The Effect of Telework on Employee Engagement: An Empirical Approach

The present paper is part of a broader research on telework; it investigates the impact of telework on employee engagement in Greek public sector (e-EFKA) and the mediating effect of work-family conflict on the relationship between role overload and role ambiguity and employee engagement. The literature review provides an overview of the extant literature on telework, role overload, role ambiguity, work-family conflict, and employee engagement. A sample of 360 e-EFKA employees in several local branches across Greece was used and data were collected with the use of online structured questionnaires and subsequently analyzed by partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) using “SmartPLS 3.3.5”. Based on the research findings there is a positive and statistically significant relationship between role ambiguity and work-family conflict, role overload and work-family conflict, and with work-family conflict having a negative impact on employee engagement. Finally, the research finds that work-family conflict acts as a partial mediator, mediating the relationship between role overload and employee engagement, but not the relationship between role ambiguity and employee engagement.