ABSTRACT
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, telework was an established discretionary practice with a considerable amount of research. However, the COVID-19 pandemic forced people who had never worked from home before to do so. Our two-wave descriptive investigation provides a historical snapshot of what approximately 400 teleworkers experienced in the first two to three months of the pandemic. We explored how this experience differed for those who had previously teleworked, those who had children in their home, and those who had supervisory responsibilities. The data exposed telework challenges and pandemic-specific challenges. The results support job crafting theories that teleworkers proactively implement strategies to adjust their boundaries and relationships to meet their need (Biron et al., Personnel Review, 2022). The data also revealed that employees were still struggling two months later, despite implementing strategies like self-care, taking breaks, and psychological reframing. This research provides detailed evidence of how pandemic-induced telework is not the same as traditional telework and some initial evidence of the pandemic-induced telework adjustment time period. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s41542-023-00151-1.
ABSTRACT
[...]BC provides job security at the organizational level, and therefore job security is contingent on BC. [...]helping organizations stay afloat will have a direct influence on the job security of their employees. Employee Reports of Policies and Previous Events by Industry Industry Total Business continuity only Telework policy only Both policies Previous event (yes) Construction 26 0 15% 0 42% Financial activities (finance and insurance, real estate and rental and leasing) 88 8% 7% 45% 53% Government (federal, state, and local) and public administration 94 4% 10% 44% 64% Health services (anything medical) 130 7% 11% 15% 39% Higher education 169 6% 5% 17% 47% Information (broadcasting, telecommunications) 26 4% 8% 15% 31% K–12 education 80 3% 6% 0 50% Leisure and hospitality (restaurants) 25 8% 4% 4% 20% Manufacturing 36 3% 14% 39% 69% Natural resources and mining (includes energy, oil & gas) 63 10% 3% 32% 68% Professional and business services (consulting) 159 1% 18% 21% 39% Religious, grant making, civic, professional, and similar organizational services 15 0 7% 7% 20% Trade, transportation, and utilities (wholesale, retail, transportation and warehousing) 65 11% 6% 14% 31% Other services (e.g., repair and maintenance, personal and laundry services;private households) 37 0 3% 3% 8% Nonprofit 9 0 11% 22% 33% Retail including fast food but not restaurants 18 22% 0 0 22% Information technology 25 0 12% 32% 40% Other 9 11% 22% 11% 56% We expected organizations that had experience with previous disruptions would be better prepared, so we also asked respondents whether their organization had to deal with a temporary shutdown/emergency in the past and, if so, to briefly describe the event and the amount of time that the organization was shut down. According to historical data collected between 1998 and 2002 by BC planning experts, power outages, hardware and software failures, and communication failures were more common than natural disasters (Hagg, 2002, as cited in Cerullo & Cerullo, 2004). [...]the government seeks feedback on this list and anticipates that it will evolve in response to feedback.