Within- and between-person changes in work practice and experiences due to COVID-19: Lessons learned from employees working from home, hybrid working, and working at the office

Abstract

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 work-family balance and workload were the same across age, gender, and worksites. Women and employees working from home reported more fear of being infected by COVID-19 at work. Younger employees reported experiencing less social contact with colleagues than normal during the pandemic, compared to the older employees. Overall, employees working at home were more positive toward digital solutions and digital meetings than those at the office. Repeated measures MANOVA showed that the work motivation and digital competence decreased over time for all worksites. Productivity increased for home-office employees but decreased for the hybrid and work-office employees.DiscussionThis paper contributes to knowledge of employees' experiences with different worksite solutions, which will be useful for anticipating employees experience in the future with more hybrid work.

Working from home during and beyond the coronavirus pandemic: Employee reflections from the Czech Republic

“…The most needed skills and conditions to work from home productively stated by survey employees included time management skills and communication skills, on the one hand, and quality communication channels and regular social interactions, on the other hand. These perceived skills and conditions related to WFH are confirmed by other research studies which demonstrate their positive and negative effects on the productivity of homeworkers (compare Innstrand et al, 2022;Korican Lajtman, 2023;Seinsche et al, 2023).…”

“…These findings indicated that the productivity of homeworkers may be potentially challenged by family matters, including child care. Innstrand et al (2022) surveyed employees of one insurance company in Norway to learn about their experience with WFH during the COVID-19 pandemic. They used two samples of responses collected in December 2020 (N = 558) and March 2021 (N = 601).…”