ABSTRACT
COVID-19 has contributed to a digitalization of communication, and in many cases a distribution of the workforce in organizations. In turn, this has affected knowledge management practices during the pandemic. In particular, this paper scrutinizes the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on onboarding practices in a large public organization. The research aimed to investigate employees' perceptions of the onboarding process during the COVID-19 pandemic, and how they expect "the new normal” workday to unfold. A total of nine employees were interviewed in a large public organization. We find that COVID-19 caused a certain degree of detachment from the workplace among the new employees, raised issues regarding communication, knowledge sharing and personal development, but also the uptake of an extensive and lasting use of digital administrative systems. The newcomers emphasize the importance of being physically present at work. The unanimous prediction of the post-COVID-19 work future was more flexibility regarding working at the office versus working from home, and a balance for newcomers between presence and e-learning when being onboarded. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic has sent many employees to home offices. Some employees enjoy their home office, while for various reasons others experience challenges working from home. Qualitative investigations show that new employees who have been recruited and hired during the COVID-19 pandemic can find life in the home office quite challenging. Despite adequate technological solutions that make it possible to perform the work tasks from home, these employees want to be able to physically attend at their workplace. Our data indicate that it is important that the company not only sees technology and digitalization as "hard core" skills, but that the digital and technological are woven into other aspects of organizational life, for example, structures, culture and social interaction. New employees need to feel that they are valued, and that the business wants to establish personal and social bonds that support the development of loyalty to the company and quality of the production. These are conditions that are often tied to informal learning in the workplace. Relational development and maintenance are vital for having newcomers to not only function in the digital arena, but also within the physical sphere at the workplace. © 2022, Academic Conferences and Publishing International Limited. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
The pandemic caused by the Covid-19 virus led to an extensive, and rather immediate, situation of a substantial number of employees being “forced” to work from home. Even if the technology was developed for enabling this “new” type of telework, not all employees or managers were prepared for this abrupt introduction. The pandemic represented a crisis that needed the resolving of Knowledge Management issues, while maintaining a reasonable level of production. This posed managerial issues, such as maintaining communication with the employees, as well as maintaining the focus on the production, customers and other stakeholders. Our paper shows how the management in two different organizations, one public and one private, perceived the crisis and its challenges, and how they handled the various stages of the crisis. The managers have experienced the issues described in the literature of telework, Work From Home (WFH), remote work and flexible work, such as resolving to empowering leadership (EL), installing the employees with trust and autonomy and recognizing the loss of informal communication. They struggle to acquire an overview of the employees’ well-being, at the same time as they experience a decrease in sick leaves and an increase in production. © The Authors, 2021. All Rights Reserved.