4. Discussion
Through two consecutive studies and taking into account a range of structural and psychosocial variables, this research aimed to arrive at a comprehensive and holistic understanding of workers’ experience and wellbeing during lockdown. The lockdown situation precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the daily lives of millions of workers [
1]. While some were able to continue their work activity through teleworking, those working in sectors considered essential had to continue commuting to their workplaces. Others saw their work activity come to a standstill (in whole or in part); and, in some cases, people in the most vulnerable or precarious jobs began to suffer redundancies and unemployment almost from the beginning of the state of alarm.
All these labour changes have taken place in a climate of fear of the disease (Study 1 and 2). Moreover, results of Study 2 showed that women with dependents who were working on-site felt the greatest fear of infection. These results can be read in terms of gender-differentiated roles and the way in which women with caring responsibilities, compared to their male counterparts, may have developed greater experiences of guilt or assumption of responsibility in relation to leaving home (and private space) in the context of a health emergency.
Economic threat and future employment uncertainty were also present among participants in both studies, consistent with findings from previous pandemics [
18,
19]. From a gender perspective, in Study 1, some women made specific mention of the extraordinary vulnerability they would face in the future if schools remained closed, knowing that the need to reduce working hours to care for dependents would be an aggravating factor that would fall on them. These results are consistent with other studies finding that economic vulnerability is related to caring responsibilities [
15], and the particular vulnerability of women caregivers [
22]. However, the results of Study 2 showed no significant differences for this last group, which may indicate a lack of awareness of the vulnerability to which they are exposed, and the need to highlight this situation from a feminist perspective, that allows women to understand their situation from a more structural approach linked to their gender and labour market position.
Undoubtedly, the need to continue working and avoid economic collapse became a central issue for organisations, sometimes without considering that this was a global change affecting people’s whole lives. The forced improvisation of these changes meant in many cases, and especially among those who teleworked, an increase in time spent at work (Study 2) to support the adaptation process (Study 1), often in organisations without sufficient training for the necessary technological adaptation which took place in record time (Study 1 and 2).
In the case of teleworking, the results of this research show that organisations’ teleworking experience and the provided organisational resources were modestly valued (Study 1 and 2). While some access to virtual meeting platforms and training in their use was provided, the material resources were generally dependent on workers themselves. Indeed, the interest and training organisations have in information and communication technologies (ICT), as well as the training and resources provided to workers, has been noted in the literature as an indispensable condition for this adaptation [
60].
Furthermore, scientific literature warns that teleworking is not compatible with an organisational culture based on control and presence, and that it requires a climate of trust and flexibility from supervisors [
7]. However, some people made specific mention to the systematic distrust by organisations that workers would fulfil their obligations (Study 1), and a third of those who teleworked reported that additional mechanisms were put in place to monitor their work (Study 2). While these measures may be important to avoid overtime, testimonies suggest that these mechanisms were not aimed at protecting workers’ working conditions, but rather at ensuring productivity and achievement of organisational objectives (Study 1).
In case of people working on-site, organisational resources available to deal with the possibility of contagion were rated as insufficient (Study 2). Among those who went to their workplaces in large companies, the testimonies report that extensive safety protocols were implemented as the virulence of the pandemic became known, even though it is said that they were not always as protected as they would have needed to be (Study 1). Workers in the smallest enterprises, which coincide with the most vulnerable jobs, seemed to report these shortcomings the most, being forced to work with greater exposure to infection (e.g., domestic workers) (Study 1). Not being afraid of becoming infected is essential to protect both the physical and mental wellbeing of workers [
14,
19]; and, in this sense, a key challenge for organisations in developing occupational risk prevention measures for their employees [
61].
Undoubtedly, the work–life balance challenge has become a central issue in this pandemic, both in relation to caring for dependents and, in a broader sense, to work–life balance and work–life separation. In the case of teleworking, although the literature has outlined its advantages for work–life balance [
28], the difficulties created by the permeability between work and family life [
34], family interference [
31] and family disputes caused by poor delimitation of spaces [
32,
33] were salient in an emergency context where workers had to exercise care-giving tasks without the support available in a normal situation (Study 1). In fact, results of Study 2 also showed that workers with care responsibilities expressed greater difficulties in balancing work with family and family with work.
Women teleworking also reported that they were particularly vulnerable to the inability to combine care with telework, which created stressful and tense situations for them (Study 1). In the case of men, the level of conflict experienced by teleworkers did not differ from that of men and women working on-site (Study 2). These results suggest that, during the lockdown period, family responsibility (with or without dependents) fell mainly on women, leading to more stressful situations for them [
40,
62]. Moreover, although negative workaholism levels were not high, women experienced greater negative workaholism compared to men (Study 2).
Moreover, the situation experienced during the pandemic is consistent with work and gender literature beyond crisis situations, stating that men and women telework under different conditions, with men having less work interference and more opportunities to focus on their job [
37,
38,
39]. Furthermore, research outside crisis contexts shows that the causes of work–related stress experienced by men and women vary widely (i.e., for men, they are associated with job performance and professional development; while, for women, they are associated with double workloads) [
62].
In addition, results of Study 2 showed that women developed more coping strategies in this situation, although this does not imply that they necessarily coped better with stress. In fact, consistent with the research of Rodriguez et al. [
63], women expressed higher levels of stress compared to men (Study 2). Literature shows that women are indeed more likely to re-signify situations and try to learn from them when coping with difficult situations [
54,
64]. However, it is possible that, despite having more coping strategies, when work and family responsibilities exceed actual capacities, stress inevitably arises, making it impossible for women to respond to all demands. In fact, the pressure on women to act as superwomen who can do it all has intensified in recent years, forcing them to display a high capacity to cope with all life scenarios, in a context where the division of labour in the private sphere remains an unresolved challenge.
Moreover, teleworking was found to be associated with an increase in the number of hours spent at work (Studies 1 and 2). In fact, people who engage in telework tend to experience more negative workaholism [
51,
52], which is often related to increased isolation, lack of spatial differentiation and loss of control over work time. In addition, it was noted that organisations have tended to implement additional control measures on employees who have teleworked (Study 2), and testimonies also showed a difficulty in digital disconnection linked to the need to show that they were available to their colleagues and superiors (Study 1). Literature has shown that telework predicts a higher risk of increased working hours [
65], and the lockdown context may have certainly reinforced this tendency. Thus, as the testimonies show, instead of implementing policies to avoid the occupational risks that may arise from this hyperconnectivity, organisations seem to have fostered a climate favourable to its emergence. Although teleworkers experienced the negative aspects of work during lockdown more intensely, they also experienced more positive workaholism. In this sense, compared to those who worked on-site, teleworkers were able to lose track of the time spent working and enjoy the activity, helping them to escape from the lockdown situation to a greater extent. Finally, it is to be welcomed that workers were able to develop coping strategies to deal with the emergency situation (Study 1 and 2). In coping with the consequences of lockdown and telework, employees showed that the ability to maintain better health and well-being was related to the possibility of establishing routines, limiting working time, and separating living spaces (Study 1) from working ones [
53]. This recovery of living spaces outside of work was especially pointed out by those workers whose professional activity was paralysed during lockdown. In particular, the testimonies showed how some people took advantage of this period to reflect on the centrality of work in their lives in normal conditions, and the importance of reorganising life in terms of greater balance.
There are several limitations that need to be highlighted in our study. An important limitation of this study was not being able to look further into respondents’ occupation and educational level. In addition to analysing the effects of working modality, gender and care, incorporating these two variables into the study could have helped to clarify some group differences. Its inclusion in the study would have been relevant, as we know that teleworking is a modality that is usually accessed by people with higher levels of responsibility and hierarchical position in organisations [
66]. Although teleworking was widespread during lockdown, only a minority of workers had access to it [
2]. This may have implied unequal access to this working modality for some sectors, but also increased difficulty in carrying out teleworking due to the greater novelty of this experience. Therefore, the work experience during the pandemic of different types of workers with different educational levels should be explored further in future studies.
Another limitation of our research is its cross-sectional design. The data were collected at a single point in time (between April and May 2020); thus, it was not possible to analyse the influence of the time elapsed on the contents analysed. No data were collected in relation to the start of the lockdown situation (15 March), nor the end of it (21 June). Presumably, the novelty and prolongation of the situation could have generated changes in the variables studied, which could not be analysed in this non-longitudinal study. Similarly, in the absence of pre-lockdown data, we do not know participants’ baseline levels, so we cannot assert that the observed effects are due to the pandemic situation, rather than to a pre-lockdown situation.
Moreover, another potential limitation of this study is the impossibility of generalising the results and consequences to the whole population. Conditioned by the lockdown situation, a non-probabilistic snowballing sampling strategy was used for the dissemination of surveys. Likewise, the surveys were disseminated through social networks, excluding people who did not have access to the Internet or social networks. The fact that the surveys were completed via a self-reported questionnaire may have also reduced the reliability of the study, in terms of the comprehensibility of the questions or the sincerity of responses to particularly sensitive questions (among others).
Finally, data prior to the pandemic indicate that the presence of men and women in telework was similar, both in Europe and Spain [
67]. However, female teleworkers were over-represented in our sample. Although, the presence of women in telework has increased more during lockdown compared to men, both in Europe (13% women and 11.2% men) and in Spain (12.1% women and 9.9% men) [
67], this does not fully explain the gender gap in our sample, which could be due to the non-probabilistic design of our study.
5. Conclusions
Complementarily, results of both studies show that workers’ relationship with the COVID-19—work binomial during the lockdown period (perceived fears, changes in work organisation, family conciliation or psychosocial consequences and coping) was different depending on working modality, gender and whether they had dependents. Although the situation was faced by participants without serious consequences on their well-being at work, this research identified some variables in which a prolonged situation in these conditions could affect workers, providing clues that can be used to care for workers from an organisational health perspective.
Gender emerged as an essential variable in understanding this experience. Although women have been able to develop more coping strategies in this situation, results revealed greater stress among them, more conflicts arising from conciliation demands, a greater fear of illness among those with dependents, and even, in some cases, greater warning of risks because of their precarious work situation. This calls for more research to further study how this situation, if prolonged over time, may affect women from a comparative perspective. It is also worth highlighting the importance of organisational role in the well-being of employees, and how this will be related to their capacity to respond or not to the changes that arise in these crisis contexts (capacity to adapt, establishment of health protocols, support for teleworking, conciliation measures, etc.).
Finally, if organisations want to take advantage of this situation to extend telework in those jobs where possible, the data from this study confirm the relevance of accompanying it with changes in the organisational culture, replacing control culture with a culture of trust; as well as respecting the specific legislation in this area, in order to tackle the problems of hyperconnectivity, workaholism and the impossibility of combining work and family life, which were reflected in both studies.