Videoconferencing and Work-Family Conflict: Exploring the Role of Videoconference Fatigue

ABSTRACT Videoconferencing has become an essential communication tool for employees to engage in virtual meetings with their colleagues and complete work tasks remotely. However, there have been reports of a phenomenon termed videoconference fatigue. Concurrently, there has been an increase in work-family conflict among individuals working from home, due to an imbalance from role demands and expectations between work and family. With the rise of videoconferencing that has come to characterize work-from-home setups, it is important to explore the role videoconferencing plays on work-family conflict. We propose a model where the increase in use of videoconferencing as a result of working from home may lead to higher levels of videoconference fatigue, which will in turn result in greater work-family conflict. An online nationwide survey was conducted in Singapore with 590 respondents to test the proposed hypotheses. Results of serial mediation analyses conducted using PROCESS macro supported all hypotheses and indicated support for serial mediation. Emotional and occupational videoconference fatigue were further found to be significantly related to work-family conflict, whereas physical videoconference was not. Our results suggest that as videoconferencing continues to become the default mode of work-related communication, sustained investigation on its implications on work-family conflict is crucial.