How does working from home during COVID-19 affect what managers do? Evidence from time-use studies

Our study examines the effects of the sudden shift to WFH on three specific aspects of managerial work: how managers allocate their time across different activities;whether the incidence and length of different activities (e.g., meetings) changed;and whether the changes in time allocation and activity structure varied according to the type of organization employing the manager. We use this evidence to inform and inspire the discussion of two questions related to the development of human-computer interaction (HCI) technology. In particular: 1) can HCI technology reduce (or even eliminate) the possible additional burden that managers experience due to the shift to working from home? And 2) can HCI technology help take advantage of opportunities for improving managerial productivity and wellbeing that are made possible by this shift? Our findings indicate that the forced transition to WFH created by the COVID pandemic was associated with a drastic reduction in commuting time. Managers did not reallocate the "extra" time to personal activities, rather reallocating the time gained from commuting toward more time spent in meetings. These results suggest an attempt to to recoup some of the extemporaneous interactions that typically happen in the office. Furthermore, managers employed by larger organizations - i.e. managers whose typical interactions are likely to be more complex and include a broader number and variety of people - were disproportionately affected by WFH arrangements during the COVID pandemic. We find that this group ended up spending more time in work-related meetings, and less time in personal activities, relative to managers employed by small/medium-sized organizations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Virtual nature experiences and mindfulness practices while working from home during COVID-19: Effects on stress, focus, and creativity.

In this study, we focus on the impact of daily virtual nature experiences combined with mindfulness practices on remote workers' creativity, stress, and focus over an extended period (9 weeks) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our results show a positive effect of virtual reality (VR) nature experience on increasing focus and reducing stress. When VR nature and mindfulness practices were combined, we also found an increase in convergent thinking task performance. Our findings demonstrate that 10-minute daily exposure to VR nature and mindfulness practices could compensate for some of the adverse effects of working remotely by improving some aspects of workers' well-being and creativity.

SIGCHI Conferences: Online

Kun et al. focuses on the online SIGCHI Conferences. The Covid-19 pandemic made physical conferences impossible, thrusting them all into the world of organizing and attending virtual conferences. Almost overnight, SIGCHI volunteers found themselves asking: How can we continue to build inclusive, supportive, and productive communities of researchers and practitioners with fully virtual conferences? These are difficult questions, and important for them to address as a community. They discussed them at multiple venues, including at SIGCHI panels with 2020 conference leaders. They learned that online conferences present three prominent roadblocks.