Employee Technostress in South Africa's Hybrid Workplaces: Causes and Coping Mechanisms

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, South African organisations were forced to provide suitable working conditions for its employees. The increased reliance on technology while working from home resulted in technostress. This paper considers how technostress experiences have evolved under the newly adopted hybrid working model. It investigates the underlying causes of technostress experiences and how employees are currently coping with technostress under the hybrid model. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and supplemented with secondary data provided by respondents who are currently working under a hybrid model and who use ICTs for work purposes. The findings reveal several hybrid working specific causes of technostress, including instances of stressful workstation setups, office disruptions and power outage issues as a result of loadshedding (rolling power blackouts). Stresses related to loadshedding appear to be a specific South African issue. To deal with technostress, employees adopted reactive and proactive coping behaviours driven by problem-focused and emotion-focused coping strategies respectively.