The changing nature of employment and work causes new demands in society, such as work-life balance, that has emerged in labor relations as an important aspect of a healthy work environment. In this context, Best Companies to Work for are a reference in caring for their staff, and it is well known that new generations—that frequently use the Internet to be informed—are making their decisions as job seekers by checking and comparing corporate websites. In order to learn from the best companies, but also to discover what could be improved by identifying the gaps, this study observes the current work-life balance practices in the last Best Companies to Work for awarded by Fortune. The main contribution of this work is the development of a weighted index for benchmarking purposes considering the preferences of new generations at work. The study demonstrates that the best companies still report low levels of work-life balance information. The main implication drawn from the study, due the requirements of new generations at work and the rapidly emerging field of e-recruiting, is the need for human resource departments to fit work and personal life in a fluid way, while maintaining a healthy balance. It is also recommended for companies to improve their disclosure of work-life practices on line for attracting talent from Millennials and Generation Z.

This paper explores technostress and its dimensions, assessing the relationship with possible negative effects in the individual, social and professional sphere. The study uses a self-reported approach of undergraduate students in Spain (n = 337), forced to follow their academic life by using technology comprehensively because of social distancing, as a public health action necessary to reduce the spread of COVID-19. The analysis, based on the exploration of a system of archetypes of the use of social networks, presents insights into contemporary technostress management as a new approach that can suppose opportunities for the optimization of prevention plans. Pearson’s correlation coefficients and structural equation modeling based on partial least squares (SEM-PLS) were the methods used for achieving the goals. The results reveal valid and reliable measures where technostress has a high impact on the individual sphere of students and there is a significant relationship between the type of user and techno-anxiety. The conclusions point to the imperative for developing a deeper understanding of technostress by archetypes, in both a higher education context (as antecedent) and the world of work, in an irreversible move towards a digital economy.

Despite the rapid growth of the World Wide Web in the last several years few studies have appeared in the literature assessing Web sites’ efficacy. This paper provides an original Web Assessment Index, focused on four categories: accessibility, speed, navigability and content. The scoring mechanism is explained and the index is applied to assess the Web sites of all Spanish universities. Finally, conclusions and implications derived from this study are presented.

Gamification is being increasingly applied in various contexts, including higher education, to enhance student engagement and academic performance. Despite the growing body of empirical research on this topic, questions remain regarding its effectiveness in improving tangible academic outcomes. This study explored the impact of gamification on 1056 university students in Business Management through two controlled quasi-experimental settings. Official academic performance indicators were used to assess the influence of gamification on results. The findings demonstrate significant positive effects of gamification on all performance indicators. However, no significant changes were observed in attendance rates, as the percentage of non-attending students remained unchanged under both experimental conditions. These results contribute to the understanding of how gamification can shape academic outcomes and highlight areas for further investigation in educational settings.

This study analyses the emotional exhaustion of students inhigher education, derived from the extremely technology-relatedstrain associated to the current COVID-19 pandemic in a conservation of resources’ approach. Technostress, as source of emotional exhaustion, was investigated in a sample of 333 students in a medium size public university in Spain. Data was collected in May 2020, during the COVID lockdown. After literature review, a structural model was developed, linking technostress with emotional exhaustion. Results confirm the expected cause-effect relationships. In addition, the study reveals two mediator variables that must be considered when managing students′ suffering, perceived stress and intrapersonal conflicts. This study contributes to the academic literature in the field of managing and mitigating suffering. They do so by providing both new knowledge and empirical evidence on the effects of technostress in the new generations that will soon join the working life.