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In the evolving digital work landscape, where cyberloafing has become a notable challenge, this study aims to investigate the mechanisms through which organizations can effectively reduce such behaviors. Specifically, the research explores the role of employee adaptability in mitigating cyberloafing, taking into account the influences of temporal leadership, teamwork attitudes, and competitive work environments.

Utilizing the broaden-and-build theory and the job demands-resources (JD-R) model, we analyzed data from 245 employees through structural equation modeling (SEM) to investigate how various factors influence cyberloafing.

The results indicate that employee adaptability significantly mitigates cyberloafing and serves as a mediating factor between temporal leadership, teamwork attitudes, and the impact of competitive work environments on cyberloafing. Temporal leadership and teamwork attitudes positively correlate with increased adaptability, thereby reducing cyberloafing. Conversely, competitive work environments, while slightly enhancing adaptability, substantially increase cyberloafing.

The study contributes new insights into the dynamics of cyberloafing, emphasizing the critical roles of adaptability, teamwork attitudes, and temporal leadership in reducing such behaviors. It underscores the need for organizations to foster a supportive culture that minimizes competitive pressures and promotes teamwork and leadership strategies conducive to high productivity and minimal cyberloafing. This research offers practical implications for designing workplace strategies aimed at boosting productivity and curbing undesirable online behaviors during work hours.

Given the concept of loafing at work and its IT equivalent, cyberloafing, we propose the concept of BallotLoafing to metaphorically describe a similar phenomenon occurring during political elections. BallotLoafing describes how employees’ attention can become absorbed by discussions, debates or following news related to an election, shifting focus away from work tasks. This study aims to investigate the effects of attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control on employees’ intention to engage in BallotLoafing behaviors through the lens of the theory of planned behavior. Additionally, the research explores the moderating role of political belief in the relationship between these variables.

The statistical population of this research was the employees of public organizations in Isfahan, Iran. We conducted a two-wave lagged survey. The data were collected during the 2024 elections for the 12th convocation of the Islamic Parliament of Iran. This study used structural equation modeling to examine the proposed model.

Employees’ attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control positively impacted employees’ intention to engage in BallotLoafing. In addition, behavioral intention positively impacted actual BallotLoafing behaviors. Finally, the results showed that the political belief did not play a moderating role in the relationship between these variables.

Managing or reducing BallotLoafing involves addressing the key factors that influence such behavior: attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control.

This research introduces a novel concept: BallotLoafing, which captures employee distraction during elections.