TY - JOUR

T1 - Working from home during the COVID-19 crisis: How self-control strategies elucidate employees’ job performance

AU - Troll, Eve Sarah

AU - Venz, Laura

AU - Weitzenegger, Fritzi

AU - Loschelder, David D.

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2021 The Authors. Applied Psychology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of International Association of Applied Psychology.

PY - 2022/7

Y1 - 2022/7

N2 - Employees around the globe experience manifold challenges to maintain job performance during the so-called work-from-home experiment caused by the COVID-19 crisis. Whereas the self-control literature suggests that higher trait self-control should enable employees to deal with these demands more effectively, we know little about the underlying mechanisms. In a mixed-methods approach and two waves of data collection, we examine how self-control strategies elucidate the link between teleworking employees' trait self-control and their job performance. Using a qualitative approach, we explored which strategies employees use to telework effectively ( N  = 266). In line with the process model of self-control, reported strategies pertained to situation modification (i.e., altering the physical, somatic, or social conditions) and cognitive change (i.e., goal setting, planning/scheduling, and autonomous motivation). Subsequent preregistered, quantitative analyses with a diverse sample of 106 teleworkers corroborated that higher trait self-control is related to job performance beyond situational demands and prior performance. Among all self-control strategies, modifying somatic conditions and autonomous motivation was significantly associated with job performance and mediated the self-control-performance link. This research provides novel insights into the processes by which employees productively work from home and inspires a broad(er) view on the topic of self-control at work.

AB - Employees around the globe experience manifold challenges to maintain job performance during the so-called work-from-home experiment caused by the COVID-19 crisis. Whereas the self-control literature suggests that higher trait self-control should enable employees to deal with these demands more effectively, we know little about the underlying mechanisms. In a mixed-methods approach and two waves of data collection, we examine how self-control strategies elucidate the link between teleworking employees' trait self-control and their job performance. Using a qualitative approach, we explored which strategies employees use to telework effectively ( N  = 266). In line with the process model of self-control, reported strategies pertained to situation modification (i.e., altering the physical, somatic, or social conditions) and cognitive change (i.e., goal setting, planning/scheduling, and autonomous motivation). Subsequent preregistered, quantitative analyses with a diverse sample of 106 teleworkers corroborated that higher trait self-control is related to job performance beyond situational demands and prior performance. Among all self-control strategies, modifying somatic conditions and autonomous motivation was significantly associated with job performance and mediated the self-control-performance link. This research provides novel insights into the processes by which employees productively work from home and inspires a broad(er) view on the topic of self-control at work.

KW - COVID-19

KW - process model

KW - self-control strategies

KW - telework

KW - trait self-control

KW - Psychology

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85118483803&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1111/apps.12352

DO - 10.1111/apps.12352

M3 - Journal articles

C2 - 34898804

VL - 71

SP - 853

EP - 880

JO - Applied Psychology

JF - Applied Psychology

SN - 0269-994X

IS - 3

ER -