Technostress and work-family interface in the face of COVID-19-related remote work: the moderator role of goals setting and prioritization skills

During the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, in Italy, a nationwide lockdown required a massive shift to remote work–that is, from workers’ houses. The risk of conflict between work and family domains increased due to the collapse of both into private houses and may have been further burdened due to no training being issued to help workers adjust to these changes in their work activities, producing higher rates of technostress. This study deepens the impact of technostress creators on the conflicts between work and family domains and the role of workers’ goal setting and prioritization skills as moderators easing these relationships. Data were gathered from 375 remote workers during the Italian nationwide lockdown using an online questionnaire. Results show that higher scores in technostress creators positively associate with both work-to-family and family-to-work conflicts and the former relationship becomes stronger as workers’ planning skills increase. They highlight the need to consider the pitfalls of remote work, as it can also have detrimental effects on workers’ family and relational life, and to find a better balance between work and family domains from a systemic perspective.