Analysis of the Cognitive Load of Employees Working from Home and the Construction of the Telecommuting Experience Balance Model

Adapting to working from home caused physical and psychological difficulties, leading to work–family imbalance and lower employee performance during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study intends to identify the relationship between variables affecting telecommuting experience and improve employees’ perceived organizational support by constructing a balanced model of telecommuting experience. An online questionnaire survey was conducted with 142 employees from different organizations telecommuting during the epidemic in Xi’an. The NASA-TLX scale was used to quantitatively evaluate the cognitive load of employees working from home, and the Analytic Hierarchy Process method was applied to map negative experience factors with cognitive load to obtain the weight value of each factor. Finally, a balanced model of telecommuting experience was constructed through a system map. The results show that mental demand was the key factor affecting employees’ telecommuting experience. A good telecollaboration system could effectively manage work tasks and reduce the psychological load of employees. Frustration and temporal demand also significantly affected employees’ telecommuting experience, mainly due to work–family conflict. Adopting flexible work hours and organizing online sharing activities could reshape employees’ social relationships with their families and colleagues, effectively improving the telecommuting experience. The empirical study validated the effectiveness of the telecommuting experience balance model.