The impact of leadership on employee well-being: on-site compared to working from home.

BACKGROUND: The Covid-19 pandemic has brought significant changes to the way people work and there are several reasons to believe that working from home will become more common in the future. Yet more knowledge is needed on whether the effectiveness of leadership differs if the work is performed remotely compared to on-site work. PURPOSE: The aim of this study is to examine the place of work as a moderator for the effectiveness of leadership on employee well-being. METHOD: A survey was answered by 364 white-collar workers, employed by a larger Swedish municipality, who because of the covid-19-pandemic were offered to work from home. RESULTS: The employees working in their regular office perceived having more sufficient work equipment. No other differences were found in the investigated variables. Supportive leadership was associated with all investigated well-being variables in the hypothesised directions. Place of work did not moderate the relationship between Support leadership and the investigated well-being outcomes (Job satisfaction, Stress, General well-being). CONCLUSION: This study shows that there are few differences between employees working from home or working on-site during the Covid-19 pandemic. The supportive leadership of the closest manager seem to be important for well-being regardless of the worksite.

Laws, Policies, and Collective Agreements Protecting Low-wage and Digital Platform Workers During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, this commentary describes and compares shifting employment and occupational health social protections of low-wage workers, including self-employed digital platform workers. Through a focus on eight advanced economy countries, this paper identifies how employment misclassification and definitions of employees were handled in law and policy. Debates about minimum wage and occupational health and safety standards as they relate to worker well-being are considered. Finally, we discuss promising changes introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic that protect the health of low-wage and self-employed workers. Overall, we describe an ongoing "haves" and a "have not" divide, with on the one extreme, traditional job arrangements with good work-and-health social protections and, on the other extreme, low-wage and self-employed digital platform workers who are mostly left out of schemes. However, during the pandemic small and often temporary gains occurred and are discussed.