Evaluation of an e-learning program to promote healthy telework

Background. Teleworking has increasingly become established as a working model by companies due to the change in the world of work and accelerated by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Resources and requirements must be assessed from an occupational health perspective in order to support companies in the health-promoting implementation of teleworking.Methods. As part of this study five important fields of action were identified from the literature on the basis of which an e-learning program for healthy teleworking was developed. Subsequently, it was assessed whether this program has a positive impact on the mental health and ability to work of teleworkers. An administrative authority in Saxony-Anhalt was recruited for the study. An intraindividual comparison was made with a subsample (pre-post: 25 teleworkers). The focus was on the implementation of the e-learning program (five modules on fields of action: work-life balance, social isolation, interested self-endangerment, ergonomics and virtual leadership). The following questionnaires were used: short questionnaire for work analysis, work ability index and the Maslach burnout inventory.Results. The results show that participation in the e-learning program did not achieve significant improvements in the measured parameters (work environment, workload, burnout risk, ability to work and work-life balance). The pre-post comparison tended to show an increase in workload (amount of work, complexity of work).Discussion. The study was influenced by political and social events of recent years (pandemic, wave of refugees from Ukraine), which strongly influenced the participation of a larger number of employees. In the future, further studies should investigate the effectiveness of online interventions in conjunction with face-to-face training (hybrid learning) under regular teleworking conditions.