CZECH WORKERS' RECONSIDERATION OF WORK FROM HOME DURING COVID-19

Employers and employees are continuing to experiment with work-from-home patterns. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the "home office,” a practice that has begun to slow down the pandemic by decreasing physical contact, has become the norm in Czechia. To fill a research gap in the new work-from-home (WFH) field, this paper's authors were interested in researching whether there are significant differences in Czech employees' perception between working remotely and going back into the office. An online questionnaire with 150 respondents was designed to answer the research question and test seven hypotheses. Data results for H3, H4, H5, and H6 were statistically proven. There are significantly more employees working from home at their own request than working from home solely at the company's request. Furthermore, employees with a separate office at home work there significantly more often than those without an individual office. The most common motivations for working from home are the absence of commuting (47.33%), flexibility (43.33%), and fewer interruptions (26%). In this context, while the acceptance of working from home has increased during the pandemic, the results from the survey suggest that the pandemic only had an accelerating effect. Most employees (>50%) have not changed their attitudes towards working from home. Only slightly more than a third of employees rate working in a home office enjoyable. Based on the received data, the tolerance of working from home in Czechia does not seem to withstand a downturn flexibility trend. In other words, the Czech workforce does not prefer working from home to become a fixture in the future. © 2023, Institute of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. All rights reserved.

Sustainable Urban Mobility–Multimodality as a Chance for Greener Cities: Evidence from Slovakia

The importance of sustainable mobility has also been confirmed this year by the global pandemic of COVID-19, which has reduced the mobility of the population, thereby it has significantly reduced the level of dust, noise, and air pollution from the traffic in most European countries, including the Slovak Republic. App-based and shared-ride services have become highly popular and offer a level of convenience unseen before in the urban mobility systems all over the world. Individual car transport dominates at the expense of sustainable modes of transport in most Slovak cities. The city of Nitra is no exception, as the high number of trips during the peak-hours often leads to severe traffic congestion. One way to contribute to better condition is multimodality that allows urban residents to choose from a range of alternative travel choices. The aim of this paper is to assess the possibilities of multimodality in the context of short distance moves in the city of Nitra as well as to analyse how the change of mode choice variability affects the urban mobility behaviour. For the purpose of meet the objectives of this paper, a marketing research was conducted. The research findings show that the travel behaviour of Nitra’s citizens does not show the elements of sustainable urban mobility as the current infrastructure and overall opportunities are limited. Our findings point to significant differences in attitudes of residents from different urban areas. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

From face-to-face to face-to-display management: An online survey

Covid-19 forced managers out of cubicles into their homes – to a face-to-display environment. To provide an insight into managers’ needs during the pandemic, the authors completed a survey addressing 900 Austrian, Czech and Slovak managers. A range of useful findings was uncovered, especially on how the managers approached the transition to e-working as well as their future perspectives after the epidemic. The results show favourable scores for e-management, modern technology and business communication, while maintaining informal communication seems to be problematic. Our data suggest that e-managers have come forward with novel and innovative types of collaboration. The data also reveal calls for better support. The greatest fear of managers, apart from concerns about families, friends, colleagues and acquaintances, is that their salaries may be cut. In general, they feel they can work at home as effectively as in the office. Women cope better with e-working than their male colleagues;parents and the young generation experience challenges working from home. © 2021 GEA College – Faculty of Entrepreneurship. All rights reserved.