How enterprise social media use affects employee well-being

Area of Science:

• Organizational Psychology
• Information Systems
• Occupational Health

Background:

• Enterprise Social Media (ESM) adoption is prevalent in hybrid and remote work, enhancing collaboration but demanding constant employee responsiveness.
• This continuous digital presence can lead to communication overload and blurred work-personal boundaries, a phenomenon termed techno-invasion.
• Techno-invasion may negatively impact psychological strain and overall employee well-being.

Purpose of the Study:

• To examine the association between ESM-induced job demands (communication overload, boundary management stress) and employee outcomes (exhaustion, well-being).
• To apply the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model to understand technostress in digital work environments.
• To provide practical recommendations for organizations to mitigate negative impacts of ESM.

Main Methods:

• Survey data collected from 200 Korean office workers.
• Validated self-report scales were used to measure ESM use, job demands, exhaustion, and well-being.
• Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) was employed for data analysis.

Main Results:

• Intensified ESM use correlated with increased communication overload and boundary management stress.
• Both communication overload and boundary management stress were significantly associated with higher employee exhaustion.
• Increased job demands from ESM were linked to reduced employee well-being.

Conclusions:

• ESM-driven connectivity, while beneficial for collaboration, can undermine employee well-being by increasing job demands.
• The findings contribute to the technostress literature by detailing the negative psychological impacts of ESM.
• Organizations should implement strategies to manage job demands and promote a sustainable digital work environment to support employee psychological health.