Work from Home and Adaptive Performance: Job Autonomy and Humble Leadership as a Moderator

The Covid-19 pandemic has opened up the landscape for the advantages of work from home (WFH) and adapting oneself in performing tasks. Leadership style and work autonomy also have the potential to assist employees to adapt the flexible work environment. Therefore, the purpose of the study is to examine the effect of WFH, work autonomy and humble leadership on adaptive performance as well as its moderating effect. Self-determination theory is referred to as an underlying theory to identify the extent to which work autonomy and humble leadership may assist employees to be more motivated in performing work from home. The Partial Least Square (PLS) technique was used to test the hypothesized relationships among variables using the 200 responded data. The results of this study indicated that the WFH, job autonomy and humble leadership influenced adaptive performance and employees with high job autonomy and perceived high humble leadership strengthen the relationship between WFH and adaptive performance. The study sheds new light on the theoretical contribution that the extensive of work autonomy and the influence of a humble leadership style has improved adaptive performance even when working from home. Whereas in practice, organizations need to equip supervisors with a humble leadership style and expand work autonomy to strengthen employee performance regardless of where they work. © 2023 Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. All rights reserved.

Continuing working from home in the academic context: what do female academics prefer?

Through addressing female academics in three public universities in Egypt, we aim to find out the extent to which female academics prefer to continue working from home (WFH) as a means of fulfilling their job responsibilities and the determinants for accepting or rejecting that option. A qualitative research method through semi-structured interviews with 33 female academics from three public universities selected from among 26 public institutions of higher education in Egypt. Moreover, our findings show that the preference to continue working from home varies across the addressed female academics, as they all differ in terms of workload, psychological well-being and the level of authority, control, and autonomy they have over their job. Furthermore, we identified familial commitments, availability of the information and infrastructure needed for work, cohesiveness when adopting WFH, and the extreme level of work from home as the four main determinants shaping the preferences of female academics in regard to working from home. © 2023 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Working-from-home persistently influences sleep and physical activity 2 years after the Covid-19 pandemic onset: a longitudinal sleep tracker and electronic diary-based study.

Objective: Working from home (WFH) has become common place since the Covid-19 pandemic. Early studies observed population-level shifts in sleep patterns (later and longer sleep) and physical activity (reduced PA), during home confinement. Other studies found these changes to depend on the proportion of days that individuals WFH (vs. work from office; WFO). Here, we examined the effects of WFH on sleep and activity patterns in the transition to normality during the later stages of the Covid-19 pandemic (Aug 2021-Jan 2022). Methods: Two-hundred and twenty-five working adults enrolled in a public health study were followed for 22 weeks. Sleep and activity data were collected with a consumer fitness tracker (Fitbit Versa 2). Over three 2-week periods (Phase 1/week 1-2: August 16-29, 2021; Phase 2/week 11-12: October 25-November 7, 2021; Phase 3/week 21-22: January 3-16, 2022), participants provided daily Fitbit sleep and activity records. Additionally, they completed daily phone-based ecological momentary assessment (EMA), providing ratings of sleep quality, wellbeing (mood, stress, motivation), and information on daily work arrangements (WFH, WFO, no work). Work arrangement data were used to examine the effects of WFH vs. WFO on sleep, activity, and wellbeing. Results: The proportion of WFH vs. WFO days fluctuated over the three measurement periods, mirroring evolving Covid restrictions. Across all three measurement periods WFH days were robustly associated with later bedtimes (+14.7 min), later wake times (+42.3 min), and longer Total Sleep Time (+20.2 min), compared to WFO days. Sleep efficiency was not affected. WFH was further associated with lower daily step count than WFO (-2,471 steps/day). WFH was associated with higher wellbeing ratings compared to WFO for those participants who had no children. However, for participants with children, these differences were not present. Conclusion: Pandemic-initiated changes in sleep and physical activity were sustained during the later stage of the pandemic. These changes could have longer term effects, and conscious effort is encouraged to harness the benefits (i.e., longer sleep), and mitigate the pitfalls (i.e., less physical activity). These findings are relevant for public health as hybrid WHF is likely to persist in a post-pandemic world.

Information Security Threats and Working from Home Culture: Taxonomy, Risk Assessment and Solutions.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, most organizations were forced to implement a work-from-home policy, and in many cases, employees have not been expected to return to the office on a full-time basis. This sudden shift in the work culture was accompanied by an increase in the number of information security-related threats which organizations were unprepared for. The ability to effectively address these threats relies on a comprehensive threat analysis and risk assessment and the creation of relevant asset and threat taxonomies for the new work-from-home culture. In response to this need, we built the required taxonomies and performed a thorough analysis of the threats associated with this new work culture. In this paper, we present our taxonomies and the results of our analysis. We also examine the impact of each threat, indicate when it is expected to occur, describe the various prevention methods available commercially or proposed in academic research, and present specific use cases.

THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC AND OFFICE SPACE DEMAND DYNAMICS

The COVID-19 pandemic led to the mass adoption of remote working and other office market dynamics. As firms continue to adapt to the changes caused by the pandemic through various work patterns, the potential implications for the office market are unclear. Using data from Knight Frank's (Y)OUR SPACE (2021) survey, this paper employs probit and mul-tinomial models to examine the relationship between COVID-19 related remote working and changes to firms' office space strategies. The study confirms that the pandemic has significantly influenced firms' medium-term office space use strategies, and the results show that firms' perception of their employees' work-from-home experience has influenced their strategy re-view. The results specifically show that a positive WFH experience increases the likelihood that firms will reduce their total space quantity, reduce their density of occupation, and negotiate shorter leases in the medium term. We further observe that the pandemic is likely to have weaker effects on space quality than on space quantity, implying that economic factors remain core priorities in future office space use strategies, while social and environmental factors may remain secondary. These insights extend the literature beyond the economic determinants of office space demand to other social factors. © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Vilnius Gediminas Technical University.

CONCEPT PAPER FOR ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF WORKING FROM HOME

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically altered the workplace. It drove a mass social experiment in working from home. To mitigate the spread of the virus and protect employees, many companies shifted to remote work with video calls and instant messaging replacing in-person meetings. Several studies have shown that working from home boosted worker productivity, with the reduction in commuting time being the greatest contributing factor;thus, it will stick in the post-pandemic economy. In addition, studies have also shown that there is an increase in the number of people wanting to work remotely. However, choosing to work remotely can affect people's budgets. For instance, working from home reduces transportation costs but many remote workers have seen an increase in their energy bills. In addition, many remote workers paid for home office setup on their own. This study analyzes the overall benefit and disbenefit of working from home and performs an economic analysis of working from home for an individual. Copyright, American Society for Engineering Management, 2022.

Working from Home with Flexible and Permeable Boundaries: Exploring the Role of Digital Workplace Tools for Job Satisfaction

The COVID-19 pandemic forced information workers across the world to work from home. This situation removes the physical boundary between work and home, impacting their work-life balance. How information workers configure the digital workplace (DWP) to manage their workplace boundaries and what effect this has on their individual job satisfaction remains unclear. To close this gap in the literature, 202 information workers completed an online survey. The findings partially confirm existing theory that more work flexibility increases job satisfaction while more work permeability decreases job satisfaction. However, depending on the flexibility and permeability of their work-home boundaries, the frequency with which information workers use DWP tools has cross-over effects on job satisfaction. The findings contribute to boundary theory and the new stream of digital workplace literature. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH.

Is the Structure of "Regular Working Days" about to Dissolve? Changes in Employees' Time-Use Patterns Working in Enterprise Collaboration Systems During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The measures taken during the COVID-19 pandemic have strengthened Work from Home and the use of digital communication technologies and digital collaboration. The resulting flexibility in terms of control over time and place of work can support workers in improving their work-life balance. In this paper, we investigate whether workers using digital communication technologies made use of this flexibility and changed the distribution of their work hours across the week and day. To answer this question, we investigate the use of an Enterprise Collaboration System in 2019-2022. Using real-world data, a MS Power BI dashboard was created following the steps suggested by the Social Collaboration Analytics Framework (SCAF). The dashboard shows that the system use increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, an expansion of work on weekends and outside of regular working hours can be observed. Although, timely adjustments of use-patterns were highest in the beginning of the pandemic, long-term trends could be observed as well. The results indicate that knowledge workers used digital collaboration technologies to restructure working days, according to their specific personal and business needs while working from home. The paper is a valuable starting point in the context of a long-term interdisciplinary research project on the digitalisation of the workplace.

Telecommuting and trip chaining: Pre-pandemic patterns and implications for the post-pandemic world

Telecommuting has boomed in popularity during the pandemic and is expected to remain at elevated levels persistently. Using 2009 and 2017 U.S. National Household Travel Surveys, we investigate if there exist consistent modification influences of telecommuting on trip-chaining behavior in the decade prior to the pandemic. We find telecommuting significantly increases people's propensity to chain trips, raises trip chaining frequency, and encourages more complex trip chains. Furthermore, these impacts are significant on commuting days, which suggests that telecommuters still have different trip chaining behavior than non-telecommuters on the days when they commute to the workplace. While trip chaining has been encouraged under pandemic conditions to minimize health risks, heightened health concerns will fade as the pandemic recedes. With telecommuting likely to persist, unraveling how trip chaining behavior had changed in response to telecommuting before the pandemic helps policymakers better understand the long-term changes in travel behavior in the post-pandemic world. [ FROM AUTHOR]

The Effect of Work-Life Balance and Work Motivation towards Intention to Work from Home in the Future with Job Satisfaction as a Mediator

This study aims to find Indonesian workers’ decision whether to continue Working from Home (WFH) in the future by measuring how well their job satisfaction is fulfilled by the fulfillment of work-life balance and work motivation. The data from this study was collected from 208 office workers respondents who underwent WFH for the first time during the COVID-19 pandemic by distributing an online questionnaire in Indonesia. The study results indicate that office workers feel that work-life balance and work motivation directly affect their job satisfaction. In conclusion, Indonesian workers choose to continue their WFH in the future due to the increase in their job satisfaction during WFH. © 2022, Editura Lumen. All rights reserved.

QUANTITY SURVEYORS WORKING FROM HOME DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC: DOES PLACE MATTER?

COVID-19 pandemic affected people in many ways. To prevent the spread of the virus, governments-imposed travel restrictions. This became the main reason for many sectors to adopt work from home (WFH) concept. Although WFH grew prominently with the COVID-19 pandemic, it was already practiced in several sectors even before the pandemic. However, there was lack of evidence regarding the quantity surveyor’s practice in WFH. This research therefore attempts to investigate how the quantity surveyors WFH during COVID-19 pandemic and factors that affected the successful functioning of their job. To achieve the aim, a mixed method research approach was undertaken. Initially, a comprehensive literature review was carried out and an interview guideline was developed as the data collection instrument. Subsequently, 30 semi-structured interviews were conducted to collect data. Collected qualitative data was analysed through code-based content analysis using NVivo 10 and quantitative data was analysed by using descriptive statistical analysis. Results shows that nature of job role, personal qualities, technology, organization related factors, gender, home-work interface, and economic condition of the country affects the QS’s function during WFH. Further, age, location of home, weather condition, job experience and performance of other employees were identified as factors that have a potential to affect QSs during WFH. This research findings can be used to implement WFH concept effectively to optimise quantity surveyor performance in the construction industry by controlling each factor that affects when QSs WFH. © 2022, Ceylon Institute of Builders. All rights reserved.

The impact of COVID-19 on Japanese firms: mobility and resilience via remote work.

Drawing on the original survey of Japanese firms during the COVID-19 pandemic, we estimate the impact of the crisis on firms' sales, employment and hours worked per employee and roles of work-from-home (WfH) arrangements in mitigating negative effects. We find that the lowered mobility, induced by the state of emergency declared by the government and fear of infection, significantly contracted firms' activities. On average, a 10% reduction in mobility reduced sales by 2.8% and hours worked by 2.1%, but did not affect employment. This muted employment response is consistent with limited changes in aggregate employment at the extensive margin during COVID-19 in Japan. We find that the adoption of WfH before COVID-19 mitigated the negative impact by 55% in terms of sales and by 35% in terms of hours worked. Adapting to the pandemic by increasing the number of remote work employees also helped firms moderately mitigate the negative impact on sales and work hours and reduce the probability of filing for the short-time work subsidy. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10797-022-09749-7.

A Case Study of Rental Management in India Under COVID19: [A Study of Symbiotic Arrangements to Work from Anywhere (WFA) Leading to a Business Model Proposition of Smart Rental Homes Owned by Elderly]

India lacks a formal social security system. However, there is scope to develop a few systems, empowering some desired sections financially. In the recent past, post the onset of COVID19, a number of Indians have chosen to adopt a ‘Start Up’ mechanism using proprietary trade secrets. These mechanisms are not new, have existed informally and have been carried forward through generations. This paper is an attempt to lay the blueprint of a social security system which can be adopted by the elderly urban middle class of India, giving them a more profitable, safe and lucrative money generation means, through their real estate assets. The rental laws of India are fluid, allowing the middle-class real estate owners to fall prey to unknown and unexpected complications, creating legal turmoil. The call of the hour is to restructure rental arrangements, keeping the safety of the owner as priority without neglecting the preferred requirements of the tenants. A probable symbiotic arrangement, which by all means can provide professionals, a stay and vacation option. This dwelling space would allow them to work and holiday from anywhere, away from their designated office space. These stay and vacation options can also create the scope of living in larger spaces for professionals with pocket suiting investment. The profiteering objective of Rental Management of Real Estate renting process can be redefined easily by the creation of a ‘Renting Appraisal App’, making it convenient and transparent for the property owner and the rent seeker. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

Family Relationships Under Work From Home: Exploring the Role of Adaptive Processes.

Work-from-home (WFH) influences both work and life, and further impacts family relationships. The current study explored the impacts of WFH on family relationships during the COVID-19 pandemic and identified effective adaptive processes for maintaining family relationships under WFH. Using the Vulnerability-Stress-Adaptation (VSA) model, the study examined the roles of adaptive processes (spending time with family members and balancing work and life) and demographic differences (gender, age, marital status, and education level) in the relation between WFH and family relationships. Path analysis results based on an online survey (N = 150) suggested that, overall, WFH improved family relationships through proper adaptive processes. WFH had a positive relation to time spent with family members, and this relation was especially salient for workers with lower education levels. While there was no statistically significant overall relation between WFH and work-life balance, older workers tended to engage in increased work-life balance during WFH. Both adaptive processes were positively related to family relationship quality. The findings advance the understanding of family relationships and WFH and provide practical recommendations to enhance family relationships under WFH.

Increased Working From Home in Vocational Counseling Psychologists During COVID-19: Associated Change in Productivity and Job Satisfaction.

During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, vocational counselors in Switzerland more frequently worked from home (WFH) and less frequently worked on-site. The aim of this study was to assess how WFH corresponds with indicators of job performance and occupational wellbeing. More specifically, the current questionnaire study analyzed the increase in WFH, self-reported productivity, distractibility in WFH, current job satisfaction, work-life balance in WFH, and feeling of loneliness. Findings showed that the increase in WFH in vocational counseling psychologists during the COVID-19 pandemic was associated with an increase in productivity and job satisfaction and with lower distractibility in WFH compared to work on-site. However, more frequent WFH was not significantly associated with improved work-life balance during the COVID-19 pandemic. Vocational counselors who shared the office on-site with many colleagues experienced higher feeling of loneliness during WFH. Vocational counselors regarded the condition of WFH as productive and satisfying while work-life balance did not improve. The discussion sheds light on the potential WFH-related increase of boundary management demands.

Not All Remote Workers Are Similar: Technology Acceptance, Remote Work Beliefs, and Wellbeing of Remote Workers during the Second Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Although a large part of the world's workforce engaged in mandatory Work from Home during the COVID-19 pandemic, the experience was not the same for everyone. This study explores whether different groups of employees, based on their work and organizational characteristics (i.e., organizational size, number of days per week working from home, working in team) and personal characteristics (i.e., remote work experience, having children at home), express different beliefs about working remotely, acceptance of the technology necessary to Work from Home, and well-being. A study was conducted with 163 Italian workers who answered an online questionnaire from November 2020 to January 2021. A cluster analysis revealed that work, organizational, and personal variables distinguish five different types of workers. ANOVA statistics showed that remote workers from big companies who worked remotely several days a week, had experience (because they worked remotely before the national lockdowns), and worked in a team, had more positive beliefs about working remotely, higher technology acceptance, and better coping strategies, compared to the other groups of workers. Practical implications to support institutional and organizational decision-makers and HR managers to promote remote work and employee well-being are presented.