Hybrid work and daily well-being: The role of need satisfaction and telework normativeness from a self-determination theory perspective

Drawing on self-determination theory, this daily diary study examines why and when hybrid work relates to employees’ daily well-being. We propose that working from home versus working in the office differentially satisfies employees’ needs for autonomy, relatedness, and competence, which, in turn, are associated with daily work engagement and cognitive stress. We further examine telework normativeness—the extent to which telework is common and institutionally supported in the work unit—as a contextual boundary condition of these relationships. Multilevel structural equation models based on data from 114 employees and 744 daily observations revealed that, compared with office days, home days were associated with higher autonomy- and competence-need satisfaction but lower relatedness-need satisfaction. These need-based experiences, in turn, accounted for the indirect associations between work location and both work engagement and cognitive stress. Telework normativeness attenuated the indirect associations through autonomy and relatedness, whereas no corresponding moderation emerged for competence. Additional between-person analyses indicated that employees’ overall amount of telework was not associated with average need satisfaction, work engagement, or cognitive stress. These findings contribute to research on hybrid work by identifying distinct motivational mechanisms through which daily work location relates to well-being and by showing that these mechanisms depend partly on the normative context of telework. Overall, hybrid work is neither uniformly beneficial nor harmful: its daily implications depend on which psychological needs are supported in a given location and on how telework is embedded in the broader work context.