A Configurational Evaluation of Spanish Teleworkers’ Perception and Nonperception of Stress during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

This paper assesses the explanatory power of individual, environmental, and job factors on Spanish telecommuters’ presence and absence of stress in a home telework setting during the COVID-19 crisis. It uses a survey of the Spanish agency “Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas” on the perceptions of the Spanish population about several aspects of information communication technologies (ICTs) that was carried out in March 2021. We use fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to capture how factors combine to enable and inhibit stress feeling. The perception of stress is less covered by fsQCA configurations than the nonperception. However, fsQCA provides profiles that cause stress feelings and nonstress feelings with great consistency. We have checked that overload is the most important variable to explain stress. Likewise, fsQCA has also shown that while some variables, such as overload, isolation, non-adequacy, or organizational support, impact symmetrically on the presence and absence of stress perception, other factors, such as attaining a satisfactory work-home balance or gender, impact them asymmetrically. From a practical point of view, we can outline that clearer regulation of teleworking is needed to prevent imbalances in rights and obligations between companies and employees. However, there are also several challenges at the organization and worker level.