The influence of ICT availability demands on employees’ family and service performance: a weekly experience sampling method study

The increasing availability of information and communication technology (ICT) has intensified employees’ connection to work, often extending beyond regular working hours and raising the demand for ICT. However, this heightened ICT availability can negatively affect employee performance in both family and work domains. A weekly experience sampling study involving 965 observations from 98 hotel employees over 10 consecutive work weeks was conducted. Multilevel structural equation modelling results indicate that, at the weekly level: (1) psychological detachment at home mediates the relationship between ICT availability demands and family role performance; (2) psychological detachment at home and emotional exhaustion at work serially mediate the link between ICT availability demands and service sabotage behavior; (3) strengths use moderates these indirect relationships, with the effects only being significant for employees utilizing their strengths less. These findings suggest that ICT availability demands can impair family role performance and increase service sabotage behavior over time. Nonetheless, employees’ use of their strengths can help mitigate these negative effects. Organizations and managers should limit unnecessary ICT use to foster employees’ psychological detachment at home and implement interventions that enable employees to leverage their strengths, thereby reducing the adverse impact of ICT availability demands.