During the COVID-19 pandemic, a majority of the global workforce turned to virtual meetings for work-related communication and continues to do so as part of the shift to hybrid work. This change in communication patterns has led to an increased scholarly emphasis on the costs of virtual meetings for employees. The present study adds to this emerging field of research by taking a theory-led approach to highlight that alongside costs there are benefits to spending time in virtual meetings for employee functioning. Specifically, we integrate the concept of flow experiences and the Conservation of Resources theory to expand our understanding of the psychological mechanisms that link daily time spent in virtual meetings to employees' functioning in the work (i.e., task performance and counterproductive work behavior) and home domains (i.e., work-family conflict and need for recovery). More specifically, we argue that the benefits of virtual meetings manifest through flow experiences and associated reduced within-day changes in cognitive depletion. Furthermore, we identify low emotional dissonance as a contingency in virtual meetings that can strengthen the benefits of this mode of computer mediated communication. Results from two daily diary studies largely support the hypothesized relationships. Our findings have important theoretical and practical implications for employee functioning in the ‘new normal’ of hybrid work.

中文翻译：

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在虚拟会议期间进入流程：虚拟会议如何有利于员工在工作和家庭领域的运作

在 COVID-19 大流行期间，全球大多数员工转向虚拟会议进行与工作相关的沟通，并将继续这样做，作为向混合工作转变的一部分。沟通模式的这种变化导致学术界越来越重视员工虚拟会议的成本。本研究通过采用理论主导的方法来补充这一新兴研究领域，强调除了成本之外，花时间参加虚拟会议来提高员工的职能还有好处。具体来说，我们整合了心流体验的概念和资源保护理论，以扩大我们对心理机制的理解，这些心理机制将日常虚拟会议时间与员工在工作中的功能（即任务绩效和适得其反的工作行为）和家庭联系起来领域（即工作与家庭的冲突和恢复的需要）。更具体地说，我们认为虚拟会议的好处通过心流体验和相关的认知损耗日内变化的减少来体现。此外，我们将低情绪失调视为虚拟会议中的一种意外情况，可以增强这种计算机介导的沟通模式的好处。两项每日日记研究的结果在很大程度上支持了假设的关系。我们的研究结果对于员工在混合工作“新常态”下的运作具有重要的理论和实践意义。