The Relation between Hybrid Work and Perceived Empowerment : A cross-sectional survey

Abstract: Organizations increasingly use empowerment to promote employee engagement and performance. Multiple studies have shown the importance of employee empowerment in increasing productivity and performance of organizations both psychologically and structurally. As a result of technological limitations and social acceptance, previous research has focused on on-site work. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many employees had to start working remotely, as a result, they had to work not only virtually, but alone. This thesis analyses the perceived employee empowerment of hybrid-remote workers in Nordic companies based on social-structural and psychological empowerment. In addition to contributing to the understanding of how the hybrid work model relates to people's perceived employee empowerment, this study also aims to examine gender and age group differences. A cross-sectional quantitative study was used as a research method with data collected from a survey of 75 respondents from Nordic companies. When compared to organizations that utilize the on-site work model, hybrid remote work is perceived as equal or somewhat better by employees based on their perceived psychological and social-structural empowerment. When organizations use the hybrid work model as compared to organizations that use the on-site work model, respondents within the age-group 25 – 44 years have somewhat better opportunities for social-structural empowerment, such as take part in decision-making and educational efforts to build knowledge compared to the age-group 45 – 65. Compared to on-site work models, hybrid work models seem to benefit female respondents which experience impact and competence somewhat better than on-site work. Future research should investigate why there are differences in perceived psychological and social-structural empowerment across gender and age. Psychological empowerment dimensions self-determination and competence do better in hybrid work models than in on-site work models, according to the study. In the future, we recommend exploring psychological empowerment to understand why respondents experienced higher levels of self-determination and competence in hybrid work compared to on-site work. Keywords: Psychological empowerment, Social-structural empowerment, Remote work