Document Type

Journal Article

Publication Title

Journal of Industrial Relations

Publisher

Sage

School

Centre for People, Place and Planet / School of Business and Law

Publication Unique Identifier

10.1177/00221856251315859

RAS ID

78294

Funders

Centre for Work, Health and Safety, New South Wales, Australia

Comments

Vassiley, A., Shafaei, A., Nejati, M., Onnis, L. A., & Bentley, T. (2025). The autonomy paradox, working from home and psychosocial hazards. Journal of Industrial Relations. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/00221856251315859

Abstract

This article investigates the experience of knowledge workers in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, who worked from home during the COVID-19 pandemic to understand their exposure to psychosocial hazards, specifically: workload and work pace; the work-home interface and social isolation. We explored how the increased autonomy afforded by working from home fitted with workers’ actual experience during the pandemic. Drawing on interviews with 33 NSW remote workers and 19 line-managers conducted in early 2021, this article argues that the increased autonomy afforded to employees by remote work is paradoxical. Many interviewees worked longer hours and experienced work intensification, as well as an unwelcome blurring of the work and home spheres. The phenomenon of greater work output was bound up in the trust between workers and line management. Further, interviewees experienced a sense of social isolation. The potential for work intensification, blurring, and social isolation all featured in the working from home literature before COVID-19. This article provides a novel application of the ‘autonomy paradox’ concept, by integrating it within the framework of psychosocial workplace hazards.

DOI

10.1177/00221856251315859

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License

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