When there is no water cooler : how employee resilience can be developed and enacted in remote work.

Type of content
Theses / Dissertations
Publisher's DOI/URI
Thesis discipline
Psychology
Degree name
Master of Science
Publisher
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Language
English
Date
2025
Authors
Nelson, Sophie
Abstract

Remote work presents several unique challenges for employees. Employee resilience may be an important capability in overcoming these challenges, denoting the ability to develop and draw on resources to adapt to changes and challenges at work. While resilience has been widely studied in co-located workplaces, less is known about how resource development and utilisation behaviours to overcome the unique challenges associated with remote work can be supported. This study aimed to qualitatively explore how remote workers develop and enact resilience and the factors that promote or undermine resilience development in this context. Fifteen workers who have worked remotely for at least twelve months were interviewed about how they approach challenges at work, the strategies they develop to overcome these challenges, and the role of organisations and leaders in supporting employees in remote work. Thematic analysis identified three broad themes. Two themes reflect resilient behaviours in remote work: ‘utilising social resources and managing social demands’ and ‘managing self’, while the third theme ‘organisational enablers and barriers to resilience’ reflects the ways in which organisations and managers can support or hinder these behaviours. Key resilient behaviours derived from the data and themes include network development, seeking and leveraging support at work, boundary-setting behaviours, learning, managing personal resources, and adaptive task management. Resilience-promoting factors included a supportive work environment, facilitating communication and learning, and support from leaders. The findings suggest that organisations should invest in the technology infrastructure required to support social connection, train leaders to foster a resilience-enabling environment, provide guidelines and design jobs to consider boundaries between work and home and equip remote workers to manage emotional demands to promote resilience development.

Description
Citation
Keywords
Employee resilience, coping strategies, resilience-promoting factors, remote work, qualitative research.
Ngā upoko tukutuku/Māori subject headings
ANZSRC fields of research
Rights
All Rights Reserved