How composition of device-measured 24-h movement behaviors differs between office and remote workdays among hybrid workers?

BACKGROUND

There is limited evidence, especially from the post‑pandemic period, on how remote workdays differ from office workdays in 24‑h movement behaviors, that is, sleep, sedentary behavior (SED), light physical activity (LPA), and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA), and how time is reallocated when work shifts from the office to remote environment. This study examined differences in 24-h movement behaviors between office and remote workdays among hybrid workers.

METHODS

Overall, 97 university employees (84% women, mean age 42 ± 10 years) self-reported their time in bed (TiB) and wore a thigh-worn Fibion SENS sensor for 7 consecutive days, including at least one office and one remote workday (on average 2.4 office and 2.6 remote workdays). Sensor-identified body postures and activity types were further categorized into SED, LPA, and MVPA. The compositional linear mixed models were used to examine within-individual differences in 24-h movement behaviors between remote and office workdays, adjusting for sex, age, and body mass index (BMI). To aid further interpretation, time flow analysis was used to examine how time was redistributed between movement behaviors when changing the work environment from office to remote.

RESULTS

The ratio of active behaviors (LPA, MVPA) to passive behaviors (TiB, SED) was lower on a remote workday compared to office workday (p<.0001). This corresponded to 14 min more TiB, 44 min more SED, 37 min less LPA, and 21 min less MVPA (compared with office workday including 7.6 h TiB, 10.6 h SED, 5.0 h LPA, and 49 min MVPA). Moreover, the ratio of LPA to MVPA was higher on a remote workday when compared to an office workday (p<.0001). No significant differences were observed in the ratio of SED to TiB (p = .15). Mainly, the time spent standing and cycling was replaced with SED and TiB when changing the work environment from office to a remote.

CONCLUSIONS

Compared with office workdays, remote workdays included slightly longer TiB and substantially more SED, alongside lower physical activity. In particular, the higher SED and lower physical activity observed during remote work suggest that exploring feasible ways to compensate for these behavioral differences may be warranted.