Connectivity agency in telework: a qualitative analysis of facilitators and barriers Open Access

Technological advancement and changing employee values have created a seismic shift in the relationship between work and technology. An increasing number of individuals now regularly engage in teleworking arrangements that are critically dependent on information and communication technology (ICT). Whilst these arrangements offer compelling benefits for individuals (Ameen et al., 2023), they also introduce an array of challenges that are of vital importance to leaders, managers and policy-makers (Charalampous et al., 2018; Hill et al., 2022). One facet of particular importance is the relationship between digital connectivity and individual work outcomes. Recent studies show that managing connectivity is an essential practice for modern work (Leonardi et al., 2010; Aljabr et al., 2022). Employees actively manage their virtual, social and psychological connection to work through a variety of strategies to escape “over-connection” and high visibility driven by omnipresent work-related technology. Amidst global efforts to legislate a “right to disconnect” from work (Von Bergen and Bressler, 2019), the importance of this research is highlighted and poses significant implications for individuals and organisations alike.

Whilst research documents the types of connectivity behaviours individuals use, scholars have yet to adequately examine the factors that empower or restrict them. Our study addresses this critical gap by exploring how organisational, team and individual contexts influence when, how and why teleworkers exercise connectivity agency. Given that one’s sense of digital connectivity fundamentally influences their well-being and other work-related outcomes (Büchler et al., 2020; Leonardi et al., 2010; ten Brummelhuis et al., 2021), it becomes important for practitioners and scholars to appreciate the importance of connectivity agency as a vital resource for individuals and organisations. Correspondingly, scholars must understand the complex array of factors which influence the connectivity agency of employees. Our findings build upon recent studies (Farivar et al., 2024; Waizenegger et al., 2023) which demonstrate the importance of connectivity as a primary focus for contemporary organisational research. Specifically, our study explores factors such as organisational policies, team norms, trust and technological resources, to illustrate the factors that can influence how an employee controls their connectivity. As such, we establish the following research question:

Answering this question illuminates why individuals make certain choices regarding their connectivity, and why some efforts to manage connectivity may fail. Approaching research problems using a multi-level lens can provide a comprehensive level of analysis when investigating complex organisational phenomena. This approach enables researchers to examine the interrelation of phenomena at different levels, from organisational dynamics to individual characteristics. This qualitative study contributes to the literature by further developing our understanding of connectivity agency as a complex and multi-faceted phenomenon by examining how it is shaped. Our article provides important insights for ensuring individuals thrive in virtual work arrangements, which has emerged as an important problem in facilitating positive employee outcomes in a world that is connected around-the-clock.

Technology allows work to become increasingly detached from a single place, and office, domestic, public and cyber spaces mesh together to create an individualised “package” of working life (Halford, 2005, p. 30). “Telework” emerged in the 1980s to describe novel work patterns using telecommunications to facilitate organisational decentralisation (Nilles, 1988, p. 301). Teleworking has recently been defined simply as “working outside the conventional workplace and communicating with it by way of telecommunications or computer-based technology” (Bailey and Kurland, 2002, p. 384).

One’s status as a teleworker is contingent upon four aspects: time, place, technology and contractual arrangements (Sullivan, 2003). Studies may focus on employees who telework for a minimum of 20% of the week (Haddon and Brynin, 2005). This temporal dimension has been referred to as a teleworker’s “intensity” (Suh and Lee, 2017). The locations spent teleworking are important to consider, and even warrant sub-categories of telework (Sullivan, 2003). The experience of teleworking from a satellite office (e.g. see Spinks, 1991) will differ from teleworking solely from home. Additionally, Garrett and Danziger (2007, p. 30) argue that “out-of-office work activities [should] be supported by ICTs that provide a rich information or communications environment enabling the performance of complex information-processing tasks”. Finally, a teleworker must be considered an employee and telework as part of a contractual agreement (Garrett and Danziger, 2007). As such, teleworking does not apply to those who are self-employed, work overtime or experience role overspill (Haddon and Brynin, 2005).

As teleworking is increasingly adopted in the future, and grows in scholarly interest, a variety of organisational phenomena emerge, especially that of wellbeing (Charalampous et al., 2018). Many studies have considered the complex and sometimes paradoxical relationship between the affordances and constraints of teleworking upon individuals. For example, telework is found to facilitate a variety of positive outcomes such as autonomy, flexibility, productivity, work–life balance, job satisfaction and positive affect (Vega et al., 2015; Charalampous et al., 2018). Yet research simultaneously points to an association with greater stress (Song and Gao, 2019), less job engagement (Sardeshmukh et al., 2012), overwork, social isolation, presenteeism, a blurring of roles, concern over career progression and musculoskeletal problems (Mann et al., 2000; Charalampous et al., 2018, Weinert et al., 2015).

There is evidence to show that experiences regarding work and technology (and the subsequent individual-level outcomes) differ significantly between teleworkers and office workers (Fonner and Roloff, 2012). One explanation is the role that technology plays in telework, where a simple ICT tool is no longer considered a useful supplement, but rather a “primary enabler” of work-related behaviours, tasks, interactions and activities (Neeley, 2021, p. xi). By creating digital connectivity between employees, their colleagues and their organisation, technology provides a useful conceptual lens through which to observe the individual challenges of working remotely. Weinert et al. (2015) examine how autonomy, information undersupply and isolation jointly relate to one’s exhaustion and intention to continue teleworking through the mediating mechanisms of work overload, work–home conflict and role ambiguity. These problems are central to the mediated connection that technology provides a teleworker.

Work–life conflict and work overload are two significant problems facing teleworkers, especially in the context of COVID-19 (Camacho and Barrios, 2022). Similarly, through boundary theory, scholars have argued technology’s instrumental role in blurring, and also separating, the psychological boundaries between work and home (Fonner and Stache, 2012). The connection provided by technology, constituted by the transmission of information between a teleworker and their work-related domain, then appears central to a multitude of the challenges that teleworkers face in their distributed arrangements. Digital connection provides work-related and psychological resources that are liberating yet may also be constraining. Many ideas associated with this can be considered within the broader study of connectivity, which has already received some attention within telework research.

Personal communication devices have shifted work into non-traditional places and times, reshaped relationships between work and life and fragmented and intensified work patterns (Rose, 2014). In the context of contemporary knowledge work, professionals face high demands for connectivity, communicating frequently and working afterhours (Nurmi and Hinds, 2020). A growing body of research considers the notion of connectivity, which relates to the virtually mediated connections between people, places and things (Kolb, 2008). Scholars conceptualise connectivity through states of hyper-connectivity, hypo-connectivity, requisite connectivity and flow, broadly relating to levels which are high, low, “just enough” or ideal, respectively (Kolb et al., 2012). Specifically, connective flow denotes the point at which “communication is highly effective and highly efficient and balanced in accordance with our needs and the demands of the task or situation at hand” (Kolb, 2008, p. 183). The conceptualisation of connectivity through “states” emphasises volume, that is, the amount of information that is transferred at a given point in time between organisational stakeholders. From this perspective, flow resembles the optimal volume of connection, where harmony exists between one’s desired level of connectivity and the “actual” level of connectivity. Connectivity is a highly dynamic process, wherein individuals constantly renegotiate between their perceived and desired connectivity as their motives, goals and environmental demands change. Underpinning this dynamic process, the literature emphasises actor agency, whereby individuals behave in certain ways to increase or decrease their connectivity.

Leonardi et al. (2010) illuminate a paradox where individuals feel too connected to their organisation and colleagues through ICT, despite initial concerns regarding difficulty feeling connected. The paradox lay in the fact that the very ICT tools that enable the autonomy and flexibility inherent in telework simultaneously serve to erode these benefits by creating digital interruptions. The ease of communication and availability are primary factors within this problem, as norms for fast replying emerge, and activity indicators serve as mechanisms to report presence and visibility. Together, these aspects can contribute to disruptive and unexpected demands for communication, or what could be referred to as hyper-connectivity. These findings are perhaps surprising given that escaping from office interruptions is an often-cited desire for teleworkers (Bailey and Kurland, 2002). In their quantitative investigation of this paradox, Fonner and Roloff (2012) discover that whilst both teleworkers’ and office workers’ ICT use positively relates to stress caused by interruptions, this is experienced by office workers in greater quantity. However, for teleworkers, stress from interruptions impact organisational identification. This suggests that teleworkers hold greater expectations for autonomy and a desired level of communication exchange, and thus digital interruptions are more detrimental. Additional quantitative evidence (ten Brummelhuis et al., 2021) expands upon these findings, showing that interruptions can lead to reduced work performance, whereas increased digital availability can actually increase performance. As such, an important distinction must be made between voluntary availability, and involuntary interruption caused by increased digital connectivity. Mazmanian et al. (2013) argue that through the simultaneous processes of diminishing autonomy and escalating engagement, mobile devices (in their study, “Blackberries”) start to impede upon an employee’s ability to disconnect from work, due to growing expectations for availability. The authors find that individuals may internalise the requirement to be constantly available, rationalising compulsive ICT use through personality traits – rather than collective expectations. As such, a tension exists between professionals’ autonomy and their commitment to colleagues.

Within the work context, the term work autonomy refers to “freedom of decision” on behalf of the employee (Gerdenitsch et al., 2015, p. 63). Such employee discretion can apply to a variety of activities, and early research (e.g. Breaugh, 1985; Brady et al., 1990) identifies three key areas. These are: (1) task or work autonomy (procedures and work method); (2) scheduling or time autonomy (timing, scheduling or pace of work) and; (3) criteria or goal autonomy (discretion regarding work-related objective setting and evaluation). As work arrangements evolve into virtual and distributed contexts, scholars have identified novel forms of autonomy. Wu et al. (2023) investigate location autonomy, which applies to discretion regarding work location (primarily in reference to teleworking arrangements). Similarly, spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic and shifting employee attitudes and values, many are now considering the “right to disconnect” which relates to autonomy over one’s boundaries between work and life (Von Bergen and Bressler, 2019). These emerging forms of autonomy are central to our understanding of connectivity and modern work arrangements, and scholars are increasingly paying attention to how employees manage their digital connectivity.

Autonomy is paramount to telework, as “the amount, range, and availability of choice” is increasingly significant in “contemporary work environments, and even more so in distributed work environments” (Collins and Kolb, 2015, p. 155). Throughout a teleworking day, individuals dynamically adjust their technology use to manage their connectivity in accordance with their needs and preferences (Dery et al., 2014). Indeed, whilst technology is profoundly valuable for bridging communicative boundaries and connecting people, places and things, it is equally important for employees to maintain boundaries and exert a degree of agency in relation to their connection. This concept has been referred to as actor agency in previous work (Kolb et al., 2012), however, we refer to it as connectivity agency as it provides a more intuitive application to the phenomena within this study. As Russo et al. (2019) show, contemporary employees tend to actively self-regulate their ICT use in a variety of ways to promote the benefits whilst mitigating the risks of digital connection. Dery et al. (2014, p. 559) note that such connective choices taken by individuals relate to “if, when, and how much” an ICT device will be used. Studies have identified a variety of ways in which individuals interact with technology to disconnect from work (Leonardi et al., 2010; Aljabr et al., 2022; Cousins and Robey, 2015; Siegert and Löwstedt, 2019; Russo et al., 2019). For knowledge workers and teleworkers, these disconnection strategies prove essential for reducing stress, increasing wellbeing and managing psychological detachment and recuperation from the demands of work. A summary of these studies and the identified disconnection strategies is presented in  Appendix.

Whilst Leonardi et al. (2010) introduced the idea of “disconnection” strategies (e.g. turning a device off, or disconnecting from the Internet), later studies further developed this idea. For instance, Cousins and Robey (2015) focus on “rules” that individuals create about their connection, such as limiting work-related activities to a specific device, or designating certain times as technology-free. Siegert and Löwstedt (2019) focus on the distinction between reactive, active and prohibitive strategies. They identify diversion strategies which occur after a boundary transgression has occurred. In these cases, employees will ignore, deflect or relocate the interruption. Retaliation is an active strategy wherein employees attempt to voice against connectivity expectations, such as advocating for their rights. Finally, preventative measures occur when employees take proactive measures to prevent transgressions from occurring in the future. Aljabr et al. (2022) identify very similar strategies, such as the segmentation of ICT devices, the diversion of unwanted work-related information and the distancing (or disconnection) of technology. Interestingly, Leonardi et al. (2010) identify dissimulation, which relates to the obscurement of availability (through statuses or activity indicators) in such a way to appear busy, thus reducing the degree to which one is contacted. Given that connectivity impacts one’s psychological detachment from work and wellbeing (Büchler et al., 2020), it is important to understand how individuals, especially teleworkers, perceive and control their work-related connection.

Thus, the extant literature leads us to form the following propositions: (1) an individual possesses an idea about how much connectivity is “right” that is contingent upon their environmental demands and their individual goals, motives and beliefs about how much connection is appropriate at any given time (i.e. the optimal state, often defined as connective flow or requisite connectivity); (2) that individual also perceives a state of current connectivity, which is contingent upon how connected they actually feel in that particular moment and; (3) agency is exercised in the form of ICT-related behaviours to align their perceived and desired states of connectivity.

Teleworkers experience connectivity demands and respond in a variety of ways that centre around disconnecting, dissimulating, segmenting and prioritising. Yet the literature has explored this problem without adequate consideration of the factors that determine the success of such behaviours or whether they are enacted at all. One recent study (Waizenegger et al., 2023) suggests that shared connectivity norms are one important factor for achieving collaborative goals. As these authors write, some teams may be “so well attuned it seems that their interactions follow a script” (Waizenegger et al., 2023, p. 132) regarding which communication tools should be used, and how much time should lapse between responses. A question emerges as to how these shared norms may relate to one’s sense of agency over their connection. Waizenegger et al. (2023) also show that power distance can greatly influence how one reacts to connectivity boundaries. For instance, subordinates who demonstrate respect towards their manager due to a perceived power distance may be more likely to voluntarily adapt to the connectivity patterns and preferences of their manager. Importantly, the authors draw a distinction between whether this behaviour compromises one’s own connectivity preferences or not. These findings would suggest that contextual characteristics such as hierarchical role or social ties play a role, to some degree, in shaping how one might exercise agency, and it is the intention of this present study to further examine this phenomenon.

Additionally, Farivar et al. (2024) explore how one’s perception of constant connectivity can influence the way they manage their technological behaviours and boundaries. For instance, if an employee perceives connectivity as a duality (that is, a phenomenon with both positive and negative implications), they tend to balance the domains of work and home without creating disconnection between the domains. Alternatively, if they view connectivity as a challenge, they tend to minimise ICT use or surrender to the demands of constant connectivity. This is an important study which demonstrates that connectivity agency can indeed be influenced by particular factors (in this instance, individual beliefs and attitudes). However, the question emerges as to how these attitudes (and accordingly, behaviours), may be shaped by other external factors such as organisational policies, leader behaviours or the provision of technological resources. Kolb et al. (2020) suggest that leaders should reward those who use “revitalizing” digital behaviours. However, the nature of this leadership approach, and what such policies may look like, is largely unknown. Thus, this article seeks to explore the factors which may undermine or empower individual connectivity strategies. This will develop a holistic picture regarding how teleworkers experience connectivity and enact agency. By elucidating the relevant individual, group and organisational factors that shape connectivity agency, or hinder it altogether, we hope to provide practical insights for human resources practitioners and enrich our scholarly understanding of connectivity agency.

The target population of this study is teleworkers, irrespective of occupation, industry or any other demographical characteristics. We included participants on the basis that they: (1) work remotely for two or more days each week, on average; (2) do so as part of an agreement with their employer and (3) rely upon modern ICT tools for work (such as email, videoconferencing and team collaboration software). Consistent with recommendations for high quality research, a sample of 27 participants were collected through a non-probability method combining self-selection and snowballing techniques (Saunders and Townsend, 2018). Participants were recruited through an online announcement in a postgraduate business course at an Australian university. Interviews were conducted by a single researcher via videoconferencing software, lasting an hour on average. The audio-visual data were recorded with additional notes from the interviewer. The interviews followed a semi-structured format, allowing the researcher to investigate existing ideas whilst providing a degree of freedom for the interviewee to influence the direction of conversation (Brinkmann, 2013). Table 1 details the characteristics of the sample.

Analysis of the interview data followed Tracy’s (2013) iterative framework, with some codes prescriptively added based on concepts in extant literature, such as connectivity management practices. In other instances, themes within the data required novel coding categories to describe a concept that the researchers could not explain with existing literature. This process was undertaken using NVIVO.

By the time we had completed 27 interviews, the data were consistently supporting existing themes, and no significant novel insights was emerging. Thus, at this point we determined that we had reached data saturation, and stopped the data collection process (Saunders et al., 2018). To enhance credibility, we ensured that only individuals who were genuinely interested in participating were part of the sample, performed iterative questioning throughout the interviews and hosted frequent debrief sessions throughout the entire data collection and analysis process (Shenton, 2004). In these sessions, research data, the codebook and corresponding thematic propositions were thoroughly scrutinised to ensure that all researchers involved drew the same conclusions from the data.

Our analysis elucidates a variety of teleworker experiences wherein connectivity agency is either effectively exerted or severely undermined. We identify a variety of “connectivity demands” perceived by teleworkers, or situations where one feels an internal or external pressure to establish connectivity and remain accessible, usually to the detriment of wellbeing and the work–life interface.

Our findings support the notion that teleworkers may be prone to feeling hyper-connectivity (Leonardi et al., 2010). For many participants, the metaphor of switching “on” and “off” is an important way of describing the high demands for connectivity inherent to the teleworking day. A senior manager, and caregiver of two children, expresses frustration regarding the high accessibility and instantaneity of ICT, and the associated feeling of availability:

Variations on how this accessibility and availability are experienced exist throughout the data with similar trends among those in managerial positions – individuals who are highly ambitious and possess a strong work ethic and professional commitment. As such, they feel availability is owed to their subordinates and expected of their position. Upon reflecting on prior work arrangements, they typically reveal they have always been highly contactable and possessed “workaholic” patterns. However, most feel this is amplified by teleworking. P2, a manager in the finance industry, keeps ICT within constant arm’s reach, frequently working late into the evenings and during family events. She enjoys the increased productivity that is associated with high connectivity. P3 feels differently about increased accessibility, finding that she “slam[s] into [her] day with technology”:

Although denoting this as a negative work pattern, P3 rationalises it, like many others, through her managerial status suggesting that such activities come “part and parcel” with a senior role. Thus, one’s status as senior manager provides a rationalisation for constant availability and around-the-clock working patterns. Despite a perception of hyper-connectivity and acknowledgement of its negative effects, managers were less likely to enact disconnection behaviours. This supports the findings of Mazmanian et al. (2013), who find that over-accessibility may be the result of individual rather than collective pressures. For those not in managerial roles, connectivity is approached with a different attitude. An entry-level HR professional described pressure to be available and visible:

P9 reports feeling anxious when stepping away from the computer, as her activity status might switch to “Away”. Simultaneously, she wants to be perceived as doing her job and helping people as the need arises by remaining contactable. As a result, she works much later into the evenings, experiences sleep disruption and feels less focussed on her wellbeing. Another participant (P1) feels that her manager measures her work output and presence by observing her activity and meeting attendance. Feeling an immense pressure to stay connected, she refrained from leaving her desk for more than 15 min at a time (so her status would stay “Online”).

ICT allows teleworkers to execute a variety of tasks, alone, from a remote location. The data reveal that a typical telework day involves a large volume of videoconferences, typically back-to-back and with little opportunity for downtime. P3 describes her Outlook calendar, filled with back-to-back meetings, as “a crazy, crazy kind of hell”, whilst P11 estimates that she sits in 60–70 video calls each week. This videoconferencing-centric approach to the workday creates connectivity demands that are highly unique to teleworking:

These experiences are not confined to managers – almost all teleworkers in the sample report the cognitively taxing effects of intense videoconferencing schedules. In a typical office workday, participants refer to “micro-commutes”, such as walking down the office corridor between meetings, or catching the elevator with a colleague. These moments allow a fluid and natural transition between work-related activities. For teleworkers, the capabilities of virtual meetings are maximised, leading to back-to-back, instantaneous connective events without a moment for recuperation or role transition.

The results so far indicate that teleworkers are subject to a connectivity environment that elicits dynamic desires to decrease connectivity throughout the workday. The data show that exercising agency in response to these conditions is vital for harnessing the affordances of teleworking, gaining control and maintaining wellbeing:

Our sample rely on setting rules or norms and engaging in a variety of behaviours to strategically decrease their connectivity. Similar to Leonardi et al. (2010), our participants engage in a variety of disconnection behaviours, such as leaving phones out of reach (P1, 2, 7, P19), turning them off (P9, P27) or intentionally letting their phone’s battery die over the weekend (P10). P11, a manager for a large retail company, relies on “phone-free” holidays, deliberately choosing destinations with no mobile reception. Despite exercising relatively little agency throughout her working periods (as she describes: “the phone’s permanently attached to my head”), these instances of total disconnection prove vital to her psychological disconnection from work. Additionally, by leaving devices outside of the bedroom, teleworkers reduce the pressure and ability to connect and may preserve “sacrosanct” areas of the home (P7).

Aljabr et al. (2022) define segmentation behaviours, whereby individuals technologically separate work and home. Among the participants, some use separate work and personal devices (P5, P26, P22), which proves conducive to feeling in control of when and how one would access and become available to work-related connection:

There are instances where teleworkers struggle to create this segmentation. P13 reflects on a period where she relied solely on her personal phone for work:

Other technology management strategies relate to particular features within devices used to reduce or change the way that connection is created. Participants manage their device notifications by pausing them, turning them completely off or filtering them (sometimes manually, and sometimes with automatic features such as “Do not disturb”) referred to as “dimming” (Aljabr et al., 2022, p. 198). Yet teleworkers in the sample implement other feature-related strategies to manage their connection. P5 and P12 both use timers on their devices that give interval reminders to take a break from work. Other participants report deliberately ignoring notifications or messages, which is a strategy also identified by Siegert and Löwstedt (2019). For instance, P3 regularly abstains from reacting when she hears her phone “ding”. Similarly, P8 feels comfortable ignoring emails that arrive, prioritising her attention to crucial work activities. However, these preferences are in contrast to other participants who regularly feel pressure to clear the “notification clutter” in email and team software platforms.

P15 decided to delete the Outlook email app and instead checks emails solely through her phone’s Internet browser (which requires her to sign in each time). This creates a barrier to usability and makes it more difficult to check emails. Within teams, teleworkers also utilise activity status indicators to signal their availability and reduce the likelihood of someone contacting them. For example, P5, sets her status to “Away” whenever she desires temporary disconnection. Her team honours her availability, and regularly change their status as well. Leonardi et al. (2010) define this strategy as dissimulation, however, whilst this strategy was uncommon in their data, many teleworkers in our sample engaged in this behaviour.

Other teleworkers utilise spatial and temporal strategies to control their connectivity. P1 has developed a rule of working “not a second more” after 5 P.M. each day and contains her office in a separate outdoor building. Such strategies have been identified in previous research (Delanoeije et al., 2019), and can be considered instrumental alongside a teleworker’s ICT-related strategies. Each teleworker’s norms and behaviours relating to decreasing their perception of connectivity is highly idiosyncratic and appeared a result of their individual preferences, role expectations, personality and experiences.

The results thus far have illustrated how teleworkers perceive, and respond to, desires to decrease their perceived connectivity. Yet instances frequently arise where teleworkers cannot, or do not, enact connectivity management strategies, despite acknowledging that their situation as unideal. Participants can be broadly placed into two categories: those who have the perceived freedom to engage in agency, and those who do not or experience greater resistance in doing so. The data show that factors occur at the organisational, group and individual levels which serve as either barriers or facilitators for connectivity agency.

As participants navigate between the dynamic tensions of connectivity on a daily basis, they reflect on a variety of organisational factors that appear conducive to their ability to exercise agency. Many participants refer to a broad sense of organisational-level understanding and awareness of their wellbeing, which is often reflected in policies and practices. Whilst being geographically separated from the organisation, teleworkers may feel less of a sense of social ties and identification with their organisation, and thus, may feel their wellbeing is not an organisational concern. For instance, P16 mentioned it was important that “every now and again” she feels like her organisation remembers and acknowledges her. Participants mention factors such as health and wellbeing officers (P2), mandated disconnection practices (P13, P15, P19), output-based performance measurement (P2, P3, P9, P11) and company-wide days off (P9) as being conducive to their autonomy and psychological detachment from work. In cases where a participant’s job-related performance is assessed by the amount and quality of their work, it appears to be most conducive of their ability to feel in control of their connectivity. As P2 shares:

Similarly, one participant (P6) refers to the concept of “core hours”, which are times when employees are expected to be available, yet so long as they “deliver the work”, their productivity is not questioned outside of these hours. For P13, access to organisational systems is cut off outside of business hours. From her perspective, it provides a useful barrier to working “afterhours”, forcing her to technologically disconnect from work at the end of the day. Other participants (P10, P22) refer to enterprise agreements or other forms of legislation as being conducive to their agency and management of connectivity demands. P10 shares the difference that an enterprise agreement made for managing her workload:

In summary, participants reveal that organisational policies and practices targeted at employee wellbeing and disconnection management are mechanisms that help create a foundation upon which employees can control their connectivity and technology use.

At the group level, shared norms, trust and respect emerge as the most salient agency-improving factors within the data. It has become clear thus far that teleworkers are in a constant renegotiation of their desired connectivity, fluctuating between needs to disconnect and reconnect. Group norms for signalling availability are vital for this process to work successfully. This is usually a simple behaviour, such as sending a teamwide message when one is finished for the day or stepping away from the computer (P8, P10), or changing an activity status to “Away” when disconnection is needed (P2). Within P10’s team, there is a recognition that “people have these full lives”. After signalling that she has finished working for the day, although her team have the ability to contact her, they are “pretty careful about using that power wisely”. P15 shares that upon beginning to work together, their team “had a conversation about expectations”, which included an agreement that team members would not be expected to be available on weekends. Similarly, P22 reflects that they had to make an effort to “understand what those rules were for others”, as well as share their own expectations.

In terms of norms, P10’s team had an ingrained practice of sending a group message when one was logging off. This signalled to others that they would no longer be at their computer, and there was an explicitly shared understanding within the team that this meant that that individual was no longer available for communication. Similarly, P17’s team simply agreed upon a shared period of time where all employees would be available each day. Outside of these hours, it was acceptable (and indeed encouraged) that individuals did not feel pressured to remain accessible.

Some participants shared instances where these norms were “role-modelled” by those in management positions. As P8 shares, “Our CEO will literally put, ‘I’m at lunch’, or ‘I’ve gone to pick up the kids’ (as an activity status)” – a behaviour which they believe “changed the mentality” of disconnection within their organisation. Participants who were managers themselves share the importance of role-modelling healthy disconnection practices and believe that they help set the culture for the organisation: “I’ve got to lead by example” (P12), “By me setting and sending that message, hopefully it’s relayed throughout the organisation” (P14).

These practices are largely dependent on the existence of trust, respect and understanding. They engender a culture wherein one can rest in the comfort of knowing their whereabouts will not be questioned or scrutinised when engaging in disconnection behaviours, as it is these very pressures which inhibit the likelihood of disconnection.

Individual-level characteristics that facilitate agency emerged at a lesser frequency within the data. However, participants sometimes referred to their home environment as empowering their ability to disconnect (P1, P26, P27). Many find that having sufficient home office and technological resources is a vital factor for establishing their desired work–life boundaries. For instance, P1 relies on her small external office to feel an adequate sense of separation between her life and work. Despite the office being next to her home, she maintains that “even just two steps away … that makes a hell of a lot of difference”. Alternatively, participants referred to technological resources, such as a separate smartphone for work, as useful to their disconnection and psychological detachment rituals (P2).

However, not all participants report having sufficient resources. Participants who did not have a separate office or smartphone sometimes relied on other creative strategies. For example, P27, who has an office setup that is situated in a busy part of the house, simply obscures their work computer at the end of the day. For them, this practice “makes it look like a completely different space” (P27). So, whilst resources are shown to be vital for the management of some teleworkers’ connection, others sometimes have to innovate and be creative when it comes to creating a psychological boundary between work and home.

One other important individual characteristic is one’s degree of experience teleworking. Typically, those in our sample who have been teleworking for a substantial amount of time report a higher degree of connectivity agency. Both P22 and P25 have been teleworking for close to a decade and reveal they have perfected the rhythm of managing their psychological boundaries. P25 shared that a colleague recently complained about the challenges of working from home, on which they realised they had forgotten about the challenging aspects, as they had mastered coping strategies.

While some organisational characteristics, such as policies and practices, were shown to empower teleworkers to exercise autonomy over their connectivity, it is also evident that certain contextual factors serve as barriers. In some instances, participants are pressured into around-the-clock availability due to the nature of their industry. For example, P15 works in a government role dealing with many sensitive and time-critical issues, as she describes, the “reactionary” nature of her industry requires her to remain accessible, to some extent, at all times. She owns a smartwatch which constantly relays notifications and keeps her updated regarding work matters regardless of the time. Similarly, teleworkers experience a higher degree of connectivity and exercise less disconnection practices in periods of high workload (P12, P17, P18). P12 shares that sometimes there are deadlines which are simply “non-negotiable” and necessitate a high degree of connectivity to ensure the deadline is completed.

Other participants (P6) find their organisation’s lack of policies and practices regarding telework make it an ambiguous practice where it feels as if their wellbeing is not prioritised. When asked about what single thing she would change about her telework arrangement, they replied, “a policy framework to support workplace health and safety from working from home” (P6). This particular teleworker is a manager who struggles to develop a connection with her subordinates, as her organisation does not provide access to crucial software such as Microsoft Teams. In this instance, P6 experiences an organisational-level barrier to increasing, rather than decreasing, her connectivity.

Whilst some teleworkers find their organisation’s policy around mandated disconnection to be helpful, P4 shares their experience of how such a practice may have unintended effects. For P4, this strategy, intended to help teleworkers disconnect, actually serves to impede, rather than enable, her connectivity agency:

Such a “blanket approach”, as she describes it, undermines the flexibility and agency that should be inherent to teleworking. Other participants find their productivity is measured through time and virtual presence, and this significantly impedes their ability to exercise connectivity agency. As P1 describes her manager:

This “fear of losing the control over employee’s productivity” (P3) drives a demand for near-constant connectivity during work hours, jeopardising the agency that teleworkers desire to have over their work and ICT use. For one participant (P1), this pressure reached the point to which they would fear leaving their desk lest their activity status switch to “Away”. As such, they feel a pressure to be digitally available and present between the hours of 7 A.M. and 3 P.M. each day.

This factor, of course, is underpinned by distrust and scrutiny at the manager and group level. P1’s manager organises a meeting at 10 A.M. every morning, with no clear purpose other than, as presumed by P1, to check who is at their desk. As she mentions: “I know that they don’t trust that you’re doing the work … I get a little bit stressed about that lack of trust”. When a teleworker feels subject to the scrutiny of their manager and colleagues, they are unable to disconnect in the ways that are suited to their dynamic needs. Such practices pressure employees to remain online and pander a false representation of “being productive”, which is detrimental to the management of their connectivity, and subsequently their wellbeing. P3 shares that such pressures are also guided by misconceptions about telework and undue scrutiny of teleworkers. When reflecting on their prior job, within an organisation that had an unhealthy culture around teleworking, managers supposedly had an assumption that teleworkers were “slackers”.

Whilst most participants work in teams that have positive norms and understanding around connectivity and digital wellbeing, there are cases which exemplify what happens when these are not developed. For example, P25 reflects on a previous job at an international technology company. Upon joining, they were pressured to fit into the culture of the organisation, which involved working around-the-clock and remaining constantly accessible. Whilst they were never told that this was an expectation, they felt an implicit pressure to “fit in”. They remember regularly joining videoconferences in the middle of the night with international colleagues who would take no notice of the time difference. In this situation, P25 felt their wellbeing was neglected by their team, and their ability to establish their desired connection was impeded for fear of going against the team norms. As a result, this teleworker decided soon after to leave this organisation.

Furthermore, a lack of group norms and “agreed ways of communicating” (P6) appear to complicate the process of disconnection. For P9, this takes the form of her team disregarding her desired availability connectivity patterns. Whilst she blocks out particular times in her shared calendar and turns off notifications within the Slack platform, her teammates disregard these practices:

In some cases, she reveals team members even use a “Notify anyway” function, which bypasses her notification settings within Slack and sends her an alert regardless of the time. For P9, this is incredibly disruptive and frustrating, and she feels unable to adequately disconnect when desired, as her team has failed to create a shared understanding of communication preferences.

At the individual level, participants refer to a lack of access to ICT and home office resources as a barrier to agency. From owning a “small house” (P10, P11), to experiencing technology-related disruptions (P4, P8, P9), a teleworker is only as connected (or disconnected) as their resources will allow. For P10, a small house means that “office” spaces increasingly collide with domestic spaces, eroding ideas such as the bedroom as a “sanctuary”. Due to this, there is a degree of difficulty introduced to segmenting between connection to work, then connection to family. P11 shares a similar experience, reflecting when her home was “overtaken with work”. For this teleworker, “working from home in a small environment” has been “the most difficult thing” about their arrangement., specifically because of the difficulties it introduces to spatial segmentation practices.

Another recurring barrier to connectivity agency is the internal belief that one must remain accessible simply because they are in a managerial position (P7, P10, P11, P15). P10 shares, “I sort of feel like some of the erosion on my work hours comes down to being at the director level”, describing their seniority of position as a reason they do not disconnect more often, and thus experience greater work–life invasion. Similarly, P11 says:

Thus, one’s hierarchical role, or perceived commitment to their organisation, causes another barrier which can potentially reduce the amount of connectivity agency they enact. In all, the data reveals that teleworkers navigate a dynamic connective landscape eliciting demands and desires for greater or less connectivity to their work-related domain. Teleworkers seek to enact a variety of technological strategies to harmonise their desired and actual connectivity, but this effort is largely dependent on the trust, team norms, resources and work-related affordances inherent within that individual’s work environment. These factors serve to either inhibit, or enable, the technological behaviours of teleworkers that relate to connectivity management.

A typical teleworking day is filled with pressures to connect, show presence and give attention towards one’s work through technology. From waking to large amounts of unread emails, to sitting in back-to-back videoconferences, teleworkers relate to a high level of connectivity (significantly higher than a typical office-based workday, according to our sample). As these arrangements become more pervasive, scholars have become increasingly attentive towards their influence upon employee wellbeing and other individual-level outcomes (Charalampous et al., 2018). More specifically, an emerging body of research has considered the role of connectivity in shaping contemporary work experiences (Farivar et al., 2024; Waizenegger et al., 2023; Büchler et al., 2020).

Existing literature advocates for an understanding of connectivity through its states (hyper-, hypo-, requisite and flow). Flow is considered an ideal point, where the volume of connection is “balanced in accordance with our needs and the demands of the task or situation at hand” (Kolb, 2008, p. 183). Further studies demonstrate that individuals enact connective choices (Dery et al., 2014) to build agency within their environments and disconnect to create psychological distance (Leonardi et al., 2010). As such, one’s individual agency over their connectivity is the precursor to reaching the state of flow. Our data support previous research (Leonardi et al., 2010; Siegert and Löwstedt, 2019; Aljabr et al., 2022; Cousins and Robey, 2015), showing that, for teleworkers, this agency consists of a unique and dynamic package of rules, norms and behaviours relating to how, and to what extent, they engage with their ICT devices. The present study addresses a critical gap in this reasoning by examining the ways that organisational, group and individual factors may either serve as barriers or facilitators for this agency. A summary of the themes within our findings and supporting evidence from the data are depicted below in Tables 2 and 3.

The data indicate that organisational factors such as a lack of policy guidelines, inadequate support or the setting of traditionalistic work output measurements, serve as forces that inhibit (or prevent completely) a teleworker’s ability to enact agency and align their perceived and desired states of connectivity (and ostensibly, reach connective flow). Other organisational practices, such as cutting afterhours access to online work systems, were met with mixed results in the data. This practice served to disrupt freedom and be extremely disruptive for some, which would support the finding that autonomy mediates the job satisfaction of teleworkers (Gajendran and Harrison, 2007). Yet for others, this practice introduces a welcome period of enforced disconnection. As pressures build to address the health and wellbeing concerns following the recent largescale enforcement of telework, the “right to disconnect” is a growing area of interest among policymakers and leaders (Von Bergen and Bressler, 2019). A key role of organisations now is to empower teleworkers to manage the right level of connectivity, which entails maintain a healthy position between hyper- and hypo-connectivity as much as possible.

Waizenegger et al. (2023) show that time spent working together, perceived power distances and professional expectations, are all factors that shape the dynamic interchange between a team’s connectivity behaviours and boundaries. We develop upon these findings by showing that group level distrust, scrutiny and a lack of shared connectivity norms impose barriers that impede the very disconnection behaviours required by a teleworker to gain control and agency. Data in the sample reveal instances of managerial distrust and surveillance that perpetuate a teleworker’s reluctance to disconnect, despite a strong desire to do so. In contrast, participants repeatedly underline the importance of respect, trust and acknowledgement of individual availability preferences and needs. In instances where virtual signals of availability are ignored, the agency of that teleworker is severely compromised. Overall, the findings indicate that for individuals to exercise agency, telework arrangements should be fostered by organisational and group-level practices and norms that are flexible and underpinned by trust. Such environmental factors can be said to exist on a spectrum of inhibiting to enabling, such that the potential for agency increases as an individual’s environment is more enabling.

One recent study (Farivar et al., 2024) finds that the way an individual perceives “constant connectivity” (as a resource, challenge or duality) will largely shape whether they self-regulate their connectivity, surrender to technological workplace pressures or minimise their ICT use altogether. Indeed, majority of the senior manages within our sample were aware of the double-edged nature of connectivity. Yet at times some reflected a wish to have a greater degree of connectivity agency, citing the nature of their hierarchical role, or inadequate technological or home office resources as barriers to the management of their connection. Our data also suggest that other individual-level factors such as teleworking experience may shape, not only how one exercises agency, but one’s perception of connectivity as a whole. This suggests that there is a particular knowledgebase and skillset associated with effectively managing connectivity and opens up potential avenues for upskilling and training within organisations.

Our study introduces a new perspective to connectivity agency, one that acknowledges the contextual factors surrounding and inherent within the actor. The data indicate that surrounding factors such as organisational processes, team norms and trust and technological resources, largely influence the extent to which an actor can enact agency in relation to their connectivity demands and desires. Yet these developments are to be understood within the limitations of this study.

The conclusions drawn in this study are confined to the methodological boundaries of the data used. Whilst a qualitative approach enabled us to explore the lived experiences of teleworkers in depth, inherent to this methodology is its incapacity to measure. In this case, teleworker connectivity and the related outcomes that participants cited, such as stress or exhaustion. Additionally, one key boundary regarding the participants in our sample is that they are predominantly postgraduate students. It is difficult to ascertain whether participants’ status as students had any meaningful impact on the findings of this research, as they all fulfilled genuine teleworking roles, typically in a full-time arrangement. However, it is a factor which should nonetheless be noted. Finally, data were collected between 2021 and 2023 which is inclusive of the COVID-19 pandemic. This undoubtedly implicated itself within the findings, and the experiences of teleworkers during this period may not accurately reflect those in a “normal” period of time.

Connectivity is ultimately sociomaterial in nature, consisting of both subjective and physical phenomena. As such, we believe a quantitative approach would complement the development of this line of research. Whilst our findings indicate that barriers and facilitating factors are instrumental to an understanding of connectivity agency, it would be a worthwhile effort to statistically test this relationship. Within this model, it would be valuable to consider individual-level variables such as personality, hierarchical position or role. Additionally, it is likely that different types of barriers and facilitating factors are unaccounted for in our data. Future qualitative studies may collect data from teleworkers that identify additional or different factors than our sample. This would require collecting a diverse sample of teleworkers, especially across various hierarchical positions. Particular attention may also be paid to the nature of a teleworker’s job, for instance, whether it takes the form of repetitive data-entry or requires complex communication and dynamic problem-solving. This, we propose, would be a notable factor when considering one’s connectivity, given that data-entry jobs may be subject to greater scrutiny and time-based measurement. Additionally, it is important to consider team factors, and how hybridity may influence teleworker experiences. As teleworking enters a post-pandemic phase and continues to be sustained over time, these questions become important for researchers to address.

Whilst the adoption of teleworking arrangements is accelerating, there is also a widespread awareness of the psychophysiological risk factors associated with these work patterns. With the emerging “right to disconnect” debate and subsequent legislative efforts around the globe, our findings provide important insights for practitioners and leaders who must now grapple with decision-making and problem-solving in this area. Whilst only time will tell how successful these legislative efforts are at mitigating the risks of hyper-connectivity, our findings indicate that connectivity agency is influenced by more than just policy. In fact, if an employee feels the need to approach a legislative body to enact their right to disconnect, this signifies that something is already fundamentally wrong within the connectivity culture of their organisation or team. As such, we should view this policy as something that is “reactionary”, rather than “preventative”.

Our study outlines those factors which can serve as preventative measures. From the performance measurement strategies of a manager to the informal norms within teams that signify mutual understanding, trust and respect regarding individual connectivity preferences. In light of the presented findings, it is imperative that leaders at all levels of the organisation cultivate a workplace environment that is promotive to establishing an environment where employees have the freedom and discretion to exercise connectivity agency. Leaders, managers and even subordinates may use the factors identified within this study (occurring at the organisational, group and individual levels) as a checklist to determine potential issues within their team or broader organisation. Creating and maintaining a healthy culture of connectivity is an organisational imperative now more than ever before.

Scholars have extensively documented the ways in which teleworkers exercise control over their digital connection to work to manage psychological resources, detach from work demands and maintain boundaries between work and home (Aljabr et al., 2022; Leonardi et al., 2010). Whilst such practices are valuable for individual and organisational outcomes, our understanding of the contextual factors that enable or hinder an individual’s ability to exercise this agency remains limited. As such, this study investigated these factors, categorising them as facilitators, and barriers, respectively. Our findings underscore the importance of connectivity agency as a critical resource that leaders, policymakers and practitioners should recognise and nurture. This research not only highlights key factors to “get right” but also identifies crucial avenues for future investigation in this rapidly evolving field.