Are we ready for remote work? preliminary results from portugal (original) (raw)
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Chapter 5 The New Normal: Remote Work after the COVID-19 Pandemic
GOOD GOVERNANCE AND RESILIENCE Sharing Best Practices and Challenges in Times of Crisis across Europe, 2022
The COVID-19 pandemic has initiated some of the most radical changes in the way people perform their jobs – the global lockdown in April 2020 and the request for physical distancing have pushed many employees out of their offices back to their homes. Although remote work has been on the rise since the 1970s, ever since the development of information-communication technology enabled knowledge workers around the globe to work away from the office as a telecommuter (Allen et al., 2015), for many employers the shift to remote work during the pandemic was like an experiment, or as International Labour Organization stated “the most extensive mass teleworking experiment in history” (ILO, 2020, p. 1). Many speculate that this has forever changed how and where people work and that it would become the “new normal” after the pandemic (Williamson et al., 2020). The idea of remote work was preceded by “telecommuting”, a concept that has been previously well-examined, but is now phased out and replaced by remote work. Remote working is defined as “a flexible work arrangement whereby workers work in locations, remote from their central offices or production facilities, where the worker has no personal contact with co-workers, but can communicate with them using technology" (Di Martino & Wirth, 1990, p. 530). In the literature, remote work has also been referred to as telework, telecommuting, distributed work, work from anywhere (WFA), flexible work arrangements, or lately work from home (WFH) (Allen et al., 2015). These names have been used as synonyms, although there are some differences in describing exactly where and how people work. Before the pandemic, remote work was mostly used for experts or managers at upper organizational levels, and often on a voluntary basis, while during the pandemic it become compulsory for different employee groups (Wang et al., 2021). Such work from anywhere; one's home, airport lounge, coffee house, or beach, during and after the pandemic became a topic of great interest, as it was a major change to the traditional office workplace. Researchers indicate that both managers (Ozimek, 2020) and employees (PWC, 2020) show a positive attitude to remote work. Many CEOs are tempted to implement remote work as a new paradigm of work even if its consequences for the social capital organizations have been developing for decades are unsure (Johnson & Suskewicz, 2020). Having increased numbers of employees working from home raises several questions: 1. What are the benefits of remote work for employers? 2. What are the benefits of remote work for employees? 3. What is the future of remote work after its excessive use during the COVID-19 pandemic? This chapter offers answers to these questions.
Proceeding of The International Seminar on Business, Economics, Social Science and Technology (ISBEST)
This qualitative study scrutinizes the profound dynamics and implications of remote work during and post the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the lived experiences of seven practitioners and researchers across diverse industries, the research unearths the multifaceted advantages, challenges, and peculiarities linked with remote work. Furthermore, the study investigates the interplay of various personality types with remote work and explores potential optimization methods for a post-pandemic world. This research, therefore, offers context-specific perspectives on remote work, thereby enriching academic discourse and providing guidance for future policy-making and successful remote work strategy implementation. The central aim of this research is to highlight the variations in remote work adoption across sectors, to investigate the relationship between diverse personality types and remote work, and to disclose the inherent benefits and drawbacks through practitioners' and researchers'...
THE ANNALS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ORADEA. ECONOMIC SCIENCES, 2021
The study on working from home has received growing interest from researchers over the last year, when the coronavirus pandemic turned many people into remote workers overnight. Romanians used teleworking much less than other Europeans before the pandemic, but now that they have been forced to work from home, their numbers have increased. Nevertheless, the crisis caused by the pandemic accelerates teleworking and reduces the digital differences between European countries. In Romania, many of the employees who work from home today have never had this experience before. They started this way of working without any prior training or preparation. The current study aims to find how working from home has evolved in terms of productivity in the last year, how employees’ perceptions of the advantages and disadvantages have changed, but also which are the long-term consequences of working from home. For this purpose, we analyzed the answers received after administering a questionnaire to the...
European Conference on Knowledge Management
This study presents the preliminary results of a European project (EURECA) being carried out in Italy and Portugal. One of its aims is to understand the role of remote work arising from the recent pandemic. The question that drove this research was: What is the role of remote work resulting from the emergent changes of the 2019 pandemic scenario in Portuguese and Italian organisations?. Case studies were used as the methodological approach, and the qualitative and inductive work directed the research, guided by the assumptions of practice-based theory. Thus, interviews were conducted with human resource managers and/or directors of companies/public institutions. So far, the sample comprises 16 organisations. The results show that before the crisis, which lasted about two years, most organisations did not engage in remote work. Afterwards, human resources practices had to adapt to this new reality, and hybrid work (a combination of remote and face-to-face work) is currently present i...
Six Key Advantages and Disadvantages of Working from Home in Europe during COVID-19
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
The number of people working from home (WFH) increased radically during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The purpose of this study was therefore to investigate people’s experiences of WFH during the pandemic and to identify the main factors of advantages and disadvantages of WFH. Data from 29 European countries on the experiences of knowledge workers (N = 5748) WFH during the early stages of lockdown (11 March to 8 May 2020) were collected. A factor analysis showed the overall distribution of people’s experiences and how the advantages and disadvantages of WFH during the early weeks of the pandemic can be grouped into six key factors. The results indicated that most people had a more positive rather than negative experience of WFH during lockdown. Three factors represent the main advantages of WFH: (i) work–life balance, (ii) improved work efficiency and (iii) greater work control. The main disadvantages were (iv) home office constraints, (v) work uncertainties and (vi) inadequa...
Remote working in the period of the COVİD-19
Journal of Psychological Research
Working remotely was an option for the employees before the Covid-19 pandemic. However, it's become a new working format and compulsory for the white collars to work at home. Even if it seems attractive at first look, the new format of working style actually has caused lots of problems especially on employees' mental health. The social life, private comfort zone, and working environment of the workers have mixed with each other and the equilibrium among them which gave certainty and predictability is totally broken now. Actually, the employees started to search for a new normal and balance in the pandemic. I am planning to focus on the new psychological problems that popped up in the pandemic with regard to remote working. Basing on four main feelings which are stress, anxiety, uncertainty, and loneliness, it is structured to focus on the problems which are the broken balance between work and family, the problem of workload and over-working, the future ambiguity about the ca...
SA Journal of Industrial Psychology
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced millions of employees to work from home as governments implemented lockdowns. Research purpose: This study examined the impact of working exclusively from home on employee engagement and experience, and determined beneficial and distracting factors. Motivation for the study: Remote working trends have risen steeply since the onset of COVID-19 and are unlikely to taper off soon. Organisations need to understand the impact of remote work when reconsidering working arrangements. Research approach/design and method: A dual-approach qualitative design was followed. The sample comprised 25 employees (N = 25) who were forced to work exclusively from home during COVID-19. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews. Main findings: Working from home for protracted periods rendered paradoxical outcomes. Employees could work effectively with improved employee engagement and experience, but there were challenges rendering adverse effects. The experienced benefits of working from home created expectations that this practice would continue in future, along with some office work. Practical/managerial implications: Organisations need to continue, though not exclusively, with work-from-home arrangements. The ideal ratio of remote work to office work was seen as two to three days per week. However, support and cultural practices would have to be put in place. Contribution/value-add: The COVID-19 lockdown provided a unique environment to study remote work. For the first time, employees and organisations were placed in a situation where they could experience working from home in a stark and compulsory form, devoid of idealistic fantasies or romanticism.
Working Amidst Covid-19: A Study Of Growth, Relatedness, and Existence among Remote Workers
With or without the pandemic, remote working is the new norm for many. Employees are enjoying the flexibility that remote working has to offer. Being happy then leads to better productivity for workers. Employers need to learn to trust employees more working remotely. They need to be prepared to face the difficulties that come with a "no border' world as the benefits of remote working can be better than the disadvantages. This study explores workplace needs for remote workers. 94 participants responded to the instrument. The instrument is a survey which has 4 sections. Section A has 4 items about the demographic profile. Section B has 10 items on Existence Needs through flexibility. Section C has 10 items on relatedness through work-life balance and section D has 10 items on growth through work performance. Finding reveals interesting finds on the workplace needs of employees who work from home.
Frontiers in Psychology
IntroductionIn response to the requirement of keeping social distance during the COVID-19 outbreak a lot of employees needed to change from a regular office to a home-office at short notice. The aim of the present study is to explore these employees' experiences and evaluate changes in their work situation during the pandemic.MethodA mixed-method design was used with panel data collected twice in an insurance company in Norway. The first dataset was collected in December 2020 (Time 1; N = 558), with a follow up in March 2021 (Time 2; N = 601).ResultsOur study indicated that employees' main reasons for working from home were to keep social distance, avoid contagion and protect their loved ones. Flexibility, timesaving and more time with family and friends were also motivators. Most employees reported that they had the necessary technical equipment to work from home and wanted more opportunity to use their home office in the future. General Linear Models (GLM) indicated that w...