, cramped premises, and a lack of table and work space, all of which result ergonomic challenges as well as require a constant reorganisation of space and tasks (Axtellet al., 2008; Lyons
et al., 2008; Vartiainen and Hyrkkänen, 2010) and all of which affect their work prod-uctivity (Axtellet al., 2008; Bosch-Sijtsemaet al., 2010). Since the places they use for work are quite often public places, the reviewed studies noted that there are significant differences between the activities that are or can be executed in private versus public places. Because public places, such as trains, airport lounges and cafes, were not originally designed as work sites, they tend to be noisy and filled with commotion (Breure and Van Meel, 2003; Forlano, 2008; Lyonset al., 2008). Furthermore, a lack of privacy is an issue not only in these non-traditional work settings but also when visiting the premises of a client or colleague (Hislop and Axtell, 2009; Mark and Su, 2010). Thus, there may be limitations to the work activities that can be conducted;
because confidential tasks can be overheard and/or overseen, they are less likely to be performed (Axtellet al., 2008; Forlano, 2008). There may also be restrictions associated with mobile phone usage in some places, such as specific train carriages or public locations (Brown and O’Hara, 2003). In some cases, mobile workers may feel that their work-related phone calls are disruptive to others (Perry and Brodie, 2006). The excep-tion to these environments is a private car that offers the needed privacy, thus allowing mobile workers to use their mobile phones quite freely while driving (Laurier, 2004). Forlano (2008: 39) claims that non-traditional work settings are locations of ‘inconven-ience, constraint and specificity’ opposite to the anytime, anywhere philosophy and ideology. Trains and cars were the main modes of transportation described in the articles. Surprisingly, few studies analysed airplanes as places to work.
Modes of transportation
Train. Tasks conducted on trains depend on the length of the journey and the degree of tranquillity of the carriage. Both socially independent and dependent tasks can be performed while travelling by train. Some of the activities that are conducted are those that require high levels of concentration, such as reading and reviewing documents and emails, planning and creating presentations, writing reports and notes, and check-ing calendars. Emails and voice mails can also be quickly completed on short journeys. Socially more dependent activities include phone calls to and from colleagues; super-visors, clients and relatives may also be contacted on trains. Cognitively demanding tasks, such as conference call negotiations with clients, co-workers or supervisors, in the main office or a brainstorming session with colleagues travelling on the same train were all cited in the literature as tasks often performed by mobile workers when travelling by train.
A train, however, is a very public physical place. Sustained concentration in a noisy, public space, even under the best conditions, is difficult (Lyonset al., 2008). Conse-quently, there is a need to take breaks and alternate between business and relaxation (Brown and O’Hara, 2003; Axtellet al., 2008; Lyonset al., 2008). Accordingly, certain precautions are required to guard personal workspace as it is not easy to leave the seat or the specific location even for a short period of time (Axtellet al., 2008). Furthermore, the length of the journey affects the type of tasks that can be accomplished. For example, during short journeys, it may not be practical to set up certain technologies simply due to the time required to do so (Axtellet al., 2008). The research indicates that if workers are not directly told that they are expected to work while in transit on the train, they may have less motivation to engage in mobile working when the local conditions are prohibitive (Axtellet al., 2008).
Car. While cars may be somewhat precarious places from which to conduct work, it is not uncommon for mobile workers to conduct business while driving. Laurier (2004) describes how a mobile worker reads printed emails and other documents and makes phone calls while driving (multi-tasking). Many of the tasks conducted while driving are micro-tasks. Micro-tasks are defined as short but complete action cycles, such as reading a text message on a car or smart phone’s display and responding with a ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Concentration is thus divided between working and driving, according to the demands of the traffic.
Laurier and Philo (2003) and Laurier (2004) focused on the risks to mobile workers who work while driving due to their tight schedules and the challenges they encounter with respect to finding their way or being involved in a traffic accident. Driving expands the physical space to include not only the interior of the car but also the surrounding traffic. Laurier (2004) noted that the inability of drivers to speak to one another can lead to intense misunderstandings in traffic behaviour. Therefore, the focus of the driver should be on driving as the speed of the car in relation to other vehicles ahead and in parallel lanes requires constant monitoring and adjusting. Traffic condi-tions and situacondi-tions vary considerably while on the road (Laurier and Philo, 2003; Hislop and Axtell, 2009). Additionally, driving in the dark or in unfamiliar areas or
cultures can present an entirely different set of factors that demand extra attention from the driver (Vartiainen and Hyrkkänen, 2010).
Secondary places
Secondary places are locations to meet clients, partners or suppliers. These places may include the premises of another party or of the mobile worker’s company that is outside the main office. Time spent at secondary places is often devoted to meetings or to preparing for upcoming meetings, and as such, there may be a continuous change in topics or activities. There may also be demanding negotiations or tasks that require extensive responsibility. In other words, the working days at secondary places are often long and fragmented (Vartiainen and Hyrkkänen, 2010). In addition to working with local people, secondary places are often used for interacting with the home office regarding progress and challenges related to the business. Informal socialising with colleagues and partners is also a common occurrence at secondary work places, while spare time is often used for reading documents and catching up on emails.
Mobile workers seek out resources when they arrive at a new site. Challenges associated with new sites include finding appropriate places from which to perform relevant tasks (Bosch-Sijtsemaet al., 2010) and locating the local people who can facili-tate the successful completion of the necessary tasks (Mark and Su, 2010). A lack of conference rooms often occurs because of the habit of not cancelling unnecessary bookings; the result is fully booked but often unused meeting rooms. As a result, visiting workers may be asked to vacate the room in the middle of a meeting (Mark and Su, 2010). Mobile workers realise that they will encounter unpredictable situations, but they cannot know exactly what those situations might be or what is required of them to resolve such conflicts (Perryet al., 2001), and therefore, they have difficulty in devel-oping helpful routines (Mark and Su, 2010). Problems occur especially in those places that are not intended to serve as a main workplace and are used asynchronously by various users (Laurier and Philo, 2003; Mark and Su, 2010; Vartiainen and Hyrkkänen, 2010). Mobile workers cannot rely on the organisation to provide a local office or even a stable set of artefacts (Mark and Su, 2010).
The needs of clients as well as the number and the sequence of client visits during the day may be difficult to predict (Laurier and Philo, 2003; Vartiainen and Hyrkkänen, 2010), and when going to meet with a client or a partner, the time to conduct anything other than client or partner face-to-face interactions is often limited and unpredictable (Axtell and Hislop, 2008; Hislop and Axtell, 2009; Vartiainen and Hyrkkänen, 2010). Perryet al. (2001) note that mobile employees feel pressured to use any excess time between meetings to perform tasks that require their attention or tasks that would pile up while they are away from the main office despite the limited resources available in the environment and the ongoing distractions in the form of discussions concerning work that is not relevant to the mobile worker (Mark and Su, 2010). The multitude of different individuals encountered, the cultural differences and the sometimes dissatis-fied or non-communicative clients can result in pressure and difficulties to complete the work assignment (Vartiainen and Hyrkkänen, 2010).
Third places
Third places are hotels, cafés, pubs, restaurants, conference venues and fairs as well as public areas, such as parks, airport lounges, railway stations and motorway service stations (Vartiainen, 2006; 2007). In Vartiainen and Hyrkkänen’s (2010) study, third places represent a forum for informal meetings with colleagues or an environment for conducting necessary business activities using laptops. Often, this is conducted after the official office hours in hotel rooms or restaurants. Forlano (2008) notes that these places, especially cafés, are used as innovative spaces to enhance one’s productivity, to collaborate and to participate in specific work communities and networks. Locally mobile workers frequently use service stations and other agreed-upon rendezvous points for both informal and formal meetings.
Cafés. Today, cafés are becoming increasingly more important and more common as places for both work and social activities. Nowadays, mobile workers can work from their laptops, tablets and smart phones, conduct business calls and socialise from a café. Forlano (2008) found that the traditional division of work and leisure, public and private, blur when working in cafés. She also notes that in popular cafés, it is often difficult to find an available work space or table and doing so may require queuing and table hopping. Specific cafés may be important to different people for varied reasons. For example, the trustworthiness of the other patrons is important because each inter-action entails a negotiation for location and security (Forlano, 2008). Accordingly, Brown and O’Hara (2003) as well as Forlano (2008) found that the lack of privacy and confidentiality in cafés limits the work activities that can be conducted.
Airports. Airports are used for reading documents and emails, working from a laptop, making business calls and conducting meetings. The time spent travelling and waiting at airports is associated with delays and waiting times over which the mobile worker has little control (Perry et al., 2001; Breure and Van Meel, 2003). Workers can only partially use the available time for their work activities as there is little control over the resources in the environment available to the mobile worker (Perryet al., 2001). Breure and Van Meel (2003) found in their study of Dutch business travellers that quiet work environments, such as airline lounges, may allow more privacy, but they are often too far from the terminal, and access is therefore limited.
Returning to the main office and home
The main workplace is also a place for both formal and informal meetings, while the home serves as the mobile worker’s place for conducting work that requires a high degree of concentration. Concerns regarding the functionality of work spaces are not limited to the non-traditional places but surprisingly extend to the employer’s office and the worker’s home as well. The first challenge when arriving to a main workplace is to find a suitable non-occupied place to work that meets the demands of the task at hand. Finding an appropriate space that can accommodate the various work activities, such as creative tasks, can be difficult. After finding an appropriate space, often in an open office, the work environment must be structured to be conducive for work (Brown and O’Hara, 2003; Hislop and Axtell, 2009; Bosch-Sijtsema et al., 2010). In addition, the homes of mobile workers are often not ideal places to work as they often do not have an appropriate workspace, and as a consequence, work is conducted at the kitchen table, which generally must be cleared to make room for paperwork and often presents ergonomic challenges as well (Halford, 2005; Hislop and Axtell, 2009).
Main workplace
For a mobile worker, the main workplace is only one of many locations used for work. It is a place for meeting and interacting with colleagues and team members both formally and informally. Tasks conducted at the main workplace often require team and managerial support, training in unfamiliar tasks or joint problem solving (Halford, 2005). Furthermore, mobile workers usually have an accumulation of work that requires timely attention (Vartiainen and Hyrkkänen, 2010; Venezia and Allee, 2007) as a result of their visits to other places. They are not only reporting and completing administrative tasks, but they are also negotiating, gathering knowledge, making deci-sions and planning their next trip. Consequently, they are under a significant pressure to achieve a considerable amount of work when they are in the main office, but the perceived productivity of mobile desk workers appears to be significantly lower than that of those employees who have a dedicated desk (Bosch-Sijtsemaet al., 2010).
One of the challenges is that mobile workers have problems navigating and connect-ing with their colleagues for collaboration when they are in the buildconnect-ing or in a large open-plan office (Bosch-Sijtsema et al., 2010). Venezia and Allee (2007) as well as Bosch-Sijtsema and her colleagues (2010) suggest that the company office space design
often does not meet the mobile workers’ needs. For example, the use of mobile desks in an open-plan office supports only collaborative communicative tasks, not the indi-vidual tasks of all knowledge workers. Consequently, it is more difficult for mobile workers than it is for dedicated desk workers to find and book meeting rooms or other places needed for conducting their work. The limited number of quiet rooms for phone calls and other tasks that require privacy results in mobile workers walking around the office in an attempt to find a private place so as not to disturb others (Venezia and Allee, 2007; Bosch-Sijtsemaet al., 2010). Because of the plans to meet with people while at the office, the lack of conference rooms can lead to a competition for them and to a habit of booking rooms as a precaution, which makes the situation even worse (Mark and Su, 2010).
An open environment is beneficial as mobile desk workers mainly come to the office to meet with colleagues, interact and collaborate. On the other hand, an open environ-ment can be noisy and cause disturbances for those who need to concentrate or need a private place for other reasons. The number of meetings, phone calls and informal interactions means that the periods of undisturbed time are limited (Hislop and Axtell, 2009; Bosch-Sijtsema et al., 2010; Vartiainen and Hyrkkänen, 2010). Furthermore, if employees are sitting at temporarily reserved desks (i.e. hot desks), they are often dragged into discussions and meetings, whereas if they were not quite so accessible, this would be less likely to occur. Such situations are difficult to balance because some of these impromptu meetings may be important (Brown and O’Hara, 2003).
Physical layouts include ergonomic concerns and do not always provide the basic things that users expect or need, such as an adjustable chair (Brown and O’Hara, 2003). Mobile workers have to continuously carry their work tools, such as laptops, mobile phones, and necessary materials and documents, with them as they must be prepared to establish their ‘mobile office’ anywhere. Mobile workers frequently complain that they often must take their work tools home every day as they have no designated desks or individual offices, and there is a limited amount of storage space available for employees. Such storage problems also make it difficult to consult documents while performing basic tasks even in the office (Brown and O’Hara, 2003; Hislop and Axtell, 2009; Bosch-Sijtsemaet al., 2010).
Although the social environment is often rather hectic as there are many people around, there is the risk of the lack of identification to a certain group. Frequent absences of the group members because of travelling decrease informal interactions even when a mobile worker is in the main office (Bosch-Sijtsemaet al., 2010). Difficul-ties in group relationships also occur, such as issues in social relationships and conflicts between and among teams and their members. Therefore, there is the need to manage and build work-related, frequently changing networks. It can be concluded that com-panies are not providing sufficient support for their mobile workers (Vartiainen and Hyrkkänen, 2010).
Home
The home as a workplace is intended for tasks that require concentration. Mobile workers can have uninterrupted time at home to read, plan, schedule, coordinate, prepare, research and be creative. The home work environment provides the mobile worker an escape from the pressures and interruptions of an office environment. Though they feel that they are most productive at home, some of the same hindrances that affect home-based teleworkers also exist for mobile workers (e.g. Halford, 2005; Venezia and Allee, 2007; Hislop and Axtell, 2009). For example, Halford (2005) reports challenges in working practices, such as difficulties ending the work day because the space does not restrict working.
Homes as social spaces have inherent hindrances as well. Hislop and Axtell (2009) conclude that the home is not a conducive environment for collaborative work. Accord-ing to Halford (2005), the main challenges regardAccord-ing the organisational relationship are the pressures to prove one’s availability to others and the fact that the home working environment undermines office sociability. Problems linked to the need for team and managerial support and for training as well as the more nebulous reliance on visual
methods of problem solving are also described by mobile workers who use their home as a work space. On the other hand, managers are more concerned with issues of trust and time with respect to mobile workers who work from home. The unpredictability of some of the work causes a particular concern. For example, how would a manager know whether a worker had really encountered a problem that took longer to resolve than expected or whether the worker was slacking off? Managers also expressed a protective concern for their staff as they worry that the worker may be struggling on a work-related issue or struggling with working from home. They were concerned that when working from home, workers may not always receive important information in a timely manner. Again, based on the reviewed literature, it is evident that mobile workers must develop new working practices when working from home.
The available electronic working environment, infrastructures, devices and media used to create virtual spaces
Virtual space with its tools and infrastructures make it possible to be available at all times in different locations in use. The reality, however, appears to be different in the reviewed articles. Generally, the most described problems are related to the accessibil-ity of networks and to the reliabilaccessibil-ity and functionalaccessibil-ity of the used technologies (e.g. Brown and O’Hara, 2003; Axtellet al., 2008). When wireless networks are available, their costs (e.g. in trains) may prohibit use (Axtell et al., 2008). Furthermore, public space norms of conduct limit what work can be conducted and what technology can be used (Axtellet al., 2008). A ‘positive’ side to connectivity problems is that concentrated work is not disturbed by external or self-initiated interruptions as the decision to use network-dependent technologies has been removed from the employee (Axtellet al., 2008). On the other hand, the availability resulting from the use of virtual tools can cause disruptions and fragmented work as well as interruptions to family life, for example, due to too many calls and virtual meetings from home at night and on weekends; this is a reality especially for those engaged in global mobile work (Green, 2002; Vartiainen and Hyrkkänen, 2010).
While on the move and while working in different modes of transportation or at airports, certain facilities such as electrical power and Internet connectivity may not be available, which can lead to dead computer batteries and the inefficient use of work time (Brown and O’Hara, 2003; Axtell et al., 2008). Technology is considered time consuming as five minutes spent installing new software on a laptop is considered wasted time (Breure and Van Meel, 2003). Furthermore, devices with small displays are not always easy to use as certain visibility problems have been identified (Vartiainen and Hyrkkänen, 2010).
Mark and Su (2010) and Perryet al. (2001) report that there are usually no visible markers to indicate the existence of local infrastructure or whether a resource (e.g. wireless connection) is working or is of good quality when working at secondary places (e.g. at a client’s site). Trying to connect to the employee’s network from a customer site can be especially frustrating as each site has its own policies and rules regulating visitors’ use of internal networks. Sometimes, visitors fail to connect with their own company’s infrastructure and consequently cannot make it to meetings or contact colleagues with critical information (Perryet al., 2001). Non-routine users must learn the local infrastructure, the appropriate standards and the specifics regarding the locations of working resources with respect to multiple places. Mobile workers are not in any one place long enough to be able to learn everything that is needed. For example, it can be particularly complicated to restore the wireless infrastructure because the visiting employee does not know whether the fault is with the local environment, with the latest automated update from the company’s IT or with specific configuration of his or her own laptop (Mark and Su, 2010). Mobile workers carry with them the equipment to create a temporary workspace and to prepare for the unexpected. Therefore, many essential tools are needed, such as mobile phones that match the local standards, portable printers, backup devices, separate SIM cards for specific countries and paper
artefacts (Mark and Su, 2010). Still, sometimes, the tools needed are not available (Hislop and Axtell, 2009; Vartiainen and Hyrkkänen, 2010). Furthermore, duties and social relationships at secondary places are often demanding, thus making connections to a home office for support indispensable (Vartiainen and Hyrkkänen, 2010). Failing to make meetings and to connect with colleagues with significant information can be critical, and the reason for the failure may not be visible to remote colleagues (Mark and Su, 2010).
Technology may also have an impact on the work relationships if there are not sufficient opportunities for face-to-face meetings. Similarly, with the home-based teleworkers, multi-locational workers may experience long periods of time between meeting their work colleagues, even though they have a daily electronic contact with them (Brown and O’Hara, 2003). The lack of strong relationships to begin with could further impede the use of ICT as an alternative way of relationship building because people may be reluctant to contact those whom they do not know well, which is a factor that may alienate colleagues (Axtell and Hislop, 2008). Loneliness, a lack of support and risks of becoming ‘invisible’ or marginalised in the parent organisation are social risks associated with being a mobile multi-locational worker (Hislop and Axtell, 2009). Mobile workers may also face problems gaining access to the company’s human infra-structure for support. A property of the human infrainfra-structure is that it must be learned as a part of membership in the community. In practice, it is a challenge to become a member of a community of practice when mobile workers are not physically present for extended periods at any one location (Mark and Su, 2010).
Mark and Su (2010) note that the management at the mobile worker’s company may wrongly assume that a laptop is a complete office because they fail to consider the role of technical infrastructure, such as monitored wired connections and the availability of local printers. Generally, the company’s IT backup schedule is set with respect to the home office time zone, which can be extremely inconvenient for mobile workers. According to Perry and his colleagues (2001), technical problems at the main workplace are more efficiently addressed than are technical issues that arise in other mobile working environments. Even while working at their main workplace, mobile workers do not always know when they have access to the technologies and documents neces-sary for them to conduct their work. The results clearly indicates that companies are not providing sufficient technological support for mobile workers (Venezia and Allee, 2007) and that there are some ICT policy and compatibility issues that hinder the mobile worker (Vartiainen and Hyrkkänen, 2010).
Discussion and conclusions
Overall, the general purpose of moving from one place to another is to meet other people face to face (Perryet al., 2001; Breure and Van Meel, 2003; Brown and O’Hara, 2003; Mark and Su, 2010). Mobile work requires the mobile worker to plan one’s activities and to arrange and combine those tasks that are to be completed in each place, for example, arranging meetings to be held in the office while simultaneously being available at all times. The heterogeneity of the tasks being performed is great, although it is often hindered by local conditions. Our findings suggest that while mobility and changing contexts are important factors, common hindrances can be found in all locations and spaces (Figure 2), although some hindrances are unique to certain types of places (Table 1).
Common hindrances
Mobile and multi-locational workers can be characterised as ‘lonely riders’ as they are strangers wherever they are. The continuous change in physical locations results in an ongoing search for a place to conduct the day’s business. Time after time, mobile workers must address problems caused by limited working spaces. The main chal-lenge, however, of virtual spaces seems to be limited connections and a lack of Internet
access despite the technological improvements in recent years.1From the social space perspective, mobile multi-locational workers remain outsiders when visiting their clients or partners, and even when at their main workplace, they are not considered part of the workplace community. Mobile workers are alone while travelling and visiting their contacts, thus resulting in a lack of support, a challenge in terms of synchronising with colleagues (perhaps due to different time zones) and sometimes a feeling of being marginalised.
The summary of the most common hindrances in Figure 2 shows that problems concerning incompatible and limited working space, ICT connections, and access are found in all identified work places, while interruptions are related to most of the identified work places, except home, and that being an outsider with respect to the work community is common to all places except third places. Limited privacy and ergonomics concerns are mostly related to the moving, secondary and third places. Technological problems and the lack of ICT support are associated especially with the main workplace and secondary places.
Place-specific hindrances
In addition to common hindrances, there are space- and place-specific hindrances. Table 1 shows that specific, mainly physical hindrances associated with moving places emerge both from the internal and external demands. In addition, the behavioural norms limit the possibilities to work. In secondary places, it is difficult to find people and suitable places to work. In addition, meeting people is demanding due to cultural factors. In third places, a mobile worker has little control over the physical resources. In addition, the people in the area, for the most part, are strangers. In the main workplace, a mobile worker has difficulties finding a place for his or her belongings. Furthermore, he or she may have difficulties adapting to the local community. At home, a mobile worker is confronted with spatial and social availability challenges. However, other home-related roles were not cited in the reviewed articles.
Performance outcomes
Incompable physical space
Unusable and unaainable virtual space
Disrupve and interrupve social space Home Main work-place Third places Secon-dary places Mo-ving places
Limited connections and access, missing ICT support
Limited working space Interruptions by
other people Ergonomics concerns
Externality and missing social support Limited
privacy
Figure 2: The most common hindrances of mobile multi-locational workers in physical (P), virtual (V) and social (S) spaces
Working in places other than home or a private car is characterised by restlessness and interruptions because of other peoples’ behaviour. While public places are busy and crowded settings, they are regularly used for working. There seems to be a distinct difference between behaviour in a private space (private car) and behaviour in a public space (cafe, airport, train, airplane). Private cars may afford more privacy, but it is impossible to perform tasks that require space or the use of both hands even though employees often find themselves multi- and micro-tasking. As the access to space is even more limited in public transportation, adjustments are required to provide suit-able space for any work purpose. Many hindrances can be found in all of the afore-mentioned places. However, most of the identified hindrances were directly associated with moving and secondary places, thereby characterising them as complex work environments.
Theoretical implications
This analysis contributes theoretically to our understanding of the types of new ways of working and the workload factors that are specific to mobile multi-locational work. As a new way of working (Kelliher and Richardson, 2011), the mobile multi-locational work construct is a special form of telework that differs from home-based telework in many respects because of the changing contextual factors. The nature and content of the tasks do not seem to vary much as most of the articles concerned autonomous knowl-edge work, which could indicate that mobile workers draft their job according to the context and the available resources. The mobile multi-locational telework is not
mono-Table 1: The place-specific hindrances in physical, virtual and social spaces
Place-specific hindrances Space Typical place
The length of the journey restricts work activities (short journeys)
P Moving places
Carrying heavy bags P
Limitations due to public space norms S
Traffic culture and conditions vary P
Misunderstandings in traffic S
Attention and concentration needed for driving P
Challenges finding a way to conduct work P
Continuous changes in timetables and routes P
Insecurity S
Difficulties locating people P Secondary places
Unpredictability of the working conditions P
Many demanding social situations and a need to
respond within a time limit S
Diverse cultures and individuals S
Little control over resources in the environment
result in non-productive time P Third places
Inconvenient spaces P
Need to find reliable people and trust them S
Limited storage P Main workplace
Unpredictable situations S
Different mind sets of local and mobile workers S Space does not limit the length of the working day
resulting in negative work–home interference P Home
Trust/availability concerns S
Managers’ concerns about their own attentiveness S
lithic, but rather it is dynamic depending at least on the following two complexity factors (Vartiainen, 2006: 30–32): (1) the location, for example, the number of locations visited, the type of locations (home, main workplace, etc.) and the distance between work places, and (2) the degree of mobility, for example, the frequency of changing places, the area, the order of the work places and their changes, and the time spent in each place. In each location, employees are under the influence of hindrances emerging from the physical, virtual and social spaces. This multiplicity is accompanied by the challenge in measuring the pervasiveness of new ways of working on a societal level. Despite the fact that multi-locational work types are not congruent in terms of their complexity, we can identify certain workload factors as common hindrances (Figure 2). However, we also know that the hindrances in mobile and multi-locational work are not the whole picture. The majority of the research concerning multi-locational and mobile work reveals that workers experience these new ways of working as liberating and inspiring and as stressful and draining at the same time (e.g. Hillet al., 1998; Borg and Kristensen, 1999; Felsteadet al., 2005; Halford, 2005; Hislop and Axtell, 2009). For example, Hill et al. (2003) found that a ‘virtual office’, for the most part, positively influences specific aspects of work, such as job retention, workload success, optimistic career orientation and work motivation, while somewhat negatively influences the balance between work and personal life. Work–life boundary literature has been inter-ested in how ICTs, while allowing employees to work ‘anytime anywhere’, enable working in non-work hours at home (e.g. Towerset al., 2006; Fenner and Renn, 2010). Gold and Mustafa (2013) observed that mobile freelancers did not necessarily work excessively long hours at home, but they do work irregularly and externally triggered by their clients. Sayah (2013) argues that individuals are actively managing their work–life boundary by using ICTs. Their boundaries can be permeable in both direc-tions and vary in temporal, spatial and psychological dimensions. This has an effect on social space both at work and home. We are also aware of the research suggesting that the experience of job demands can be influenced by the employee’s individual, sub-jective appraisal (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984). Although such subsub-jective differences affect the experiences, we concentrated on hindrance demands that are specific for multi-locational work and that apply to all employees.
Practical implications
Based on our analysis, some tentative and general practical implications can be derived for improving human resources and re-designing multi-locational work even though mobile workers are generally able to draft their jobs. We should not regard mobile work as a constrained form of static work but rather as a type of work that has different values for different people and companies, different opportunities for actions, and methods for performing work. Accordingly, the human resource professionals, man-agement and mobile workers themselves could perform the following:
1. Build a shared understanding among management and employees of mobile multi-locational work-specific hindrancesto develop practical improvements and solutions to work practices and policies that could positively impact employee engagement and vigour. The following issues need new practices:
a. A continuous change in the physical work environment results a recurrent search for a suitable place to perform the tasks at hand.
b. Mobile workers must repeatedly solve problems caused by limited work space.
c. Mobile multi-locational workers remain outsiders in the workplace community when visiting their clients or partners and when at their primary workplace, which results in a lack of support, a challenge synchronising with colleagues (e.g. different time zones) and, perhaps, feelings of being marginalised. d. Public places are regularly used for work despite the fact that they are busy and
crowded. Thus, the ability to use the space for work purposes is restricted because of concerns of privacy, security and space.
2. Be aware of assuming that mobile devices and applications are a complete virtual office. The main challenge related to the use of ICT is the limited connections and access despite the technological improvements in recent years.
3. Analyse the needs and provide applicable ICT support. Practical and occasioned requirements of the mobile workers are likely to be different from those of collo-cated employees even when working in the main workplace.
These practical solutions are fairly easy to carry out, and consequently, it is fairly easy to make the lives of multi-locational workers less complicated and more productive.
Limitations
Although this literature analysis offers some theoretical and practical insights, it is not without limitations. First, we found only a limited number of empirical studies on mobile multi-locational work. In addition, because all of the studies used in the review were cross-sectional, we were unable to make any strong statements regarding the effects of job design, human resource development interventions or better competences of employees on multi-locational work performance. However, our findings provide preliminary support for the notion that mobile and multi-locational work has specific hindrances that can be experienced as workload factors.
The main limitation concerns the conceptual basis of our analysis as the existing literature is still hampered by definitional differences. Understanding fully the nature of mobile multi-locational work would require clear concepts and the operationalisation of those concepts for measuring purposes. For example, the analysis of the physical space as a layer of a work environment requires clear definitions of ‘space’, ‘place’, ‘location’ and ‘workplace’. We solved this by defining ‘space’ as a potential place to work by using the concept ‘ba’. As Harrison and Dourish (1996: 69) explained, the difference between ‘space’ and ‘place’ is that ‘everyday actions take place in a place; space is the opportunity; place is the understood reality’. Therefore, we attempted to overcome the possible confusion regarding the concepts by including the ‘ba’ into the demand factors of the JR-D model (Figure 1) and used it for mobile multi-locational work as the guiding framework for our analysis. This allowed us to focus systematically on the hindrances as specific negative aspects of work demands emerging from virtual, social and physical spaces.
One limitation in our study is related to the degree of description of the subjects and their jobs and tasks as presented in the analysed articles. The data in the articles were collected in multiple manners from mobile employees who were mainly business travellers, such as sales persons, and knowledge professionals, such as consultants and IT professionals. The subjects also included mobile service and repairing engineers and maintenance workers. However, it would have been valuable to know more about their job contents and especially the tasks performed in the different locations.
Suggestions for future research
As this literature is still rather new, there are many opportunities for future research. There is clearly a need to clarify under what circumstances we would expect hin-drances to be enhanced and experienced as strains in the mobile, multi-locational work context. Accordingly, when considering the prevalence of stress in today’s workplace as shown in, for example, European Working Condition Survey (Eurofound, 2012), future research must identify not only related tasks or organisations but also specific stressors that arise from working in multiple work environments. Understanding how such stressors arise may help employers to develop better and more supportive work environments, which ultimately results in increased efficiency and productivity (Karasek and Theorell, 1990; Bosch-Sijtsemaet al., 2010).
We can only speculate based on our analysis the types of human resources and regulative processes and outcomes required by mobile, multi-locational work. If we accept that the category of job demands in the JD-R model (Demerouti et al., 2001;
Bakker and Demerouti, 2007) can be divided into challenge-related and hindrance-related stressors (Cavanaughet al., 2000; Podsakoffet al., 2007), and that hindrances are negatively related to engagement (Crawfordet al., 2010; Van den Broecket al., 2010), we can hypothesise that the identified disturbances in mobile work would lead to reduced work engagement. This possible relationship would be worth studying in the future. It would be especially interesting to study demand factors and their combinations emerg-ing from different spaces. There are many other open questions to be studied, such as the content of the human resources (e.g. competences in mobile multi-locational work), as well as other outcomes, such as creativity, innovativeness, productivity and work flow.
There is a need for clear and explicit definitions as well as for the development of new models and theories to explain under what circumstances we would expect multi-locational work to be hindered by the contextual constraints of changing and embedded environments as well as what type of job resources are needed to support worker performance.
Note
1. One must remember that several reviewed articles have been published almost 10 years ago, and consequently, the data have been collected even earlier. Likely, the situation has been improved somewhat in recent years.
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