Beyond the office walls: Work design configurations for task performance across on-site, hybrid and remote forms of work

Abstract

Despite alternative work arrangements becoming more prevalent, existing work design approaches are mostly based on research and practice of traditional on-site work. Struggles with capturing employee performance are reported across different off-site, non-traditional forms of work, such as remote and hybrid. This article performs a comprehensive fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis to juxtaposing different configurations of job characteristics across forms of work. Our multi-source study is based on a matched sample of 1215 diverse working personnel (with supervisors, who evaluated employee performance) in Montenegro. Based on the pathways leading to task performance in different forms of work, we develop propositions centered on the key principles of designing traditional and alternative, non-traditional forms of work. While we confirm the importance of enriched work design, several specific characteristics and their accompanying configurations (including compensatory effects) are highlighted with regard to the task performance achieved. These include high levels of task identity for all three forms of work (on-site, hybrid and remote). Work performed in a traditional on-site setting additionally requires greater task variety. Conversely, remote work requires high information processing and social support. The hybrid model calls for the most complicated work design that combines essential elements of both the on-site and remote work paradigms, namely task variety and information processing, and also for enhanced mechanisms for job feedback. Hybrid work is a universal social phenomenon still on the uptake that likely represents the future of work, and since it combines traditional settings with information and communication technologies, we also emphasise the importance of field-bridging future research of information systems and organisational design areas.