Chapter 21. Embracing the digital workplace: a SMART work design approach to supporting virtual work

Millions of workers have made the shift to working remotely during the outbreak of Covid-19, irrespective of their tasks, preferences, and abilities. The unprecedented large-scale experiment has challenged our understandings. Well-documented benefits of virtual work have been questioned, while various challenges have emerged and/or become more pronounced. Therefore, practitioners and scholars need to embrace the digital way of working in the coronavirus-forged world by considering how to support virtual work and improve working experiences. The current chapter frames virtual work as a system comprised of social and technical subsystems. To optimize the benefits of virtual work and minimize its potential risks, this chapter introduces a SMART work design approach involving both altering the social subsystem and the technical subsystem. That is, high-quality virtual work is Stimulating, promotes Mastery, supports human Agency, encourages Relational features, and has Tolerable demands (i.e., SMART work).