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Description
Information and communication technology (ICT) demands have been associated with negative well-being outcomes including workplace fatigue, yet results have been inconsistent when isolating the three communication-related ICT demands of response expectations, availability, and miscommunication. This may be due to personality playing a role in the way employees cope with these demands. This study investigates whether the level of fatigue employees experience as a result of communication-related ICT demands depends on their level of extraversion, conscientiousness, and neuroticism. These three personality traits are conceptualized as personal resources within the job demands-resources (JD-R) model. These relationships were tested using archival data from over 500 full-time working adults in the U.S. using a cross-sectional survey administered through Qualtrics. Bivariate correlations showed expected positive associations between communication-related ICT demands and fatigue. However, there was an unexpected positive relationship between emotional stability and fatigue; extraversion and conscientiousness were not related to fatigue. Additionally, moderated multiple regression results found that ICT demands (response expectations and miscommunication) were more strongly related to fatigue among employees with low rather than high emotional stability. Yet this was only because employees with low emotional stability were less fatigued by low ICT demands compared to those with high emotional stability. There was no evidence for the moderating effect of emotional stability between the ICT demand of availability and fatigue, as well as no evidence of the moderating effect of the rest of the other traits on the ICT demands-fatigue relationship. Given that workers who reported more ICT demands also reported higher levels of fatigue, organizations should reduce ICT demands when possible and provide employees with resources to cope with these demands. Keywords: ICT demands, workplace fatigue, Big 5, job demands-resources model
