AI-Powered Digital Collaboration Analytics to Improve Employee Wellness in Hybrid Work Environments

Abstract

This study investigates the influence of AI-powered digital collaboration analytics (AICA) on employee wellness (EW) in hybrid work environments, with particular attention to the mediating roles of communication efficiency (CE), workload management (WM), and digital collaboration quality (DCQ). As hybrid work becomes a permanent organizational arrangement, the well-being implications of AI-enabled digital monitoring and collaboration tools remain insufficiently explored.  A quantitative, cross-sectional research design was employed using data collected from employees working in large multinational corporations in Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates that have established hybrid work policies. Measurement items were adapted from validated instruments, including the AICA construct derived from the DeLone & McLean framework and employee wellness measured through the World Health Organization WHO-5 Well-being Index. The proposed relationships were examined through Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The results demonstrate that AICA positively contributes to employee wellness and significantly enhances both communication efficiency and workload management. In turn, communication efficiency and workload management improve digital collaboration quality, which emerges as a strong predictor of employee wellness. Digital collaboration quality fully mediates the relationship between communication and workload mechanisms and employee wellness, while AICA exerts a substantial indirect effect through this sequential pathway. The model exhibits strong explanatory power for employee wellness. The study extends the Job Demands Resources perspective by conceptualizing AICA as a critical digital job resource that enhances well-being through the improvement of collaborative processes. From a practical standpoint, organizations should position AI-driven collaboration analytics as a core component of their wellness strategies by strengthening communication flow, promoting equitable workload distribution, and fostering high-quality digital collaboration.