Teleworkability, Preferences for Telework, and Well-Being: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Telework has grown exponentially due to COVID-19, and has revealed itself as a useful work condition with a largely positive impact on employees’ well-being. Since many variables are involved in determining the relationships between telework and well-being, this paper clarifies the role of teleworkability, employees’ preference for telework, and telework intensity; specifically, how the first two variables impact on well-being through telework intensity. A systematic review was carried out between 2012 and 2022 to analyze how these variables relate. Scarce literature connecting these subjects showed that teleworkability and the preference for telework influence the amount of time employees wish to telework. Teleworkability and preference for telework need to be studied from a multilevel perspective since country-, company-, and individual-level characteristics impact on them. The results also confirmed that telework intensity establishes direct relationships with well-being, and it is essential to predict it. Hybrid work emerged as a new concept which captures the best combination between on-site work and telework. Based on their employees’ preferences, companies can introduce “hybrid-work flexible programs” to maximize its positive effects on well-being as well as being able to re-design their jobs to better fit their employees’ levels of telework expectations.

1. Introduction

In the 1970s, due to the oil crises, telework (i.e., work partially or totally carried out away from a workplace, usually from home, by means of technology) [1] was introduced to reduce commuting time in large metropolitan areas [2,3]. As information and communication technologies (ICTs) grew, telework turned into a flexible work arrangement directed towards improving employees’ work–life balance, job satisfaction, and productivity [4]. Telework is gaining so much prominence that it is even having a positive effect on the stock prices of the companies that are applying it [5].

Despite these two important drivers, the COVID-19 pandemic emerged as a trigger for telework adoption worldwide as a way of minimizing the SARS-CoV-2 health crisis. Specifically, in Europe, telework rose from 11% up to 50% [6]. However, this massive shift [7] has affected employees’ psycho-social well-being (i.e., general quality of employees’ experience and functioning at work) [8], which, in turn, has stimulated a great deal of research on telework and well-being [5,9,10]. The latter is a holistic concept; therefore, almost any dependent variable or outcome studied in Work and Organizational Psychology and Occupational Health could be analyzed as a well-being indicator [11], e.g., work–life balance, job satisfaction, productivity, or organizational commitment exerting a positive effect on them [12,13]. However, other studies have found negative effects of telework on social isolation, company identity, loss of work meaning, or lack of market-oriented activities [14,15,16]. These results show that telework can exert both positive and negative effects [17]. Additionally, other studies found no significant relationship between the place of work and emotional disorders [18].

These unclear findings direct scholars and practitioners towards other variables such as job teleworkability [19] and employees’ preference for telework [20], in order to clarify how to ensure positive telework effects while preventing any negative impacts. As the pandemic receded, studies have focused on companies maintaining telework although reducing its intensity, and companies which resume “their business as usual” routine, suspending telework [21]. These changes could affect employees’ well-being via perceiving some previously gained flexibility now lost, particularly those who perform highly teleworkable jobs (e.g., designer, consultant, analyst, programmer, and “white collar jobs”) and/or employees with high preference for telework.

Thus, the present paper delves into three important variables for telework and its impact on employees’ well-being beyond the pandemic. Firstly, the present paper analyzes the extent to which a job or occupation can be teleworked or can be redesigned to be so (i.e., teleworkability). Then, we studied employees’ preference for telework, i.e., the extent to which employees are freely inclined to telework [22]. Finally, our work examines the number of hours teleworked in relation to the total hours worked (i.e., telework intensity).

We think that this study is timely since companies are deciding whether to maintain, to extend, or even to eliminate telework. Then, through clarifying the effect among the mentioned variables, companies can analyze their jobs and establish to what extent those can be redesigned to increase their teleworkability, and also analyze to what extent their employees prefer to telework. Thus, applying systematic review research methods, the present paper studies the influences that teleworkability, telework preference, and telework intensity exert on employees’ well-being [23]. As a result, since telework also entails some disadvantages (e.g., social isolation) [15], the present study can help companies determine telework intensity depending on job teleworkability and employees’ preference. Then, companies can analyze to what extent working conditions, HR, and management policies and procedures could be adapted for telework.

In doing so, we sought to answer the following questions: Which factors determine teleworkability in a company?; How does teleworkability relate to well-being?; How does preference for telework impact on well-being?; What is the best telework intensity to ensure the positive effect of telework on well-being? From an applied perspective, the present paper also sought to shed some light on the following questions: Are companies redesigning their jobs so as to be teleworked?; Are companies changing their management policies as a result of the introduction or generalization of telework? By responding to these questions, the present paper contributes to the extant literature by analyzing the role of a job’s structural condition (teleworkability) and an individual attitude (telework preference) on deciding the amount of telework (telework intensity), and its impact on employees’ well-being, especially in the aftermath of COVID-19. From an applied perspective, this study contributes to clarifying the impact of these three variables to successfully implement telework as a significant generalized work condition, and their effects on employees’ well-being.

2. Theoretical Background

2.1. Teleworkability and-Well-Being

According to Sostero et al. [24], teleworkability is mainly defined by technical feasibility and task content such as physical and social interactions or information-processing tasks. The importance of technical feasibility is corroborated by studies which showed that employees from Finland, Singapore, and Lithuania score more highly in teleworkability even in less teleworkable industries such as manufacturing or retail [25]. Regarding task content, since information processing is the most teleworkable task, the degree of physical contact and social interaction will also determine task teleworkability [24]. As a result, occupations are distributed in three main categories, i.e., 100% non-teleworkable (e.g., agricultural, forest, or fishing workers; street vendors; and childcare workers); partly teleworkable (e.g., medical doctors; process control technicians; and primary school teachers); and 100% teleworkable (e.g., secondary or vocational training teachers; sales, marketing, or public relation professionals; and secretaries and clerks).

Teleworkability is a new concept; therefore, most of the literature that deals with it is still “grey”. The International Monetary Fund [25] developed a teleworkability index by which industries highest in teleworkability are ICTs, finance–insurance, professional, education, public administration–defense, and administration–support. Conversely, accommodation–food, construction, transport, wholesale–retail, and manufacturing demonstrated the lowest levels on teleworkability. Regarding occupations, the highest for teleworkability are technicians, clerks, legislators–officials–managers, and professionals. This report also suggests that approximately 40% of jobs can be performed at home, ranging from 24% in Italy to 42% in Germany. Similar results present the study of the European Commission and Eurofound, in which teleworkability in Europe reached 37%. Holders of teleworkable jobs (e.g., clerks) achieved similar or higher levels of productivity when teleworking than when they are at the office [24,26].

Additionally, more recent studies suggest that the company culture and work organization play key roles in teleworkability, beyond the type of industry and occupation [21]. Company culture impacts on teleworkability because it demands high levels of autonomy and trust in employees from management, particularly for tasks where the amount or quality of the outputs are difficult to determine. Team-based work organization will also influence teleworkability, because some face-to-face contact among team members will be necessary to best deal with team transition (e.g., team objectives and methods), action (e.g., coordination and backup behavior), and interpersonal processes (e.g., conflict management and communication) [27]. The reviewed articles suggest a direct link between teleworkability and well-being.

From the studies mentioned above, the level of teleworkability of a job will depend on its industry, company, and the tasks. In addition, the higher amount of teleworkability a job has, the easier it is to be performed through telework. Thus, the level of teleworkability will condition the telework intensity of the job. Even though there are objective constrains to teleworkability, such as occupations and industries, we conceptualize teleworkability as a structural work condition that could impact on employees’ well-being through influencing their levels of telework intensity.

2.2. Employees Telework Preference and Well-Being

Telework preference (i.e., the preference for telework or a positive attitude towards it) is an individual characteristic that defines how employees consider telework above and beyond the imposition derived from COVID-19 mobility restrictions. Before COVID-19, a study from Peters et al. [28] already found relationships between a positive attitude towards telework and preferences for it as a working condition. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a study from Hive [29] concluded that 72% of their sample liked telework, and only 12% disliked it. Along the same lines, GitLab [30] reported that approximately 80% of employees preferred telework, and 82% who were teleworking thought that this modality was the future.

The person–job fit paradigm (i.e., reciprocal and ongoing processes through which employees shape their working conditions, and vice versa) [31] posits that person–job fit will result in a positive evaluation that triggers a positive affective reaction; therefore, employees who prefer telework will tend to maintain it [22]. This positive evaluation could contribute to positively influencing well-being through increasing job satisfaction and/or reducing stress [20,32]. In addition, a recent empirical research paper from the Baltic countries found differences between telework and well-being in employees with high and low preferences for telework [33]. In the sample of employees with a high preference for telework, telework established both a direct influence on well-being and an indirect influence through work–life balance, whereas in the sample low in telework preference, telework did not relate to well-being either directly or indirectly. Similar results were obtained from a Japanese sample in which employees who prefer telework improve their well-being as the amount of their time teleworking increases [34]. Traqq.team [35] suggested that leaders support for telework, high levels of communication within the work unit, and contingent recognition to successful tasks completion impact positively on telework preference.

As the Living, Working and COVID-19 survey, conducted by Eurofound in 2022 [36] reported after the COVID-19 telework experience, European employees are inclined to telework at least partially. However, most companies are resuming on-site work, and such a decision could negatively influence employees’ well-being by reducing job flexibility and autonomy. In line with these Eurofound survey results [36], several authors uphold that maintaining some degree of telework could become a permanent work condition and a positive HR policy [37,38].

Consequently, we propose that telework preference is an individual attitude that could have a positive impact on employees’ well-being, which companies could also take into consideration when establishing work conditions.

2.3. Telework Intensity and Well-Being

Telework intensity is defined as the time that employees work away from their worksite [12], and it was considered important for the relationship between telework and well-being even before the COVID-19 outbreak [1,39].

Extant research on this variable showed differences between low- to moderate-intensity and high-intensity telework. Low- to moderate-telework can vary between 1 and 2 days a week [12], and from once a month to 3 days a week [39]. In this regard, Henke et al. [40] reported that employees who teleworked 1 day a month are less likely to suffer negative affectivity.

More recent studies found that low and moderate levels of telework intensity positively influence employees’ skills, discretion, and work engagement, whereas high levels establish negative effects on well-being indicators [39,41]. Specifically, high-intensity telework endangers the work–life balance [42,43,44] and peer relationships [1]. Similarly, Alfanza [44] found a negative relationship between telework intensity and work–life balance in the sense that the higher the intensity of telework, the more negative its relationship with well-being.

Interestingly, Konradt et al. [4] found differences in the given reasons between employees who have low or high telework intensity. Employees with a low telework intensity prioritize the best balance between work and life, while employees with a high telework intensity pursue a working context in which they can best concentrate [4].

These results suggest that the debate has shifted from telework or non-telework to its frequency or intensity. Thus, low- and moderate-intensity telework could exert a positive effect on employees’ well-being. It also seems that a moderate intensity could entail between 1 and 2 days a week [41].

Figure 1 shows the model that the present study analyses.

We propose that even though teleworkability, and specifically, telework preference, could exert a direct effect on employees’ well-being, their indirect effects through telework intensity will be greater. Additionally, telework intensity will be determined by the level of teleworkability the job entails (structural conditions) and the attitude towards telework (i.e., telework preference) shown by the employee (individual characteristics).

3. Methods

According to Sorrell et al. [45], two main reasons justify applying a systemic review to our object of study. Firstly, and even though our research questions narrow the scope of this study, focusing it on the four variables already mentioned, the remaining number and heterogeneity of publications required synthesis of the obtained results. Secondly, pre- and post-COVID-19 results, diversity on methodologies, results, and recommendations demand clarification. As a result, we seek to offer comprehensive information and provide useful insight to researchers and practitioners on this subject [46].

This systematic review provides some bibliometric indicators such as papers per year and number of citations per paper. It also includes mapping techniques (VOSViewer) and papers’ titles and abstracts to show these results graphically. Specifically, this systematic review examines papers on telework, teleworkability, employees’ preference for telework, telework intensity, and well-being from several fields of study, such as business, psychology, management, human resources, and occupational health. Our search began with the Web of Sciences (all collections), followed by EBSCO. This search resulted in 75 papers, but teleworkability was under-represented. For that reason, an additional search in Google Scholar was carried out, yielding 397 results. After this search, “grey” literature (i.e., information produced on all levels of government, academia, business, and industry without usually being reviewed by peers [47]) on teleworkability emerged.

The initial search yielded 472 documents, including peer-reviewed articles, proceeding articles, book chapters, and studies and reports published by international organizations. General inclusion criteria were: (a) documents published from January 2012 to November 2022, and (b) studies related to telework and well-being, which particularly deal with teleworkability, preference for telework, telework intensity, and well-being. Exclusion criteria assumed that, if none of these terms appeared in the title, keywords or abstract, it was unlikely that those concepts were important in that study. The first screening resulted in 350 papers excluded based on not being in English, theses, papers with pure economic and sociological perspectives, and working papers from non-international organizations. The second screening eliminated 45 papers focused on general health, labor relationships, technostress, work–non-work boundaries, unpaid work, and commuting. In addition, another 8 papers were eliminated for being outside our scope: geriatric nursing, disability and rehabilitation, local food experience, and mothers with young children. We also manually added 10 new articles, specifically related to teleworkability and telework preference, obtained from Google Scholar, specifically from “grey literature” sources. After analyzing 79 papers, 28 were excluded due to them not even implicitly addressing the variables under study. The final analysis was performed on 48 papers which met the present systematic review criteria. Appendix A presents a summary table (

Table A1. All the papers studied in this review.

Authors	Title	Field	Study Goal	Methodology	Sample	Variables/Topics	Contributions
Aczel, B.; Kovacs, M.; van der Lippe, T.; Szasz, B. 2021 [51]	Researchers working from home: Benefits and challenges	Generalistic	Whether working from home is the key or impediment to academics’ efficiency and work–life balance	Cross-sectional	N = 704	Productivity; well-being; preference for telework	70% of the subjects think that, in the future, they would be similarly or more efficient than before if they could spend more of their work-time at home. Regarding well-being, 66% of them would find it ideal to work from home more in the future than they did before the lockdown.
Adamovic, M. 2022 [72]	How does employee cultural background influence the effects of telework on job stress? The roles of power distance, individualism, and beliefs about telework	Management	Under what circumstances telework is beneficial or dysfunctional	Longitudinal	N = 604	Job stress, cultural values, employees’ beliefs on telework effectiveness and isolation	Whether employees believe that telework negatively influence social isolation. Employees with high power distance scores have negative beliefs about telework, whereas employees with high individualism scores have positive beliefs about the effectiveness of telework.
Adrjan, P.; Ciminelli, G.; Judes, A.; Koelle, M.; Schwellnus, C.; Sinclair, T. 2021 [37]	Will it stay or will it go? Analysing developments in telework during COVID-19 using online job postings	International Organization	Adoption of telework across 20 countries	Quantitative. Longitudinal: 2019 to September, 2021	55 categories of job posted on the Indeed platform from 20 countries	Number of job positions requiring telework	Advertised telework almost tripled during the pandemic, with large differences both across sectors and across countries. The easing of restrictions only modestly reverses this increase. Digital preparedness plays an important role in mediating the response of advertised telework to changes in restrictions.
Alfanza, M. T. 2021 [44]	Telecommuting intensity in the context of COVID-19 pandemic: job performance and work–life balance	Economics and Business	Determining the relationship between telework intensity and employees’ work–life balance. Whether previous frameworks of WLB were still valid during the COVID-19 crisis	Cross-sectional	N = 396	Telework intensity; job performance; work–life balance	Intensified telework had a negative relationship with employees’ WLB. No difference in the work done or the amount of time spent finishing a job at home and at the office. The WLB framework was still applicable.
Anderson, A. J.; Kaplan, S. A.; Vega, R. P. 2015 [49]	The impact of telework on emotional experience: When, and for whom, does telework improve daily affective well-being?	Psychology	To compare employees’ affective experience during the days that they telework and when they work at the office	Quantitative, multilevel	N = 102 US Public Services	Telework; affective well-being; individual differences	Telework improves affective well-being. Relationships between telework and positive affect are more positive for individuals higher in openness, lower in rumination, and more socially connected.
Arntz, M.; Ben Y. S.; Berlingieri, F. 2020 [50]	Working from home and COVID-19: The chances and risks for gender gaps	Economics and Business	Impact of telework on wages and employee availability. Develop a teleworkability index	Quantitative, longitudinal	BIBB/BauA 2018 Employment Survey, 20,000 German employees	Telework; gender	Employees without children who start teleworking do an extra hour a week of unpaid overtime, but report higher job satisfaction.
Babapour Chafi, C.; Hultberg, A.; and Bozic Yams, N. 2021 [66]	Post-pandemic office work: Perceived challenges and opportunities for a sustainable work environment	Economics and Business	The needs and challenges in remote and hybrid work and the potential for a sustainable future work environment	Qualitative	N = 53 Sweden. Public Services	Flexibility; autonomy; work–life balance; individual performance; lost comradery; isolation	Hybrid work provides the best of both remote and office work. To achieve the benefits of hybrid work, employers are expected to provide support and flexibility and re-design the physical and digital workplaces to fit the new and diverse needs of employees.
Becker, W. J.; Belkin, L. Y.; Tuskey, S. E.; Conroy, S. A.2022 [74]	Surviving remotely: How job control and loneliness during a forced shift to remote work impacted employee work behaviors and well-being	Human Resources	The impact of job control and work-related loneliness on employee work behaviors and well-being during the massive and abrupt move to remote work due to COVID-19	Quantitative, longitudinal	1st wave N = 334; 2nd wave N = 239	Remote work; job control; work-related loneliness; well-being; counterproductive work behavior; depression	The beneficial impact of high perceived job control is conditioned by individual segmentation preferences such that the effects are stronger when segmentation preference is low.
Bérastégui, P. 2021 [38]	Teleworking in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic: enabling conditions for a successful transition	International Organization	Improve the understanding of companies and policymakers of what telework represents.	Theoretical		Telework; company culture; investment in technology; different management practices	Consensus that telework is unlikely to return to pre-pandemic levels, so it is expected to become established.
Bentley, T. A., Teo, S. T., McLeod, L., Tan, F., Bosua, R., and Gloet, M. 2016 [48]	The role of organisational support in teleworker wellbeing: A socio-technical systems approach	Ergonomics	The role of organizational social support and specific support in influencing teleworker well-being. The mediating role of social isolation, and differences between low-intensity and hybrid teleworkers.	Quantitative, cross-sectional	N = 804. New Zealand	Support; psycho-logical strain; job satisfaction; social isolation; hybrid; low-intensity tele-work	Organizational social support and teleworker support increased job satisfaction and reduced psychological strain. Social isolation acts as a mediator. Differences were observed in hybrid and low-intensity teleworker sub-samples.
Bertoni, M.; Cavapozzi, D.; Pasini, G.; Pavese, C. 2021 [60]	Remote Working and Mental Health During the First Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic	International Organization	To estimate the causal effect of remote working during the COVID-19 on mental health of senior Europeans.	Quantitative, longitudinal	N = 2860. 17 countries	Telework; mental health; gender; occupation; sector	Remote working increases the probability of sadness and depression. It is larger for women, respondents with children at home and singles, and in regions with low restrictions and low excess death rates due to COVID-19.
Biasi, P.; Checchi, D.; De Paola, M. 2022 [70]	Remote working during COVID-19 outbreak: workers’ well-being and productivity	Economics and Business	To study the multifaceted changes that represent telework	Quantitative, cross-sectional	N = 11,441. Italy	Attitude to remote work; productivity; work–life balance; gender differences	Respondents have a positive attitude towards remote work and would like to telework once the pandemic is over, especially in a hybrid model. The overlap of domestic and working spaces leaves workers, especially women, with difficulties to reconcile work and life needs.
Biron, M.; Turgeman-Lupo, K.; Levy, O. 2022 [77]	Integrating push–pull dynamics for understanding the association between boundary control and work outcomes in the context of mandatory work from home	Human Resources	How the constraints and benefits associated with working from home interact to shape employees’ exhaustion and goal-setting prioritization.	Quantitative, cross-sectional	N = 577. US, Israel	Working from home; boundary control; exhaustion; goal-setting/prioritization	WFH benefits (pull factors) attenuate the moderating effect of WFH constraints.
Brussevich, M; Dabla-Norris, D; Khalid, S. 2020 [25]	Who will Bear the Brunt of Lockdown Policies? Evidence from Tele-workability. Measures across Countries	International Organization	To present a new index of the feasibility to work from home to investigate what types of jobs are most at risk of layoffs during the lockdown	Quantitative	Occupation classification and worker-level data from 35 countries	Age; education; type of contract; company size; earnings; telework	Policies development to neutralizes differences due to demographic and distributional considerations both during the crisis and in its aftermath.
Camp, K. M.; Young, M.; Bushardt, S. C. 2022 [67]	A millennial manager skills model for the new remote work environment	Management	Skills model to explore millennial managers in the remote work, post-pandemic context	Theoretical	NA	Job satisfaction; productivity; commitment; work–life balance; flexibility; teamwork	The millennial manager skills model adapted to remote work in which communication, teamwork, and trust are key.
Charalampous, M.; Grant, C. A.; Tramontano, C. 2022 [81]	“It needs to be the right blend”: a qualitative exploration of remote e-workers’ experience and well-being at work	Human Resources	The impact of the remote e-working experience on employees’ well-being	Qualitative	40 interviews	Affective, cognitive, social, professional, and physical well-being	Organizations should provide individuals with guidance on how to remote e-work effectively, and the importance of cultural change.
Charalampous, M.; Grant, C. A.; Tramontano, C. 2020 [85]	The development of the e-work well-being scale and further validation of the e-work life scale	Thesis	e-Work well-being scale	Qualitative	63 narrative reviews, 40 interviews	Affective, cognitive, social, professional, and physical well-being	The EWW scale can be used within remote e-working populations. This scale can help academics, managers, and organizations to investigate remote e-working’s multi-dimensional impact on individuals.
Chambel, M. J., Castanheira, F., Santos, A.2022 [59]	Teleworking in times of COVID-19: the role of Family-Supportive supervisor behaviors in workers’ work-family management, exhaustion, and work engagement	Human Resources	Based on COR theory, the association between work–family relationships and employees’ well-being in teleworking situations was studied; specifically, the role of Family-Supportive Supervisor Behaviors (FSSB) as an important resource	Quantitative cross-sectional and longitudinal	Cross-sectional N = 318; longitudinal N = 290	Telework; work–family relationships; FSSB; telework intensity; well-being	FSSB is related to positive outcomes for work–family relationship and well-being. Most of these relationships are influenced by telework intensity.
Contreras, F.; Baykal, E.; Abid, G.2020 [10]	E-leadership and teleworking in times of COVID-19 and beyond: What we know and where do we go	Psychology	In order to synthesize and move forward, this study analyzes the existing knowledge on teleworking and e-leadership, as well as the supposed challenges	Theoretical	Literature review	Telework; structure; e-leadership; productivity; well-being; environment	Telework success implies that managers must adjust the companies’ structure, making them less hierarchical, and developing new abilities to establish a strong and trustworthy relationship with their employees to maintain their competitiveness and employees’ well-being. Successful e-leadership must be able to consolidate and lead effective virtual teams to accomplish organizational goals.
Criscuolo, C.; Gal, P.; Leidecker, T.; Losma, F.; Nicoletti, G. 2021 [69]	The role of telework for productivity during and post-COVID-19: Results from an OECD survey among managers and workers	International Organization	Experiences and expectations about telework	Quantitative	N = 1306 managers, N = 3404 workers, 23 OECD countries	Telework; telework intensity; productivity; well-being	Managers and workers positively assess teleworking both for firm performance and for individual well-being, and wish to increase it substantially above pre-crisis levels. To increase coordination, more ICT, investment, and soft skills adapted to telework will be needed.
Cudanov, M.; Cvetkovié, A.; Savoiu, G. 2023 [73]	Telework Perceptions and Factors: What to Expect After the COVID-19	Generalistic	The influence of ownership, industry, and support given by the organization to the employee	Quantitative	N = 166	Telework benefits; telework problems; telework aversion, leaving home preferences; telework anxiousness	Public and private organizations differ on telework benefits, and between industries on telework problems. Telework is also perceived differently based on educational support.
de Macêdo, T.; Marques Cabral, A.; Lucas dos Santos, E; Castro, S.; Wilkson R.; de Souza Junior, C.; …; Soares, F. 2020 [52]	Ergonomics and telework: A systematic review	Prevention	To study scientific research on ergonomics and teleworking to determine the main benefits and disadvantages and to identify the main issues addressed by the authors	Systematic review	N = 36	Teleworking; telecommuting; telecommuters; home office; ergonomics; human factors	The importance of telework for balancing professional and family life and well-being. It is necessary for companies to analyze how telework can impact on them.
Erro-Garcés, A.; Urien, B.; Čyras, G.; Janušauskienė V. M. 2022 [33]	Telework in Baltic Countries during the Pandemic: Effects on Wellbeing, Job Satisfaction, and Work-Life Balance	Generalistic	The direct effect of telework experience on well-being, mediated by work–life balance and job satisfaction	Quantitative, cross-sectional	N = 947, Baltic countries	Telework experience; work–life balance; job satisfaction; well-being; preference for telework	A positive experience while teleworking has a positive effect on perceived well-being, via work–life balance. In the “high preference” subsample, there is also a direct link between the experience of telework and well-being.
Fabrellas, A.G. 2022 [63]	How to ensure employees’ well-being in the digital age?: Discussing (new) working time policies as health and safety measures	Law and Politics	A legal analysis of working time policies in the Europe to determine their opportunity and potential to contribute to employees’ well-being in the digital age	Qualitative	NA	Flexible work; working time; well-being; Europe	The opportunity and potential for working time policies to contribute to employees’ well-being in the digital age, as they act as health and safety measures.
Fana, M.; Massimo, F. S.; Moro, A. 2021 [56]	Autonomy and control in mass remote working during the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from a cross-professional and cross-national analysis	International Organization	To study the effect of telework on autonomy, control, standardization, and teamwork across different occupations to highlight heterogeneity along the vertical division of labor	Qualitative	N = 50, France and Italy	Teleworkability; telework; autonomy; control; standardization; team work, division of labor	The impact of telework is not univocal and strongly depends on workers’ occupations and hierarchical positions. Economic activities and the way they have been affected by national economic lockdown also played an important role on the re-definition of actual content of tasks and their qualitative performance.
Gavoille, N.; Hazans, M. 2022 [75]	Personality traits, remote work and productivity, Remote Work and Productivity	International Organization	To examine the link between personality traits and workers’ productivity when working from home	Quantitative	N = 1700	Big Five traits; willingness to telework; productivity; job satisfaction	The necessity to personalize telework in order to maximize productivity and well-being
Grzegorczyk, M.; Mariniello, M.; Nurski, L.; Schraepen, T. 2021 [86]	Blending the physical and virtual: a hybrid model for the future of work	International Organization	To develop a Framework Agreement on Hybrid Work in order to facilitate hybrid work context within the European single market	Qualitative Systematic Review Review	NA	Teleworkability; hybrid work; equal opportunities; minimum protection levels for on-site and hybrid workers	The need for the creation of safeguards within the work environment to protect workers’ well-being and to ensure the efficient blending of remote and on-site workers, with no differences in the way they are treated or their career opportunities.
Gschwind, L.; Vargas, O. 2019 [61]	Telework and its effects in Europe, Telework in the 21st Century	Economics and Business	To analyze the increase demand for flexible workplaces and working time policies at the national, sectoral, and company levels in the EU	Quantitative	Not specified. Parting from 44,000 of 2015 European Working Conditions Survey	Incidence of telework; adoption by occupation and sector; working time; work organization; work–life balance; well-being; performance; policies at various levels	The framework agreement for telework on the European Union has changed the nature of dialogue and policy-making in relation to telework. A comparison of European countries reveals how telework can develop differently depending on social and economic settings.
Günther, N.; Hauff, S.; Gubernator, P. 2022 [79]	The joint role of HRM and leadership for teleworker well-being: An analysis during the COVID-19 pandemic	Human Resources	To identify telework-specific HRM practices and leadership behaviors, and examine their joint relationships with teleworkers’ work engagement and job satisfaction	Quantitative, longitudinal	1st wave, N = 601/2nd wave, N = 262	Telework-oriented HR management; telework-oriented leadership; social isolation; psychological strain; happiness; well-being	The joint role of HRM and leadership for teleworker well-being. Telework-oriented leadership mainly affected teleworkers’ happiness and well-being via strain by ensuring communication and information exchanges between teleworkers.
Hu, J.; Xu, H.; Yao, Y.; Zheng, L. 2021 [65]	Is Working from Home Here, to Stay? Evidence from Job Posting Data after the COVID-19 Shock	International Organization	To examine employees’ demand toward working from home (WFH) after the COVID-19 outbreak	Quasi-experiment	N = 3,964,881 online job postings. China	Working from home; teleworkability; salaries; companies’ size; productivity; labor market inequality	A substantial increment of WFH jobs post-COVID-19 in larger firms with lower pre-COVID-19 WFH adoption. The WFH transition is clearer in jobs with higher wages and stricter requirements, which suggests that WFH will stay, inducing long-term labor market implications.
Iordache, A. M. M.; Dura, C. C.; Coculescu, C.; Isac, C.; Preda, A. 2021 [64]	Using Neural Networks in Order to Analyze Telework Adaptability across the European Union Countries: A Case Study of the Most Relevant Scenarios to Occur in Romania	Environment and Public Health	Telework adoption by countries in the European Union and feasible scenarios to improve telework adaptability in Romania	Quantitative, cross-sectional	N = 24,123 from living, working, and COVID-19 (round 2)	Work equipment availability; satisfaction with the experience of working from home; risk of suffering from COVID-19; employees’ openness to WFH; work–life balance; satisfaction with the work done	Disparities in telework adaptability, depending on the country level of digitalization of their economy. For example, low to moderate: Greece and Spain; fair levels: France and Hungary; and high levels: Sweden, Germany, and Ireland.
Karatuna, I.; Joensson, S.; Muhonen, T. 2022 [71]	Job Demands, Resources, and Future Considerations: Academics’ Experiences of Working from Home During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Pandemic	Psychology	Changes in academics’ job demands and resources related to changes in working conditions during the pandemic, how these changes have affected the perceived occupational well-being of academics, and what are the academics’ expectations and concerns for future academic working practices following the pandemic	Qualitative, semi-structured interviews	N= 26 Sweden	Face-to-face communication; WFH, digital capacity; work overload; organizational–social support; flexibility	Lack of face-to-face communication, work overload, and work–home interference. The resources reported online communication options, appropriate working conditions, organizational–social support, and individual factors. They perceived negative occupational well-being. Academics’ expectations for the future included the continuation of working online, flexibility in the choice of workspace, and strengthened digital capacity.
Kim, T.; Mullins, L. B.; Yoon, T. 2020 [54]	Supervision of telework: A key to organizational performance	Public Administration	To empirically examine the role of supervisors in managing and motivating teleworkers in order to improve organizational performance	Quantitative	N = 9773 US Public Administration	Performance; supervision; social integration; telework policy; resources for telework; sociodemographics (e.g., gender)	Supervision which includes results-based management and trust-building improves the performance of organizations where employees telework.
Lodovici, M. S., Ferrari, E., Paladino, E., Pesce, F., Frecassetti, P. Aram, E. 2021 [53]	The impact of teleworking and digital work on workers and society	International Organization	To analyze recent trends in telework, how it influences on workers, employers, and society, and the challenges for policymaking	Mixed: Literature review	Online interviews N = 26 Web survey N = 156	Telework; telework impacts on employees, employers, and society; telework policies	An overview of the main legislative and policy measures adopted at EU and national level, in order to identify possible policy actions at EU level.
Michinov, E.; Ruiller, C.; Chedotel, F.; Dodeler, V.; Michinov, N. 2022 [87]	Work-From-Home During COVID-19 Lockdown: When Employees’ Well-Being and Creativity Depend on Their Psychological Profiles	Psychology	To study how working at home relates to intensity, familiarity with WFH, employees’ well-being and creativity, and to what extent psychological profiles combined with preference for solitude may influence the effects of WFH	Quantitative, cross-sectional	N = 946 France	WFH intensity; WFH familiarity; loneliness; stress; job satisfaction; work engagement; creativity; Big Five traits	Employees higher in affiliative profile perceived lower stress, higher levels of job satisfaction, work engagement, and perceived themselves as more creative. Companies need to differentiate which employees need more support when teleworking.
Miglioretti, M.; Gragnano, A.; Margheritti, S.; Picco, E.2021 [57]	Not all telework is valuable	Psychology	To validate a questionnaire on telework quality and to assess the impact of telework on employee engagement and work–family balance	Quantitative, cross-sectional	N = 260 Italy	Telework quality (high, low, and no telework); work engagement; work–life balance	High-quality telework is defined by agility, flexibility, and virtual leadership. Engagement and work–family balance are higher among HqT.
Nguyen, M. H.; Armoogum, J. 2021 [76]	Perception and preference for home-based telework in the COVID-19 era: A gender-based analysis in Hanoi, Vietnam	Generalistic	To explore the factors associated with the perception and the preference for more home-based telework (HBT) for male versus female teleworkers	Quantitative, cross-sectional	N = 355 Vietnam	Preference for telework; age; children	56% of female teleworkers compared with 45% of male counterparts had a positive perception of HBT; 63% of women desired to continue teleworking after the COVID-19 pandemic compared with 39% of men.
Norlander, P.; Erickson, Ch. 2022 [21]	The Role of Institutions in Job Teleworkability Before and After the COVID-19 Pandemic	International Organization	To examine various explanations for changes in the availability of telework job opportunities	Quantitative	N = 60,303,905 job level records N = 55,722,451 Firm level records	Task teleworkability; institutional teleworkability; interactions between these concepts; types of employer	Institutions have played a significant role in the availability of telework job opportunities before and after the COVID-19 pandemic, with an especially large effect of the government sector.
Otsuka, S.; Ishimaru, T.; Nagata, M.; Tateishi, S.; Eguchi, H.; Tsuji, M.; Ogami, A.; Matsuda, S.; Fujino, Y. 2021 [34]	A cross-sectional study of the mismatch between telecommuting preference and frequency associated with psychological distress among Japanese workers	Environment and Public Health	To analyze whether the mismatch between telework preference and its frequency is associated with psychological distress during the pandemic	Quantitative, cross-sectional	N= 33,302 Japan	Preference for telework; telework frequency; psychological distress; sociodemographics (age, sex, occupation, income, etc.)	The association between telework and psychological distress differs depending on employees’ preference; those who prefer telework reported less psychological distress.
Peters, P.; Batenburg, R. S. 2015 [58]	Telework adoption and formalization in organizations from a knowledge transfer perspective	Work Innovation	From a knowledge transfer perspective, this study analyses the consequences of telework on organizational knowledge transfer in order to explain variations in the adoption and formalization of telework practices	Quantitative, cross-sectional	N = 407	Knowledge transfer; telework culture; management perception; time and place employees’ presence; output management; attitudes	It is more likely that companies adopt telework as a strategic HR tool if they have highly valued personnel, knowledge transfer risk is low, and if they anticipate higher commitment and productivity due to telework.
Ruiz-Caparrós, A. 2022 [18]	Factors determining teleworking before and during COVID-19: some evidence from Spain and Andalusia	Economics and Business	To analyze inequalities in access to telework, which factors determined telework in the pre-pandemic period and during the lockdown, and whether telework is related to the likelihood of suffering emotional disorders during lockdowns	Quantitative, comparative	N not specified from a national survey on ICT (Spain) and a regional study performed during the lockdown (Andalusia)	Sociodemographics (gender, age, educational attainment, and household composition); the type of knowledge acquired through ICT training; the nature of the ICT activity	ICT training is key to explaining the likelihood of telework. Some workers might experience difficulties in their transition. This could increase labor market segmentation, hindering the transition to a knowledge economy. No difference was identified between the place where one works and emotional disorders.
Schmitt, J. B.; Breuer, J.; Wulf, T. 2021 [88]	From cognitive overload to digital detox: Psychological implications of telework during the COVID-19 pandemic	Economics and Business	To analyze the relationships between the use of digital work tools, the feeling of cognitive overload, digital detox measures, perceived work performance, and well-being	Quantitative, cross-sectional	N = 403 Germany	Videoconferencing; text-based tools; age; children; cognitive overload; digital detox; performance; well-being (tension, demands, worries, etc.)	Text-based tools are associated with well-being. When using videoconferencing tools, the number of digital detox measures moderates the relationship between cognitive overload and the perception of work demands.
Somasundram, K. G.; Hackney, A.; Yung, M.; Du, B.; Oakman, J.; Nowrouzi-Kia, B.; Yazdani, A. 2022 [78]	Mental and physical health and well-being of Canadian employees who were working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic	International Organization	Due to its rapid increment during the pandemic, to understand teleworkers’ health and well-being and the possibility for WFH continuing in the future	Quantitative, longitudinal	N = 1617, 1st wave. N = 382, 2nd wave Analyzes only on 382 Canada	Sociodemographics; WFH preferences; workstation setup training; employment situation; hardware; usage of software; organizational return	Employees received more help and feedback from their colleagues and experienced a sense of community over time. All indicators improved as employees spent more time teleworking.
Sostero, M.; Milasi, S.; Hurley, J.; Fernandez-Macías, E.; Bisello, M. 2020 [24]	Teleworkability and the COVID-19 crisis: a new digital divide?	International Organization	To develop a conceptual analysis to identify the jobs that can be done from home and those that cannot, and on this basis quantify the fraction of employees that are in teleworkable occupations across EU countries, sectors, and socio-economic profiles	Quantitative, comparative	Not specified. Data from the EU labor force survey 2008 and 2019	Teleworkable occupations; prevalence of telework; employment structure; work organization; regulation; management culture	Telework is skewed towards highly paid white-collar employment, but because of the pandemic, low–mid clerical workers also telework. Apart from differences on EU countries industrial and occupational structures, their differences were caused by work organization, regulation, and management culture.
Vayre, É.2021 [68]	Challenges in Deploying Telework: Benefits and Risks for Employees	Human Resources	To define telework and the situations it covers and to discuss both the benefits and the constraints associated with it	Theoretical	NA	Telework; organizational culture; well-being; work efficiency; participation	To prevent negative effects, a major change in managerial policies and practices, the redefinition of work efficiency, performance evaluation, and changes in employees’ representation are necessary. These cultural changes should be decided and implemented via a participative process.
Vayre, É.; Devif, J.; Gachet-Mauroz, T.; Morin-Messabel, Ch. 2021 [89]	Telework: What is at Stake for Health, Quality of Life at Work and Management Methods?	Human Resources	Studies telework and its impact on workload, working conditions, and health. Reports challenges of telework with day-to-day lives and gender equality. Studies of managerial culture and practices in mediated and remote work	Theoretical	NA	Telework; social cohesion; health; flexibility; autonomy; control; gender	Telework brings opportunities and risks to health and quality of life, professional equality, inclusion, and social cohesion. It challenges employees’ roles. It also encompasses heterogeneous configurations depending on how it is defined, deployed, accompanied, and regulated. It is complex to determine which effects it could have due to that complexity.
Vesala, H.; Tuomivaara, S. 2015 [55]	Slowing work down by teleworking periodically in rural settings?	Human Resources	To examine whether well-being changes during and after a retreat-type telework period in a rural environment	Quantitative, longitudinal	N = 46	Psychosocial work environment (mental exhaustiveness, time pressure, goal clarity, negative feelings at work, etc.)	After the telework retreat, subjects experienced less time pressure, fewer interruptions, reduced negative feelings, less stress, and greater work satisfaction. Entrepreneurs and supervisors improved more than subordinates, but the results were more sustainable in the latter group.
Yamashita, S., Ishimaru, T., Nagata, T., Tateishi, S., Hino, A., Tsuji, M., …; Fujino, Y. 2022 [17]	Preference and frequency of teleworking in slinked with work functioning	Environment and Public Health	To examined whether telework preference and frequency were associated with work functioning impairments	Quantitative, cross-sectional	N = 27,036 Japan	Telework; preference for telework; telework intensity; work functioning impairments	A preference for telework was associated with work functioning impairments; the higher the preference, the greater the impairment.

) which includes information on the author and reference number, year of publication, title, objective, method, sample (size and country, when available), variables, and main contributions of all papers under study. Figure 2 depicts the search strategy and the selection process followed.

4. Results

This section presents the obtained results in two complementary formats. Firstly, bibliometric results are explained followed by the main findings organized by the variables under study.

4.1. Bibliometric Results

As

Table 1. Number of publications per year.

Publication Year	Number of Papers	Percentage
2015	3	6.25%
2016	1	2.08%
2019	1	2.08%
2020	6	12.50%
2021	19	39.58%
2022	18	37.50%
	48	100.00%

shows, most publications (77.08%) were concentrated around 2021 and 2022, i.e., during and immediately after the COVID-19 lockdown and subsequent mobility restrictions.

Of the papers published from 2020 to 2022, 14% explicitly address telework beyond COVID-19.

As

Table 2. The 11 most cited publications and journal/source.

Type	Authors	Citations	Title	Journal/Source	Year
Peer-reviewed	Bentley, T. A., Teo, S. T., McLeod, L., Tan, F., Bosua, R., and Gloet, M. 2016 [48]	529	The role of organisational support in teleworker wellbeing: A socio-technical systems approach	Applied Ergonomics	2016
Peer-reviewed	Anderson, A. J.; Kaplan, S. A.; and Vega, R. P. [49]	333	The impact of telework on emotional experience: When, and for whom, does telework improve daily affective well-being?	European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology	2015
Peer-reviewed	Contreras, F.; Baykal, E.; and Abid, G. [10]	320	E-leadership and teleworking in times of COVID-19 and beyond: What we know and where do we go	Frontiers in Psychology	2020
Peer-reviewed	Sostero, M.; Milasi, S.; Hurley, J.; Fernandez-Macías, E.; and Bisello, M. [24]	226	Teleworkability and the COVID-19 crisis: a new digital divide?	JRC Working Papers Series on Labour, Education and Technology	2020
Peer-reviewed	Arntz, M., Ben Yahmed, S., and Berlingieri, F. [50]	137	Working from home and COVID-19: The chances and risks for gender gaps	Intereconomics	2020
Peer-reviewed	Aczel, B., Kovacs, M., Van Der Lippe, T., and Szaszi, B. [51]	103	Researchers working from home: Benefits and challenges	PLoS ONE	2021
“Grey” literature	Brussevich, M., Dabla-Norris, M. E., and Khalid, S. [25]	103	Who will Bear the Brunt of Lockdown Policies? Evidence from Tele-workability. Measures across Countries	IMF Working Papers	2020
Peer-reviewed	de Macêdo, T. A. M., Cabral, E. L. D. S., Silva Castro, W. R., de Souza Junior, C. C., da Costa Junior, J. F., Pedrosa, F. M., … and Másculo, F. S. [52]	92	Ergonomics and telework: A systematic review	Journal of Prevention, Assessment & Rehabilitation	2020
“Grey” literature	Lodovici, M. S. [53]	58	The impact of teleworking and digital work on workers and society	EEMPL Committee	2021
Peer-reviewed	Kim, T.; Mullins, L. B.; Yoon, T. [54]	52	Supervision of telework: A key to organizational performance	The American Review of Public Administration	2021
Peer-reviewed	Vesala, H. and Tuomivaara, S. [55]	52	Slowing work down by teleworking periodically in rural settings?	Personnel Review	2015

shows, most cited papers are from 2015 and 2016. Table 2 also includes the paper reference number, enabling it to easily be found in the Reference section. Compared by year, the only paper selected from 2016 is the most cited of the 48 included in this study. Each paper was published by a different journal or source, and two of the most cited belong to “grey” literature from recognized international bodies.

Regarding the sample’s country (Appendix A, Table A1), from the 23 samples that specify their origin, 48% are from the EU [56,57], and the remaining categories (North America, other countries, and samples combining countries outside the EU) represent around 13% each [58,59]. Sample sizes and methodologies also differ significantly. The smallest sample is 26 interviews from Sweden [51], while the largest is a Chinese sample of on-line advertised job positions comprising almost 4 million records [60]. Cross-sectional studies with European or OECD surveys range from 20,000 to 44,000 [61]. Regular cross-sectional and/or longitudinal studies based on samples gathered by research teams range from around 100 to around 700 [62]. Qualitative research studies were carried out with smaller samples ranging between 26 and 63 subjects [51].

Figure 3 shows a density graph on papers’ titles and abstracts resulting from VOSViewer.

The most mentioned terms (red) are “telework” and “worker”, followed by “teleworking”, “productivity”, “stress”, “preference”, “health”, “change”, and “challenge” in orange. Two clusters are identified. On the right side of Figure 3, “telework”, “challenge”, and “role” connect with “worker”, “productivity”, “opportunity”, and “teleworking”. On the left side of Figure 3, “health”, “stress”, “preference”, “change”, and “family” connect through “well-being” with “benefit”, “performance”, “telework”, “lock down”, and “remote worker”. “Employer” is located between both clusters. Finally, “teleworkability” is placed outside the central network, disconnected from the other terms, as is “remote e-worker”.

4.2. Main Results by Variable

4.2.1. Teleworkability

In the EU, the prior existence of flexible working time policies facilitated telework implementation and helped towards improving employees’ well-being [63]. However, because telework also depends on social and economic factors, it has developed differently across the EU [61], depending on the country’s level of digitalization. In this regard, Nordic countries and Germany are high in adopting telework, whereas Spain or Greece are low to moderate [64].

During the pandemic, the number of telework jobs advertised tripled, and this figure has been maintained even afterwards [44]. Teleworkability also depends on occupations and hierarchical levels, but how industries or sectors have adapted during COVID-19 has also had an influence on the actual content of jobs and how these are performed [56]. In addition, other studies report that large private companies with lower pre-pandemic telework adoption are those which are mostly implementing telework, especially in high-salary jobs with high educational requirements [65]. A higher incidence of telework in these types of employees was also reported in pre-pandemic studies [58]

However, the pandemic demonstrated that telework can also be applied to low- and mid-level clerical and administrative occupations, increasing the percentage of these type of jobs up to between 33% to 44% in the EU [24]. The reason for this range can also be found as telework has also been adopted by governmental bodies [21]. The reviewed papers also show that teleworkability is influenced by organizational variables [66]. Thus, it would be necessary to consider some other structural variables such as organizational support, work flexibility, tasks, or work efficacy [48,67]. In addition, it is important to redefine key company HR processes such as managerial policies and practices (i.e., telework-oriented leadership) [10,54]. Other HR processes such as performance assessment, employee participation, and training in ICT and “soft” skills should also be re-thought [68]. At the working unit or team level, coordination, communication and information exchange, and trust should also be promoted [69].

4.2.2. Preference for Telework

The results also show that after the pandemic, most employees who teleworked would prefer to continue teleworking in the future, but with the possibility of deciding the intensity [38,51,70,71]. It seems that both employees and managers strongly agree on increasing telework, above pre-pandemic levels [51].

From a cultural standpoint, the preference for telework is positively associated with individualism and negatively associated with power distance [72]. From an organizational level, private companies and, within these, knowledge-based employees, prefer to telework [73]. From an individual perspective, preference for telework depends on individual traits. For example, the studies reviewed reveal that employees with high levels of conscientiousness, openness to experience, who perceive job control, and who are not concerned about work–life severance prefer telework, whereas employees high in extraversion do not [74,75]. Gender also relates to a preference for telework; females seem to prefer telework more than their male peers [76]. However, it seems that personality traits are better predictors than sociodemographic variables when it comes to explaining well-being. Employees who prefer telework report lower levels of psychological distress compared with the ones who do not [34], as well as direct relationships with well-being and indirect relationships with work–life balance [33]. The previously cited papers account for a sample size of 48,937, whereas only one study of 27,036 Japanese’ subjects [17] found that preference for telework positively relates to work functioning impairment.

4.2.3. Telework Intensity

The reviewed literature consistently reports a negative relationship between intense telework and employees’ well-being; the more employees telework, the less well-being they perceive [44]. In addition, Yamashita et al.’s (2022) [17] study found that the negative effect of preference for telework on well-being can be explained via increasing telework intensity. However, several recent studies mostly emphasize the positive effect of telework on employees’ well-being, providing the telework intensity is between low and moderate [48,57,70,76]. Specifically, some studies found that a low telework intensity positively influences work–life balance, exhaustion, and engagement for example, via supportive supervision [59].

New terms such as “high-quality telework” [57], which also includes flexibility, implies that employees could exert certain impact on the intensity of telework.

“Hybrid model” or “hybrid-work” terms [66,70] emerged as a new concept which comprises the work arrangement that best combines telework and on-site work. Hybrid-work seems to represent the best fit between both types of work. Hybrid-work also captures the idea that employees and managers want to telework voluntarily, but just the right amount, one that ensures the best mix of work conditions that both types of work arrangements entail [53].

Thus, some studies report that telework benefits outweigh its constraints [77], even when employees objectively work more [50]. Other studies indicate that the longer the time spent teleworking, the higher the experience of well-being (defined as a sense of community) [78]. Even before the pandemic, this positive link was used to organize telework retreats, to send employees to work away from the office for some time [55]. After these retreats, employees improved several well-being indexes, such as feeling less time pressure, fewer interruptions, fewer negative feelings at work, less stress, and greater job satisfaction.

Therefore, Figure 4 shows several features revealed by this systematic review as influencing the antecedent variables under study. Teleworkability is explained by supra-country (e.g., EU), national economy structures and ICT penetration, and in-company variables such as culture or HR policies. Preference for telework is also explained by a set of multilevel factors, specifically by country cultural dimensions, company preferences, or contingent recognition, and at the individual level by previous experience, personality, and gender. Hybrid-work captures the idea of combining both on-site work and telework as the best work condition to facilitate employees’ well-being through providing additional flexibility. In addition, employees’ preference for telework is directly related to well-being.

5. Discussion

Due to the rapid growth of telework during the pandemic, a great deal of literature was produced on telework and well-being [4,9,10]. However, the obtained results showed dissimilar or even contradictory findings [13,14,15,16,17,18]. Thus, in order to contribute to clarifying how telework can positively impact on employees’ well-being, three telework relevant characteristics were studied: teleworkability, preference for telework, and telework intensity. The latter was also analyzed as a consequence of teleworkability and preference for telework. The preference for telework was also studied as establishing direct relationships with well-being. The selected method was a systematic review of those variables, including papers, articles, book chapters, and working papers from relevant international organizations released from January 2012 to November 2022. The present paper contributes by clarifying how the variables under study positively influence well-being. It also opens new avenues for research since it identifies relationships that need to be further explored. From an applied perspective, managers and practitioners will be able to redesign job content, reposition cultural values, and adapt managerial policies to best fit telework generalization, also considering job teleworkability and individual preferences. Through these adaptations, companies could attain real flexibility and improve employees’ perceptions of well-being.

Bibliometric analyses showed that most publications are linked to COVID-19, and how scarce the earlier literature was (see Appendix A, Table A1). In addition, the type of journals (e.g., peer-reviewed or “grey”; knowledge areas), methodologies, and sample precedence revealed that telework remains a challenge (see Table 1 and Table 2), that teleworkability is still disconnected from the main stream of topics under study, and that hybrid-work is not yet a generalized term (Figure 3).

This paper also showed that telework generalization was due to COVID-19, which accelerated its adoption in jobs that, before the pandemic, were already considered suitable for telework such as “knowledge jobs” [24,26]. However, the pandemic also expanded telework to other occupations not defined as “teleworkable” before that, such as clerical or administrative jobs [24,26]. This review also revealed that employees and managers tended to like telework; so, as several authors say, telework seems to be here to stay [12,51]. Thus, as the present paper has addressed, the challenge ahead is to establish the proper amount of telework, for example based on teleworkability and preference, since telework intensity seems not to be linearly related to well-being [49]. In so doing, companies will become more flexible, a job characteristic highly valued by employees to stay with the company [65,66].

Regarding the two first questions formulated in the Introduction, factors that influence teleworkability (Figure 4), the present systematic review revealed that it has to be explained through a multilevel approach [62]. Thus, teleworkability seems to depend on different variables at different levels of analysis such as supra-country, country, and company-level [56,66]. Firstly, at the supra-country level, flexible working time policies, such as those existing even before COVID-19 in the EU [61], could have created the appropriate conditions for telework to be implemented, maintained, and also extended. In addition, the type of industry or sector in which the company operates will influence teleworkability. At the country level, the structure of its economy and the penetration of ICT also need to be considered [61,68]. However, this review also showed that teleworkability could depend on within-company factors, such as its culture, which should place trust at the center [68,69]. Cultural factors could also explain why private companies implement telework more than public entities because, traditionally, bureaucracies value control more than trust [79,80]. Thus, companies have to think about how to incorporate or make trust more salient to their employees in order to impact on the perception of what teleworkability entails [80]. Work organization, such as functions and work processes, could also be redesigned to best combine cognitive, manual, and social tasks to open telework to more employees [24]. HR policies and management practices could also be rethought in order to increase teleworkability [10,54]. Such policies could even crystalize in a “telework-oriented leadership” style [79], which conveys the idea that management structures at all levels should adapt themselves to telework. In this regard, employees need to perceive that even when they are not on-site, their managers do not use telework as an excuse for not counting on them when, for example, their work unit is deciding something important [10,54]. As expected, this systematic review did not return any direct impact of teleworkability on well-being.

Regarding the third question, although preference for telework (Figure 4) is individually displayed, our results also showed that such preferences are influenced by country cultural dimensions, such as individualism [72], and companies’ inclinations (e.g., large, private, and knowledge companies) [73]. At the individual level, employees and managers who teleworked during the pandemic expect to continue teleworking after it [51,70]. Thus, the positive experience of telework during the pandemic could contribute to developing a positive attitude towards it [33,34]. Preference for telework is also influenced by personality traits (e.g., consciousness and openness to experience), predicting preferences beyond sociodemographic characteristics such as gender [75]. Thus, preference for telework can also be explained by variables from several levels, i.e., cultural dimensions, company inclination, and individual factors such as previous experience, personality, and gender [62]. Some reviewed papers did report positive direct relationships between preferences for telework and general indexes of well-being [33], as well as measures of psychological distress [49].

The fourth question inquired into the best telework intensity in order to best impact well-being. In this regard, the findings suggested that low and moderate levels of telework can establish a positive relationship with well-being, particularly with work–life balance, job satisfaction, and self-efficacy (e. g. concentration and task completion) [80], while ensuring social contact and work–non-work boundaries [16]. Telework intensity will also be influenced by the facility to adopt telework in a certain job (i.e., teleworkability), and how positive the employee attitude for telework is (i.e., preference). “Hybrid-work” (Figure 4) is a new term which encompasses the best combination between telework and on-site work in order to facilitate a positive impact on employees’ well-being [65,66,69].

From an applied perspective (the last two questions), and in order to implement “hybrid-work”, companies and public entities could observe several recommendations to facilitate (or even maximize) their employees’ levels of well-being when teleworking. Firstly, companies should invest in ICTs to safeguard a similar work experience as when they work on the company premises [54]. Secondly, companies have to attune their company cultures to successfully implement “hybrid-work” [81]. Specifically, this new culture should embrace trust between management and employees as a central value. In addition, HR and management practices have considered how to relate and interact when managers and employees are teleworking leadership [10,54]. Moreover, companies also need to revisit their workplace value statements, which need to emphasize clear expectations and accountability rather than proximity and presenteeism [82].

In order to expand telework to as many employees as possible and after deciding a general implementation framework, companies could give their work units and teams the responsibility of deciding their own “telework range”. This means that they can be in charge of deciding the number of hours that each of them is going to telework, similar to flexi-time work schedules. For “hybrid-work” to succeed, managers should support their employees by frequently interacting meaningfully with them, as leader–member exchange (LMX) theory suggests [83].

As with any other study, this systematic review presents some limitations. Although the initial number of papers which address the themes under study, particularly telework and well-being, was very large, after adding teleworkability and preference for telework, only 48 studies met these review requirements. Another limitation is that a great number of papers which analyze teleworkability and preference for telework came from “grey” sources. For these reasons, these findings should be taken with certain reservations. The identified themes are presented in a multilevel model which includes 16 variables. However, there other themes could also be added to it in order to explain well-being (e.g., company economic circumstances). This model is used as a means of clarifying the information and knowledge acquired over this systematic review. In addition, most studies were conducted during COVID-19 lockdowns and mobility restrictions; thus, further research will be necessary in order to give support to hybrid-work and determine its positive impact on well-being. As telework was applied by companies and public entities in order not to paralyze the economic activity and social services, the positive vision of telework derived from the literature reviewed might be biased by these circumstances.

From the reported findings and limitations, we propose that further studies could revise the concepts summarized in the model. In addition, we suggest identifying differences in well-being parameters (e.g., job satisfaction, work overload, work engagement, organizational justice, and social isolation) between employees in highly teleworkable jobs, who telework, and who do not want to; and between employees in impractically or non-teleworkable jobs, who would like to telework, and those who do not want to. These comparisons could help us to create different profiles of employees and to adapt HR and leadership practices to them. Further studies could also inquire about how companies are modifying their jobs, work flows, HR, and management practices, as well as team coordination, in order to align all employees towards the company goals regardless of where they work. Moreover, meta-analytical studies can be carried out in order to establish quantitative links between preferences for telework, hybrid-work, and different forms of well-being.

6. Conclusions

Teleworkability and the preference for telework are explained by multilevel factors. Even though supra-country and country variables are beyond companies’ direct influence, company and individual factors can be actioned in order to positively impact on well-being, through telework intensity. Thus, telework is here to stay; the challenge now is to adjust its intensity to companies and jobs as well as employees’ preferences. Company variables such as culture (e.g., trust), HR policies (e.g., contingent recognition), and management practices (e.g., LMX) play key roles in both teleworkability and preferences for telework. A rather new concept has emerged, “hybrid-work”, which encompasses from low (once a month) to moderate (three days a week) telework intensity. Companies should define a general hybrid-work framework from which teams and employees could be the ones who ultimately decide that intensity. In so doing, companies will ensure the positive impact of telework on well-being, since this combination safeguards telework benefits while avoiding its risks.