Completing tasks and reaching goals at work depletes employees’ energy, motivation, and attentional resources, resulting in negative stress and fatigue experiences. Taking microbreaks from work may help recover from work demands and replenish these resources by positively affecting employee well-being and performance. Therefore, this study seeks to understand the potential benefits of personal social media use as a specific microbreak activity that has become increasingly popular in recent years for employee recovery and productivity during working hours. More specifically, the engagement in social media microbreaks (SMMB) was hypothesized to positively predict both employees’ psychological detachment and perceived productivity. Cross-sectional survey data from 193 white-collar workers were collected and analyzed using linear regression. The results of this correlational study revealed that while engagement in SMMB activities positively predicted psychological detachment, perceived productivity was not found to be associated with SMMBs when holding employees’ general engagement in social media and socially desirable responding constant. Exploratory analyses showed that these relationships may be contingent on demographic, individual, and work (break) characteristics. These findings challenge the predominant negative connotation of using social media at work among employers and by contributing to a growing body of evidence suggesting the restorative nature of microbreaks. Yet, this research underlines the necessity for further research to elucidate the boundary conditions for effective (social media) microbreaks.

Hemarbete har blivit vardag för många med ett administrativt yrke. Det har funnits olika syn på huruvida hemarbete bidrar till högre produktivitet eller inte. Flera organisationer har börjat fundera på om de ska implementera hemarbete som en beständig förändring efter Corona-pandemins slut. Det finns tidigare forskning på hur produktivt det är att arbeta hemifrån men forskning som är inriktad på upplevd produktivitet vid hemarbete identifierades inte. Med bakgrunden av egen erfarenhet av hemarbete och en nyfikenhet kring konsekvenserna av hemarbetet växte syftet med studien fram. Syftet med denna studie är att utforska anställdas upplevda produktivitet vid förändringen till hemarbete i en verksamhet och vilka faktorer som påverkar den. Uppsatsen är en kvalitativ fallstudie med en induktiv ansats. Datainsamlingen baseras på kvalitativa semistrukturerade intervjuer med tjänstemän som arbetat hemifrån under Corona-pandemin. Genom den insamlade data som intervjuerna bidrog med, identifierades centrala teman genom sortering och kodning av materialet. Av analysen genererades det totalt 13 teman där fem av dessa valdes ut som mest återkommande och som sedan genererade i sig sju underkategorier. Underkategorierna var kontorsspring, familjemedlemmar, missar att ta pauser, vågar inte ta pauser, anpassat efter individen, organisationskultur och balans. Dessa teman kopplades till teori för att skapa mening. Analysen bidrog till en diskussion kring vikten av individens och organisationens samspel. Att en strategi går åt samma riktning, vilken både individen och organisationen är en del av, skapar en samstämmighet. Respondenterna ville fortsätta arbeta hemifrån efter Corona-pandemin i en balans med kontorsarbete. Anställdas upplevda produktivitet vid hemarbete konstaterades vara högre än vid kontorsarbete i fallstudien, de faktorer som påverkar är de teman som ovan presenterats. / Working from home has become commonplace for many with an administrative profession. There have been various findings as to whether homework contributes to higher productivity or not. Several organizations have begun to consider whether to implement remote working as a strategy after the Corona pandemic's end. There is previous research on how productive it is to work from home, but research that focuses on perceived productivity when working at home was not identified. With the background of our own experience of working from home and a curiosity about the consequences of it, the purpose of the study emerged. The purpose of the study is to explore employees perceived productivity when changing to working from home in an organization and what factors that affect it. The thesis is a qualitative case study with an inductive approach. The data collection is based on a qualitative semi-structured interview with white-collar workers who worked from home during the Corona pandemic. Through the collected data that the interviews contributed, key themes were identified through sorting and coding of the material. The analysis generated atotal of 13 themes, five of which were selected as the most recurring and which then generated seven subcategories. The subcategories were office running, family members, failing to take breaks, not daring to take breaks, adapted to the individual, organizational culture, and balance. These themes were linked to theory to create meaning. Analyze contributed to a discussion about the importance of the individual and the organization's interaction. That a strategy goes in the same direction, of which both the individual and the organization are a part, creates a coherence. The respondents wanted to continue working from home after the Corona pandemic in a balance of office work. Employees' perceived productivity in working from home was found to be higher than in office work in the case study, the factors that affect are the themes presented above.