Although we were primarily interested in how virtual work characteristics shape remote working experiences, one powerful individual factor (or personal trait) emerged from the interview dataselfdiscipline. Importantly, we also identified some findings that appear to be unique to the pandemic context. Workload and monitoring, moreover, will increase the costs of procrastination, which motivate them to concentrate on their tasks to avoid potential punishments (Steel, 2007). These locales have attracted many of the same type of younger, highly educated workers who can best work remotely. Liu, X.L. Accordingly, we adopted the third approach and conducted mixedmethods research to explore how of the workforce. Even for the same activity, the context in which a job is done matters. Participants were asked to generally describe their working experiences (i.e., work performance and wellbeing) during the period of working from home. We recruited participants via www.wjx.cn, a Chinese online data collection platform that is similar to Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) and Prolific Academic. Eaton, S.C. However, respondents were overwhelmingly White, even in nations where they are an ethnic minority. were cited as top benefits to employers by enabling a remote environment. Telecommutings differential impact on workfamily conflict: Is there no place like home? Individuals performance and wellbeing benefit from job autonomy, as those with higher job autonomy can balance work and rest and choose the most productive ways to do their work. More importantly, I don't think remote working can give me more personal time; instead, I feel that remote work increases my working time. (#39), While working from home, you can decide to work right now or procrastinate, which is associated with your workload. who cited virtual happy hours, and youve got a lot of video-based team building going on. Cyberslacking and the procrastination superhighway. Path Analysis Results for Testing Main Effects and Mediating Effects (Model 1). The virus has broken through cultural and technological barriers that prevented remote work in the past, setting in motion a structural shift in where work takes place, at least for some people. Wang, X.H. Job autonomy was also identified as beneficial for workfamily balance. characteristics , & DelaneyKlinger, K. This spotlights an acute need for upskilling and development, with organizations now responsible for teaching their employee base how to collaborate across time zones and borders in an increasingly remote world. Wang, L. For many workers, COVID-19s impact has depended greatly on one question: Can I work from home or am I tethered to my workplace? (2015). vivo codes and then grouped similar firstorder codes into a more abstract secondorder category. We identified that remote work challenges (theme 1), virtual work characteristics (theme 2), and individual factors (theme 3) were crucial for remote workers performance and wellbeing during the pandemic (Table (Table22). In an ongoing effort known as the University of Michigan Coworking Project, a team of researchers has used surveys, interviews and participatory observations to show that such spaces can create a sense of community without threatening remote workers prized autonomy (Garrett, L.E., et al., Organization Studies, Vol. , There is one topic that has emerged in recent yearsremote work or teleworking and its impact on the office. We recruited 39 fulltime employees (15 of them were from Beijing) who were required by their organizations to work from home until further notice. Coworking arrangements might be the ideal choice for employers and employees alike in the wake of the pandemic. Codes and categories emerging from the first interview were used to analyze the next interview transcript; newly identified codes in turn can help to refine, elaborate, and develop existing concepts and interrelationships. do Consequently, we argued that it is necessary to conduct exploratory research to identify the major challenges remote workers were struggling with in this unique context, and the role of virtual work characteristics in shaping these challenges. Rubino, C. interference (HWI) and worktohome Participants whose organization provided online platforms to boost social interactions among workers usually reported less loneliness. is, which Carlson, D.S. However, results from Study 2 did not support this argument; instead, given the negative effects of monitoring on employee wellbeing, it appears an unhelpful and potentially costly managerial practice. Trist, E.L. But the onus for making remote work a success does not fall solely on employers. The rest reported . In contrast, Amazon recently signed leases for a total of 900,000 feet of office space in six cities around the United States, citing the lack of spontaneity in virtual teamwork. , & Those include the effects of increasing the extent of telecommuting, best practices for managers and the relative effectiveness of various communication methods, particularly video, says Golden. If it is not during the meeting, I can have a short break, around ten to thirty minutes, and then continue to work. , 6000 In a remote work situation, managers must rely more heavily on results. In what follows, we discuss each of the three approaches in more detail. Need an additional 10 pages to be continued, with the main part of the continuation added in the discussion section. , Can you describe the potential factors that had influenced your work effectiveness and wellbeing? , A shift to 15 to 20 percent of workers spending more time at home and less in the office could have profound impacts on urban economies. This was to some extent the point of our researchthe COVID19 outbreak provides a unique opportunity to address theoretical gaps and expand theory. (2016). Research About Books Teaching Speaking Contact COVID-19 and Remote Work: An Early Look at US Data. Antonakis, J. Therefore, people with higher social support will experience less workhome conflict. Professionals on Upwork rate clients Rating is 4.9 out of 5. , Individuals need to actively participate in such interactions, either by initiating them, or by consciously joining in to such an activity arranged by someone else. Crime scene analysts and workers who analyze consumer trends both engage in what O*NET describes as getting, processing, analyzing, documenting and interpreting information, but the former must go to the location of, say, a murder while the latter can do his work in front of a computer at home. or to This cross-sectional estimate combined with the aggregate shift to remote work implies that remote work raised aggregate U.S. house prices by 15.1 percent. In addition, because of the largely voluntary nature of prior remote working, in which people choose to work remotely at their own discretion, some of the previous findings on remote working have suffered from a selection bias (Lapierre et al., 2016). Remote work is an arrangement in which an employee's official duty station is an approved alternative worksite. Bosua, R. (2007). are concerned about their ability to collaborate effectively. of people are satisfied with the level of productivity, teamwork across organizations is struggling. (80%) The CMC interactivity model: How interactivity enhances communication quality and process satisfaction in leanmedia groups, Journal of Management Information Systems. 38% , they This cross-sectional estimate combined with the aggregate shift to remote work implies that remote work raised aggregate U.S. house prices by 15.1 percent. A sample item is During the period of working from home, I felt emotionally drained from my work. Life satisfaction was measured by a threeitem scale adapted from Diener et al. We are experimenting with display styles that make it easier to read articles in PMC. , In addition to the topdown approach (i.e., redesigning remote work), individuals can proactively craft their jobs (Tims & Bakker, 2010; Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001; Zhang & Parker, 2019). (2018). Survey: Todays workers seek wellness benefits, flexibility, and career-development opportunities. In sum, given the uniqueness and novelty of the pandemic, we should explore and examine the work design theory in the current extreme context, including what virtual Such a shift of research focus essentially requires a systematic understanding of the potential changed nature of the work itself in the different context. In Study 1, from semistructured interviews with Chinese employees working from home in the early days of the pandemic, we identified four key remote work challenges (workhome interference, ineffective communication, procrastination, and loneliness), as well as four virtual work characteristics that affected the experience of these challenges (social support, job autonomy, monitoring, and workload) and one key individual difference factor (workers selfdiscipline). (2005). Emotional exhaustion was predicted by each remote working challenge, including procrastination, WHI, HWI, and loneliness. Pichler, S. Participants were from a wide range of industries including IT (26.6%), education (15.5%), and manufacturing (12.5%). Welcome to the Research remote, part-time, freelance, and flexible jobs page! 9% Thats a hard transition for a lot of people to make.. We strive to provide individuals with disabilities equal access to our website. What started at the beginning of the millennium as an. Is remote work good for productivity? Interestingly, disciplined and lessdisciplined people evaluated the impact of some aspects of work design differently. Procrastination is common in the officebased workplace (Khnel et al., 2016) and it can become even worse when people work from home. The impact of that will reverberate through the restaurants and bars, shops, and services businesses that cater to office workers and will put a dent in some state and local tax revenues. Proposition 4: The effects of social support, monitoring, and workload on procrastination will be stronger for lessdisciplined employees. More importantly, social support is conducive to overcome loneliness. We find that remote work potential is concentrated in a few sectors. We are no longer asking if remote can scale now, we are seeking to understand how, what the challenges are, and whats next. Dropbox is redesigning the way the world works. We discuss key implications of our findings next. However, largely due to the fact that remote working has always been a luxury among a small proportion of workers, as we mentioned earlier, selfdiscipline as a desirable attribute was more used merely as a criterion to select the right people as remote workers (Baruch, 2000). Moodys Analytics predicts that the office vacancy rate in the United States will climb to 19.4 percent, compared to 16.8 percent at the end of 2019, and rise to 20.2 percent by the end of 2022. (42%) Accordingly, we argue that: Proposition 2: Employees with higher levels of job autonomy will experience less workhome interference during the period of working from home, and, therefore, will have higher levels of performance and wellbeing. As teams become more virtual, it may be impossible for a single person to direct an entire project, Kozlowski says. Notably, flexible work arrangements such as remote working are relatively new in China. If the workload is not heavy, you can have a slow work pace. (#3), Im not a selfdisciplined person. Proposition 3(a) suggested the indirect effects of workload and monitoring on individuals via reducing procrastination, but this proposition was not supported by our data (Table (Table55). Remote work thus risks accentuating inequalities at a social level. Bapuji, H. Ashford, S.P. In addition, the nuanced effects of work characteristics on individuals are unique in the pandemic context. Often, managers use busyness, working late or other proxies to infer that an employee is effective, says Jeanne Wilson, PhD, a professor of organizational behavior at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. (2007) identified a range of motivational, knowledge, social, and physical work characteristics as predicting desirable employee outcomes (e.g., better performance and wellbeing, positive psychological states, job satisfaction, etc.). Specifically, engaging in remote work practices can significantly change job demands, autonomy, and relational aspects of work, which in turn influence employee outcomes. Hambley, L. We identified the feeling of loneliness as an important challenge among remote workers during the pandemic. In a context wherein remote working becomes the normal and everyone started working remotely, selfdiscipline is no longer just a selection criterion but becomes something that every remote worker strives to gain or improve on. A work design perspective, A conceptual framework for the study of work and mental health. What is hybrid? , & (2016). McFarland, L.A. An employee can write reports or articles from a home office, but interpersonally sensitive tasks that may involve nonverbal communicationconducting a quarterly performance review with a subordinate, for exampletend to go more smoothly when handled face to face, says Golden. , & Just over a third , & Theoretical framework identified from Study 1. Individuals who receive considerable social support at work will suffer less from loneliness, because social support can bring desirable online social interactions to meet their needs for belonging (Bavik et al., 2020). Health-care company Aetna, for example, has a decade-old remote work program that screens, trains and supports teleworkersa group that now makes up around half of the companys workforce. Applying the work design perspective to our investigation on the remote working practice during the pandemic, we expect to observe a powerful role of virtual work characteristics (i.e., work characteristics of one's remote work) in shaping working experiences. , & We polled 1,153 employees, and 52% . WJX has a large participant pool with 2.6 million participants from China, which allowed us to recruit niche samples on demand. , Companies are pondering how best to deliver coaching remotely and how to configure workspaces to enhance employee safety, among a host of other thorny questions raised by COVID-19. , Germeys, L. Teleworkers operating from a home office lack the physical and psychological separation between these two domains that exists in a traditional office setting, says Golden. In a study of 273 teleworkers from sales, marketing, accounting, engineering and other departments at one organization, Gajendran and Golden found that employees whose jobs were highly complex but did not require significant collaboration or social support performed better when telecommuting than when working in the companys office (Journal of Business and Psychology, Vol. Bakker, A.B. (2019). , & Su, Y. However, our study shows that online social interactions are not necessarily sufficient for reducing loneliness; a psychological pain of perceived relational deficiencies in the workplace (Ozcelik & Barsade, 2018; Wright & Silard, 2020). Pair that with 34% To examine the mediating effects (Propositions 14), we first estimated a pathanalytical model (Model 1) without selfdiscipline as a moderator. Thus, we controlled for these variables while testing our proposed model. , Bond, M.H. Even in Europe, only around 2 percent of employees teleworked mainly from home in 2015 (Eurofound, 2017). Lautsch, B.A. Based on the work design perspective, we now integrate the above findings into a theoretical model to explain how virtual work characteristics matter in the current remote work context (see Figure Figure11). In particular, given that working from home is becoming a daytoday practice in many organizations, we recommend future researchers conduct daily diary studies to investigate the intraindividual processes of remote working. Sytch, M. Nearly 3 in 5 knowledge workers (57 percent) say the option to work remotely is one of the perks they'd most prefer to be offered by an employer. To date, in the remote working literature, flexible work arrangements are predominantly framed as a useful policy for balancing work and personal life. Second, we considered the shared properties/dimensions among firstorder in Lapierre, L.M. , & Data collection was completed when we reached theoretical saturation; that is, we were not able to identify a new category/theme from the interviews (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). Kaduk, A. brynjolfsson.com . vivo codes (i.e., words, sentences, or paragraphs in participant's language) were identified in this step. But just 19 percent of respondents to the most recent survey said they expected employees to work three or more days remotely. The massive global shift to remote work since the pandemic began has led to some upsides: More flexibility, no commute, more comfortable pants. Fourteen participants indicated procrastination as a challenge whilst working from home. The COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns have been a huge lesson in organizational agility. We then present our mixedmethods research to explore how virtual work characteristics shape working experiences in the unique context wrought by the pandemic. For instance, being socially connected with colleagues may have different meanings during the COVID19 lockdown, in which most social gatherings are not allowed, as opposed to being connected in the normal workplace. Can you describe your work, life, or general psychological experiences during the period of working from home? Browse 254 open jobs and land a remote Research Paper Writing job today. This topic is about evaluation and remote work. The key implication from these studies is that managers should provide remote working for appropriate jobs and workers (Golden & Veiga, 2005). If there is no external pressure [monitoring], I will be very indolent.. 1 in 3 As shown in Table Table4,4, social support had a positive effect on performance via lower procrastination and HWI; social support had a negative effect on emotional exhaustion via lower procrastination, WHI, and loneliness; and social support had a positive effect on life satisfaction via lower WHI and loneliness. Our results indicate that the shift to firm-wide remote work increased unscheduled call hours but decreased total meetings and call hours by 5% of their pre-pandemic level. Job autonomy means employees can decide when and how to accomplish their tasks. Poor communication will not only hinder performance, as suggested in our research, but can also impair professional relationships (Camacho et al., 2018) and increase work stress (Day et al., 2012). would recommend remote working to a friend and The third concern is the risk to diversity in the workplace. In the past, we might have to prepare lessons until midnight, and then we got up early to work. Taking their classical study as an example, based on a sample of 273 telecommuters and their supervisors, Golden and Gajendran (2019) found that the positive relationship between the extent of remote working (i.e., the percentage of time spent on remote working per week) and supervisorrated job performance was more pronounced for those working in complex jobs, those with lower task interdependence, and those receiving lower social support. More people working remotely means fewer people commuting between home and work every day or traveling to different locations for work. This approach lends itself to identifying what sort of work is most suited to remote working. Scholars in this stream of literature are interested in how virtual work characteristics shape work experiences within the context of remote work. Specifically, we regressed employee outcomes on all remote working challenges, virtual work characteristics, selfdiscipline, and control variables. As Baruch (2000) articulated, organizations and managers should find new ways to manage, develop innovative career paths, and put in place proper support mechanisms for teleworkers (p. 46). work 2020 was an unprecedented year with many people working from home. In these cases, leadership functions need to be shifted to the team itself, so members with specific expertise can drive problem-solving in various areas.. A sixitem scale developed by Carlson et al. 62, No. address). Veiga, J.F. For example, Marlow et al.s (2017) theoretical framework suggested that interdependence and task complexity could influence communication in virtual teams; and Blanger et al. Van Triest, S.P. For instance, while teaching has moved to remote work during the pandemic, parents and teachers alike say that quality has suffered. Nahrgang, J.D. Employers may see these outcomes as positive, translating into higher productivity and better workplace citizenship. Teleworkers also appear to work more. of Remote workers may also shift consumption patterns. The meaning of respect hasnt changed, but leaders should adapt their approach for remote employees. 38% Then in 2020 with the arrival of COVID-19 and the conversation about remote work and working from home sped as people examined the pandemics implications on the immediate nature of work both in the short and long-term. The first two approaches have provided valuable evidence to evaluate and design remote working policy prior to the pandemic. Paquet, S. Morgeson, F.P. Remote working is of course not confined to individual teams or departments and is equally valuable for collaborations among multiple parties, which were common long before web-based tools and other aids to interaction became available. Altogether, we propose that: Proposition 1: Employees who receive more social support from work will experience less procrastination, workhome interference, and loneliness during the period of working from home, and, therefore, will report higher levels of performance and wellbeing. Bentley, T.A. Telecommuting, control, and boundary management: Correlates of policy use and practice, job control, and workfamily effectiveness. Table of Contents. In other words, workrelated demands caused by workload and monitoring will hinder employees to fulfill their family responsibilities, which in turn eventually hurt their wellbeing (GrantVallone & Donaldson, 2001). Wang, B. Often working at speed and on various fronts at once, employers have had to adapt work premises to protect the safety of employees and the public, adapt to changes in customer demands, with new markets developing overnight and others falling off a cliff, make redundancies and . With nine months of experience under their belts, more employers are seeing somewhat better productivity from their remote workers. For example, REI plans to sell off its new corporate headquarters before even moving in and instead begin operating from satellite offices. Free Remote Work Essay Topic Generator. Remote work raises a vast array of issues and challenges for employees and employers. Social support Procrastination Emotional exhaustion, 3. reimagine work white paper: managing the changing talent expectations. Narayanan, J. ), Worklife flexibility for whom? However, during these days when I am working from home, my supervisors and colleagues may come to me whenever they wanted something done, and you have to provide realtime feedback. This paper, therefore, seeks to analyze what choices organizations are left with in regards to the future of work by analyzing Solomon & Cartier and Schley's articles. really Although the recent American Community Survey (2017) showed that the number of US employees who worked from home at least half of the time grew from 1.8 million in 2005 to 3.9 million in 2017, remote working at that time was just 2.9 percent of the total US workforce. Gloet, M. The task force has created guidelines for the companys managers and employees who telework, drawing on research on work-family conflict (Greer, T.W., & Payne, S.C., The Psychologist-Manager Journal, Vol. A sample item is The time spent in virtual communications was efficiently used., We used a threeitem scale adapted from Williams and Anderson (1991) to measure task performance in remote working. , & Our final sample consisted of 522 participants, with 271 being female (51.9%). At the personal level, team members who disclose personal information, such as a favorite television show or the birth of a child, also build stronger connections and more trust. Home alone: The role of technology in telecommuting. , Increased productivity , Teams with a strong group identityfor instance, those that have unified against a competing team or organizationtend to have more perceived proximity, Wilson says. Indeed, Facebook and Twitter have announced that their employees can choose to work from home forever after the pandemic. , & Anderson, S.E. Individuals sometimes procrastinate for a relief from stress (Lavoie & Pychyl, 2001; Wan et al., 2014). The company's tutors deliver on-demand, one-on-one academic support in 200 subjects. of Fuller, R.M. 2, 2017) and other dimensions of the remote work arrangement. Our analysis finds that the potential for remote work is highly concentrated among highly skilled, highly educated workers in a handful of industries, occupations, and geographies. Research from diverse theoretical perspectives on work design has generally converged to suggest that when work is designed in such a way as to result in particular work characteristics, then it will also generate wellbeing, job satisfaction, performance, and other such positive outcomes. GitLabs Remote Work Report captures this seminal moment in history. Kossek, E.E. saying that they would recommend working remotely to a friend. Full paper here. If you cannot see others reactions, you cannot get your points across. Received 2020 Jun 14; Revised 2020 Sep 28; Accepted 2020 Oct 5. (2020). (2018). Flexible work designs and employee wellbeing: Examining the effects of resources and demands, Job crafting: Towards a new model of individual job redesign. Our participants suggested that virtual work characteristics usually influenced their work effectiveness and wellbeing in an indirect manner, that is, via shaping their experienced challenges in remote working. This feeling is indescribable. (#36), I was more productive with lesson preparation at home, because we can schedule time by ourselves. Some forms of remote work are likely to persist long after COVID-19 is conquered. experiences. , & , & Importantly, participation in global value chains increased traders' vulnerability to shocks suffered by trading partners, but it also reduced their vulnerability to domestic shocks. Our results imply a fundamentals-based explanation for the recent . However, our research shows that remote workers were struggling with workhome interference as a major challenge, and workhome interference in this context cannot even be mitigated by job autonomy. (2003). (Ed.) The IWG 2019 Global Workspace Survey found that 3 out of 4 workers around the globe consider flexible working to be "the new normal." Social support Procrastination Selfreported performance, 2. On the other hand, it might also be due to the unique nature of homework conflict in this study. Making things happen: A model of proactive motivation, Automation, algorithms, and beyond: Why work design matters more than ever in a digital world. In emerging economies, employment is skewed toward occupations that require physical and manual activities in sectors like agriculture and manufacturing. Remote working arrangements are generally characterized by physical distance between the individual and/or group members or leaders. Golden, T.D. Due to the physical nature of most of their work activities, occupations such as transportation, food services, property maintenance, and agriculture offer little or no opportunity for remote work. For instance, managers measured your performance in remote working to make sure you are doing a good job. (#29), Im getting so many phone and video calls. The first approach builds on the assumption that the nature of the work will not be influenced by remote working practices and, therefore, one's work characteristics could be considered as criteria that managers use to design remote working policy.