Department of Health and Social Work, IU International University, 99084 Erfurt, Germany.
Department of Business and Management, IU International University, 99084 Erfurt, Germany.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Jul 26;19(15):9117. doi: 10.3390/ijerph19159117.
(1) Background: In view of the advancing digitalization of the German banking sector, offering remote work can be an opportunity for banks to meet changing customer and employee needs at the same time. It allows flexible consultations at changing locations and, due to the high degree of autonomy, it also increases motivation, meaningfulness, happiness at work, and commitment. (2) Methods: This study used a quasi-experimental design to investigate how remote work affects happiness at work and affective commitment among employees in a German public bank. Therefore, two groups of customer advisors were examined, who work either remotely (N = 32) or stationary (N = 110) at similar tasks. (3) Results: The group comparisons show significantly higher values overall on three of the investigated four happiness dimensions ("meaningfulness", "self-actualization", and "community professional") for employees in the remote group. Commitment also differs, as employees in the remote group show significantly stronger commitment. The quantitative results were confirmed by qualitative interviews. (4) Conclusions: By investigating the positive effects of remote working, this study shows new findings on what is likely to be a growing design form of New Work in the future. The study provides evidence that self-selected work environments and working hours offer an opportunity to make work more conducive to happiness-even in a sector that still undergoes significant shifts.
（1）背景：鉴于德国银行业的数字化进程不断推进，提供远程办公机会可以使银行同时满足不断变化的客户和员工需求。它允许在不断变化的地点进行灵活的咨询，并且由于高度的自主权，还可以提高工作动力、意义、工作幸福感和工作投入度。（2）方法：本研究采用准实验设计，调查了德国一家公立银行中远程办公如何影响员工的工作幸福感和情感投入。因此，研究考察了两组从事类似任务的客户顾问，一组是远程办公（N=32），另一组是固定办公（N=110）。（3）结果：组间比较显示，远程办公组在四个工作幸福感维度中的三个维度（“意义”、“自我实现”和“社区专业”）上的总体得分明显更高。承诺度也有所不同，远程办公组的员工表现出更强的承诺度。定量结果得到了定性访谈的证实。（4）结论：通过调查远程办公的积极影响，本研究提供了关于未来可能成为新工作增长模式的新发现。该研究表明，自选的工作环境和工作时间为使工作更有利于幸福感提供了机会，即使在仍经历重大变革的行业也是如此。
