Technostress of HR professionals: the darker implication of remote work transformations

Information and communication technologies (ICT) have facilitated an increased uptake of remote working. This research aims to understand how ICT in a remote working context affects the technostress faced by HR practitioners. Specifically, the effects of remote-working-ICT-induced technostress on work engagement, mental health, work-family conflict, and performance are examined in this study. Using the ‘EC-ST-CP-O’ (Environmental conditions-stressors-coping process-outcome) theoretical framework outlined by Tarafdar et al. (Citation2019) and conservation resource theory (COR), we have developed a moderated-mediation model and analyzed data from 218 HR practitioners from 28 software organizations in India. The analysis using PLS-SEM reveals that ICT-enabled remote work induces technostress, negatively affecting mental health, increasing work-life conflict, and reducing HR practitioners’ performance. Perceived organizational support (POS) moderates these effects. Addressing the under-researched topic of stress and well-being of HR practitioners, our study provides empirical evidence for POS in lowering the adverse effects of coping processes to manage ICT-induced technostress in the remote working context. This study contributes to the literature on ‘technostress’ in remote working contexts by researching the phenomenon of usage of ICT in organizations and its consequences and theoretically delineating ICT use on technostress in organizations.