Balancing the Signal and the Noise: Hybrid Work and Perceived Goal Ambiguity in Federal Agencies

• In Event: The Nuances of Employment in the Public Sector

Abstract

Flexible, remote work arrangments are increasingly common in the public sector, but concerns persist about their effects on organizational and individual performance. Adding to this dialogue, we contend there is an important balance in the social processing that occurs within offices that facilitates how employees come to understand their organizations and job responsibilities. Specifically, we argue that hybrid working arrangements create truncated opportunities for social processing, which optimize orgnizational signal-to-noise ratio. In other words, employees with hybrid work arrangments receive goal-relevant cues that promote greater understanding of their roles and responsibilities while physical present at the office, but minimize exposure to informational "noise" that may obscure core organizational priorities. Using data from the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS), we estimate a generalized additive model (GAM) to examine the relationship between telework frequency and perceived goal ambiguity. Preliminary results indicate a U-shaped pattern: perceived goal ambiguity is highest when federal employees are either fully remote or fully in-office; in contrast, goal ambiguity is lowest when federal employees engage in a hybrid work environment. These findings suggest that balancing in-office engagement and social processing is crucial to how public employees perceive their organizations, where too much or too little may have a negative impact.

Author

• Chris Birdsall, Boise State University
  Presenting Author