ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the shift from traditional office setups to remote working, driven by information and communication technology advancements. As a result, the metaverse concept is gaining popularity in modern organizations, allowing users to create avatars for virtual work, socializing, and other activities. While its corporate adoption is rising, managers must acquire the necessary skills to integrate and utilize the technology successfully. However, technological progress can be disruptive, making it essential to weigh the benefits and drawbacks.Methodology: This proposal aims to investigate metaverse skills that managers require for remote working using virtual realities, assessing the positive and negative risks for employees and management within business organizations. Using secondary data from reliable online databases, a qualitative research approach was used to understand the pros and cons of the metaverse and remote work.Purpose: The study examines the essential skills managers need to adopt metaverse virtual realities for remote working and how employees and organizations can implement it while maintaining a positive work environment. Keywords such as metaverse, remote working, virtual reality, and information and communication technology are critical. As technology evolves, managers and organizations must consider the metaverse's inherent advantages and disadvantages to ensure a successful transition to remote.Research Questions: What are the necessary skills needed by managers towards the adoption of metaverse virtual realities for remote working? How can employees and organizations adapt to implementing metaverse for remote work and sustain a positive work environment? © 2023 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
This book is a collection of narrations about the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic from different countries collected within the Workgroup 2ATLAS of the COST action CA18214 ‘The Geography of New Working Spaces and the Impact on the Periphery'. This conclusive chapter comprehends the previous chapters and offers a comparative view regarding the effects on Coworking Spaces (CS), Governmental Measurements to curb the Pandemic, Effects on Work, Remote/Telework Work, Working-From-Home (WFH), Effects on Commuting, Transportation Mods and Services, Effects on the Housing, Place of Residence, Office and Real Estate Market, Effects on Tourism, Effects on Urban Planning. The final section of this chapter draws attention to the direct and indirect effects of coworking spaces. Direct effects on individuals and indirect effects as living-, work- and build-environment, taking into account space and economy, environment (energy) and urban planning. This book contributes to a fast-growing amount of literature on new working spaces, especially coworking spaces. Further empirical studies should be conducted to create evidence as a solid foundation for policies at the EU, national and subnational levels. © 2023, The Author(s).
ABSTRACT
Covid-19 has been one of the most disruptive pandemics to date. Among the other aspects of disruption, it also disrupted the way people work in organizations. Many of the organizations surrendered their offices for good. However, there are many ill effects of these unconventional work practices also. This research study aims to explore the perception of the employees towards the adoption of Virtual and flexible work practices. The study uses a conjoint analysis approach on different possible Work Practice Profiles, that specify the nature of work (Virtual, offline, or hybrid), nature of work schedule (flexible, or fixed), nature of ownership (individual, or team), and length of working hours (8.5 hours, or 9.5 hours or 10.5 hours). The study finds that the number of working hours is the most important criterion for the employees followed by mode of work, responsibility, and work schedule. © 2023 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
Nurses were omnipresent during the COVID-19 pandemic, caring for patients in the ICU, helping with triage, working with children in schools, administering vaccines, running command centers, and so much more. The challenges have been formidable, but nurses stepped up to the plate, supported by nurse leaders. In this chapter, several nurse leaders reflect on lessons learned during this pandemic, including the critical importance of healthy work environments and the need for solidarity among nurses and all healthcare providers who make care for COVID-19 patients and programs of prevention possible. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
Purpose: Anchored with turbulence emanating from the COVID-19 pandemic, the work environment has become more stressful with debilitating effects on the well-being of employees. Employees rely on varying means of coping including drug abuse. However, the association between drug abuse and suicidal thoughts among employees in Ghana is unknown. Therefore, this study sought to examine the relationship between drug abuse and suicidal thoughts among employees in Ghana. Design/methodology/approach: In a cross-sectional survey, this study purposively sampled 470 employees from three sectors of the Ghanaian economy (telecommunication, banking and manufacturing). The data was analysed using the multivariate analysis (MANOVA), Pearson's r test and hierarchical regression. Findings: Analysis of data revealed a positive relationship between drug abuse and suicidal thoughts, indicating that drug abuse is a risk factor for suicidal thoughts. Besides, it was also revealed that banking sector employees have a higher risk of having suicidal thoughts than employees in the telecommunication and manufacturing sectors. Practical implications: Managers of organisations need to redesign work to embrace the challenging circumstances brought about as a result of COVID-19 and post-COVID implications. The work environment needs to be more supportive to shield employees from the physical and emotional demands of work during and after this period of the COVID-19 pandemic. Today than ever, investment in the implementation of employee-assisted programmes (EAPs) and employee well-being programmes (EWPs) to equip employees with the needed skills to cope with stressful conditions has been more than justified. Originality/value: From a broader perspective, this study identifies drug abuse as a key risk factor for suicidal thoughts among employees, thereby highlighting the fact that smoking cessation programs and drug management therapies are an integral part of well-being programmes aimed at establishing equilibrium and gradually creating a wide gap between employees and suicidal thoughts. © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited.
ABSTRACT
The advent of the Covid-19 pandemic that began at the end of 2019 accelerated technology to support remote work environments. While the technologies were not new, the capabilities of those technologies significantly increased. The number of users embracing the remote working technologies significantly increased within a very short timeframe. The expanded remote work capabilities have enabled new collaborating mechanisms that will carry-forth in the future, pandemic or not. SAE ARP 4761 [1] provides guidelines to perform a safety assessment. The Zonal Safety Assessment (ZSA) is one of the tools described in ARP 4761. An aspect of ZSA is an audit (or inspection) of the physical article. The remote work capabilities, along with cameras and software presenting a virtual environment, can allow individuals to participate in the physical audit without traveling to the site of the physical article. ©2023 SAE International. All Rights Reserved.
ABSTRACT
As work environments struggle to reopen during the current COVID-19 pandemic, it is crucial to establish practical decision-aiding tools. While a strong emphasis has been placed on determining generic guidelines to reduce the risk of airborne viral spread, there is a lack of free and easy-to-use simulation workflows to quantify indoor air quality and the risk of airborne pathogens indoors at a spatial resolution that can take into account floor-plan layouts, furniture, and ventilation inlet-outlet positions. This paper describes the development of a new, free, early design tool that allows designers and other stakeholders to simulate and compare airborne viral concentrations under different indoor conditions. The tool leverages OpenFOAM-based Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and a passive scalar simulation approach to allow architects and interior designers to quantify airborne pathogens' exposure. The tool is integrated into the popular Rhino3d & Grasshopper CAD environment to facilitate its application in fast-paced design processes. We demonstrate good agreement compared to a CFD benchmark test. Further, we validate newly developed COVID-19 capabilities by comparing our results to an existing restaurant case study that included tracer gas measurements and validation using Fluent (Ansys). We demonstrate applications of the tool in a comparative study of a restaurant that investigates how plan and furniture layout interventions, ventilation strategies can impact the movement of airborne pathogens in indoor environments. © International Building Performance Simulation Association, 2022
ABSTRACT
Social work practice education should be designed for sustainability and relevance in emerging and future work contexts. Changes influencing the emerging world of work including transformations in services, communication technologies, distributed working patterns, and new priorities and identities should inform the design of the integrated learning components of the curriculum. Changes influencing the future delivery of education include increased demand for flexible, collaborative, networked and digital learning;pre-existing but rapidly accelerated because of COVID-19. Together, these drivers compel us to innovate to ensure graduates are practice ready and resilient in these evolving contexts. In this analysis of social work, nursing, and allied health literature diverse approaches to integrative learning are examined, generating an evidence base for informing decision making when innovating in the design of integrative learning. This article advocates an orientation towards the future world of work and education, as a lens for reimagining integrative learning in social work. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)
ABSTRACT
In recent years, telework has enormously increased because of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, some people believe that teleworkers can concentrate the same as in-person office work, while others do not. Previous studies showed that the work environment necessary for concentration tends to differ depending on the worker's individual attributes. The goal of this study is to propose an Ambient Intelligence (AMI) telework system suited for each individual to enhance concentration. In this paper, we used two videos with different levels of diligence on a task to investigate what kind of environment makes it easier to concentrate, depending on the degree of neuroticism. Concentration was estimated using the auditory steady-state response (ASSR), which is an oscillatory brain signal elicited by repetitive auditory stimulation and used as a hearing test for infants and children. The changes in the power spectral density of the ASSR with concentration were increased by comparing EEG at rest and during concentration. The effect of the two types of videos on concentration was investigated by evaluating the relationship between neuroticism scores and the power spectral density of the ASSR. The results showed that there was a significant difference in concentration influenced by the two types of videos between the high and low neuroticism score groups. In addition, a negative correlation was found between the neuroticism score and the concentration influenced by the two types of videos. We found that people with lower neuroticism tended to easy to concentrate on their work after seeing someone working hard whereas people with higher neuroticism tended to easy to concentrate on their work after seeing someone working lazily. The experimental results suggest the possibility of constructing an AMI system suited to each individual that enhances concentration. © 2023 IEEE.
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The COVID-19 era has reshaped the world regarding the contact-less economy, healthcare systems, remote work environment, people's lifestyle and their daily routines, etc. The consumer products (CP) industry is being impacted due to the behaviours of consumers during self-quarantine. This accelerates adopting digital transformation and upgrading the business models for the contact-less CP industry. Accordingly, this study provides a step toward the contact-less CP industry during and post-pandemic. First, we have proposed a conceptual framework for the contact-less CP industry that aims to bring together the key advanced technologies (e.g., Digital Twin (DT), blockchain, AI, cloud computing, 5G, and robots). The combination of the advanced technologies provides data monitoring, transparency, traceability, automation, and data sharing among consumers and CP partners. The proposed framework will enable a more contact-less personalized interaction that will work towards higher levels of consumer satisfaction while maintaining contact-less economy growth. Then, we have described how the proposed framework can be applied for contact-less delivery services for the CP industry during and post-pandemic. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
The present article in the journal Group. Interaction. Organization (GIO) deals with the creation of hybrid work environments for knowledge workers. Due to the Covid19 pandemic, a coexistence of working in the office and from home is emerging. This so-called hybrid work scenario implies three challenges for organizations: a changing role of the office building, changing needs of the users with respect to the office and changing work activities that require the continuous adaptation of work environments. This paper describes the design of a new work environment, based on a case study that addresses these three challenges. Insights are discussed with reference to existing scientific evidence. It is becoming apparent that physical office environments play a central role as a place for interaction, collaboration and corporate culture for employees working hybridly. Furthermore, design options for user-centricity and participation in the development phase as well as for continuous adaptation in regular operation of the office space are described. This article enriches existing findings on the impact of work environments by taking a deeper look at the creation process as such and offers impulses for the design of hybrid work environments in organizations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved) Abstract (German) Der vorliegende Beitrag in der Zeitschrift Gruppe. Interaktion. Organisation (GIO) beschaftigt sich mit der Entstehung hybrider Arbeitsumgebungen fur Wissensarbeiter. Durch die Covid19-Pandemie zeichnet sich zukunftig eine Koexistenz des Arbeitens im Buro und aus dem Homeoffice ab. Durch dieses hybride Arbeiten entstehen drei Herausforderungen fur Unternehmen: eine veranderte Rolle des Burogebaudes, veranderte Bedurfnisse der Nutzer des Buros und sich verandernde Arbeitsaktivitaten, die die kontinuierliche Anpassung von Arbeitsumgebungen notwendig machen. Dieser Beitrag beschreibt die Gestaltung einer New Work-Arbeitsumgebung anhand eines Fallbeispiels, welches diesen drei Herausforderungen begegnet. Diese werden jeweils vor dem Hintergrund bestehender wissenschafticher Erkenntnisse diskutiert. Es zeichnet sich ab, dass physische Buroumgebungen fur hybrid arbeitende Mitarbeitende als Ort fur Interaktion, Kollaboration und Unternehmenskultur eine zentrale Rolle spielen. Weiterhin werden Gestaltungsoptionen fur Nutzerzentrierung und Partizipation in der Entstehungsphase sowie fur eine kontinuierliche Anpassung im Regelbetrieb der Buroraume beschrieben. Der vorliegende Beitrag bereichert die bestehenden Erkenntnisse zur Auswirkung von Arbeitsumgebungen um einen tieferen Blick auf den Entstehungsprozess als solchem und bietet Organisationen Impulse zur Gestaltung hybrider Arbeitsumgebungen. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)
ABSTRACT
In this era of post-COVID-19, humans are psychologically restricted to interact less with other humans. According to the world health organization (WHO), there are many scenarios where human interactions cause severe multiplication of viruses from human to human and spread worldwide. Most healthcare systems shifted to isolation during the pandemic and a very restricted work environment. Investigations were done to overcome the remedy, and the researcher developed different techniques and recommended solutions. Telepresence robot was the solution achieved by all industries to continue their operations but with almost zero physical interaction with other humans. It played a vital role in this perspective to help humans to perform daily routine tasks. Healthcare workers can use telepresence robots to interact with patients who visit the healthcare center for initial diagnosis for better healthcare system performance without direct interaction. The presented paper aims to compare different telepresence robots and their different controlling techniques to perform the needful in the respective scenario of healthcare environments. This paper comprehensively analyzes and reviews the applications of presented techniques to control different telepresence robots. However, our feature-wise analysis also points to specific technical, appropriate, and ethical challenges that remain to be solved. The proposed investigation summarizes the need for further multifaceted research on the design and impact of a telepresence robot for healthcare centers, building on new perceptions during the COVID-19 pandemic. © 2023 Tech Science Press. All rights reserved.
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The work environment has drastically changed in the last 10 years, necessitating a new look at which soft skills are most relevant in today's workplace. Because of COVID-19, organizations had to rapidly adjust where and how they work. According to the Pew Research Center, 71% of adults, who can perform their work responsibilities from home, are now working remotely. Then, the workplace shifted again during the "Great Resignation” where an all-time record of 24 million employees left their jobs between April and September 2021. This shift is ever more important as research in the last decade indicates that soft skills are being valued more compared to hard skills during the hiring process. The current study replicated Robles's (2012) study of soft skills to find which soft skills are most relevant to a thriving work environment in 2022. Results indicate that soft skills emphasizing employee initiative and including others in processes are most relevant today, including Adaptable, Agency, Conscientious, Contextual Awareness, Create Clarity, Curiosity, Engage the Mess, Genuine Care, Integrity, Partnership, Play, Positive Energy, Social Skills, and Suppress the Noise. © 2023 by the Association for Business Communication.
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Previous studies on remote work have not fully understood which roles are suitable for remote work. In our study, we performed the literature review method and developed a conceptual model inspired by transaction cost theory. Additionally, we believe remote work is an optional option in the context of hybrid work during COVID-19. Our conceptual model leads us to believe that remote workers incur some additional perceived costs in the remote work process. We analyze the following four different roles to understand their perceived costs of working remotely: CEO, product manager, database engineer, and administrative employee. We are expected to provide theoretical explanations for what factors influence remote workers' perceived transaction costs. © 2022 International Consortium for Electronic Business. All rights reserved.
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Work-induced stress is a large problem that has only been exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic. Nature has beneficial effects on psychological and physiological well-being, with an abundance of scientific literature demonstrating the ability of greenery to reduce stress. As such, the fusion of nature-based design into the work and academic environments has the potential to greatly decrease student and employee stress. Primary methods of incorporating greenery indoors include living walls and potted plants. However, these methods fall short of creating an immersive environment that maximizes the positive impact on worker well-being, and additionally, barriers such as maintenance, costs, and extensive construction limit implementation. This paper outlines a new method to integrate nature into the work environment through 'EcoRealms,' which are immersive, natural spaces created by modular and self-maintaining 'living partitions.' These low-cost, easy-to-install partitions act as design elements to create a flexible space that serves worker well-being and enhances productivity. Discussed are prototypes that demonstrate the design's technical feasibility and results from a self-reported questionnaire that validate the positive impacts of the EcoRealm on wellbeing. © 2022 IEEE.
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NSF ADVANCE has been instrumental in supporting institutional practices leading to the increased representation of women in STEM. However, research suggests institutional culture and practices evolve slowly, and much progress remains to create a collaborative and supportive work environment where women scientists, mathematicians, and engineers can thrive, particularly those with intersectional identities, including women of color and women with caregiving responsibilities. A partnership of four midwestern research universities joined together in late 2019 to adapt, design, implement, and assess the impact of a coordinated suite of programs intended to enhance the career success of women and underrepresented STEM faculty. The programs promote mentoring, male advocacy, and informed and intentional leadership as integral to campus culture, and foster community and cross-institutional data-based collaboration. This paper summarizes the programs designed and implemented to improve retention and job satisfaction of women in STEM fields with a focus on the intersectionalities of women of color and women with family responsibilities, including navigating the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, by creating support networks for these faculty. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022.
ABSTRACT
Work stress can have serious deleterious effects for individuals and society and therefore its management is of great importance. Work environment has been demonstrated as one of the significant factors effecting work stress. Recently, COVID-19 has led to an increased frequency of individuals working in hybrid work environments mainly comprising of home and office environments. The effects these work environments have on individuals’ mental stress is important to understand for both employers and employees so they can mitigate and effectively manage the mental stress. In this paper, we present an intelligent approach to predict the stress occurrences using the physiological data acquired from individuals working in both remote and office locations. Multiple factors are collected related to physiological indicators of stress and subjective performance level. We developed a boosted tree ensemble model which produced binary stress classification accuracy of 99.9%. The statistical outcomes indicate that there is no overall correlation between mental stress and productivity, however there is some indication of mental stress being is influenced by the work environment, the time of day and the day of the week. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
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This study applied a human factors and ergonomics approach to describe community-based pharmacy personnel perspectives regarding how work environment characteristics affect the ability to perform the duties necessary for optimal patient care and how contributors to stress affect the ability to ensure patient safety. Data were obtained from the 2021 APhA/NASPA National State-Based Pharmacy Workplace Survey, launched in the United States in April 2021. Promotion of the online survey to pharmacists and pharmacy technicians was accomplished through social media, email, and online periodicals. Responses continued to be received through the end of 2021. A data file containing 6973 responses was downloaded on 7 January 2022 for analysis. Qualitative thematic analysis was applied for developing operational definitions and coding guidelines for content analysis of the data. The patterns of responses for the dependent variables were compared among community-based practice setting types (chain, supermarket/mass merchandiser, and independent) and work positions (manager, staff pharmacist, technician/clerk, and owner). Chi-square analysis was used for determining statistically significant differences. The findings showed that personnel working in community-based pharmacies reported undesirable work environments and work stress that affected their ability to perform assigned duties for optimal patient care and ensure patient safety. Four work system elements were identified that were both facilitators and barriers to the ability to perform duties and ensure patient safety: (1) people, (2) tasks, (3) technology/tools, and (4) organizational context. Acknowledging local contexts of workplaces, giving adequate control, applying adaptive thinking, enhancing connectivity, building on existing mechanisms, and dynamic continuous learning are key elements for applying the HFE (human factors ergonomics) approach to improving the experience of providing care in community-based pharmacies.
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Collaboration is one required skill for the future workforce that requires constant practice and evaluation. However, students often lack formative feedback and support for their collaboration skills during their formal learning. Current technologies for emergent learning due to COVID-19 could make visible digital traces of collaboration to support timely feedback. This work aims to automatically detect the group work environment using speech data captured during group activities. Grounded in literature and students’ perspectives, this work defines and implements three indicators for detecting the work environment namely noise, silence and speech time. Three experts rated two hundred thirty-two video instances lasting 30-secs each to get a group work environment score. We report the results of two machine learning models for detecting the group work environment and briefly reflect on these results. © 2022, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
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The main objective of the research was to determine how the main virtual social networks are used in times of Covid-19 by university students. The research has been developed under the positivist paradigm framed in the quantitative approach, with a descriptive design. A 28-item questionnaire was prepared on the use of virtual social networks (RSV) in times of Covid-19 (adapted by the group of researchers), which was applied to a sample of 474 students from 10 public and private universities in the country. The results allow us to show that the vast majority of students (82.5%) have access to the internet from home and of these, 67.9% of students connect to the internet through their cell phone for a space 3 to 6 hours in the vast majority of cases. Regarding the use of virtual social networks, we can affirm that all students make use of some of them, most notably WhatsApp. And that of the virtual social networks that are most used in academic use is WhatsApp followed by YouTube.