The Impact of Microbreak on Employee Productivity and Mental Wellbeing in Remote Work Setting

Abstract

The swift transition to remote working has tightened the cognitive stressor and reduced the possibility of natural rest, creating the question of long-term productivity and individual mental health. Even though previous studies have accepted the positive effect of short breaks, only a small amount of empirical studies have concurrently studied the effects of productivity and wellbeing and explained the mechanism behind it in a remote work setting. The given research fills this gap and focuses on the effect of microbreaks on the productivity of employees and their mental wellbeing when work efficiency is considered as the mediating variable. The study utilized a quantitative, cross-sectional research design with a primary regular survey on remote workers to gather primary data. In order to measure microbreaks, work efficiency, employee productivity, and mental wellbeing, validated scales of measurement were changed. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to test the proposed hypotheses because the relationships of the hypotheses could be simultaneously evaluated (direct relationships and indirect relationships). The findings display that microbreaks positively affect productivity of employees (β= 0.506, 0.001) and mental wellbeing of employees (β = 0.545, 0.001). The work efficiency also has a significant impact on the productivity (β = -0.392, p = 0.001) and mental wellbeing ( β= -0.306, p = 0.001). The mediating roles of work efficiency venture that there are moderated relationships between microbreaks and the two outcomes with a confirmative of mediation but not the effect of moderation. The model accounts 76.7 and 69.0 percent in productivity and mental wellbeing respectively. The research makes new empirical evidence by incorporating the productivity and wellbeing into one framework and defining work efficiency as one of the mediating factors in remote work environment. The results provide practical information in terms of the development of sustainable remote working practices and give grounds to the future longitudinal and cross-context research.