What can talent management do about involuntary remote working in the post-COVID-19 era? Spanish IT employees’ organizational commitment

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to understand the role of professional isolation and work–family balance (WFB) as talent retention strategies, considering organizational commitment (OC) and the mediating role of job satisfaction (JS) among IT employees in the technological industry have been forced by their companies to telework. While previous research has examined the connections between professional isolation (PI), OC, WFB, and JS separately in the context of teleworking, this research proposes an integrative model examining the connections between all these work-related constructs and allowing for mediating and moderating effects. It focuses on IT employees in the technological industry forced to telework, a setting underexamined by previous literature. The final sample is composed of 294 teleworkers forced to work partly at home by their companies. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was applied, and SmartPLS 4.0.8.7 software was used to analyze the data and test the hypotheses. Our results indicate a positive and significant direct effect of WFB on JS and OC, a negative and significant effect of PI on JS and OC, and a positive and significant effect of JS on OC. Our results also indicate that JS mediates the relationship between WFB and OC and between PI and OC and that neither time spent teleworking nor gender moderates the association between PI and OC. Overall, our results suggest that while PI negatively affects OC, JS, and WFB are the most relevant determinants of OC in the context of teleworking. In addition, a complementary IPMA analysis reinforces this view by suggesting that WFB and JS are the most important factors in determining OC performance among IT employees working from home, while PI is not important. The originality of this article is the proposal of an integrative model examining the connections between JS, WFB, PI, and OC and allowing for mediating (JS) and moderating (gender and percentage of time teleworking) effects from a talent management perspective. Moreover, this study focuses on information technology companies and the situation of forced remote working, two settings that have been underexamined. The results could help companies with forced teleworking develop effective strategies to attract, develop, and retain top talent in the information technology industry in the post-pandemic era. It is important for practitioners to consider the interactions between diverse work-related dimensions and the mediating and moderating effects between them to efficiently implement talent management strategies and reinforce OC and, in turn, economic performance.