This topic is important because even after the pandemic is over, some people may still choose to work from home now that the technology has advanced to the point that it is a feasible option. It is important that managers are able to motivate and support their employees in the short term, but this also means more managers will have to understand how to motivate their employees remotely in the long term as well. This matters now because more people are working remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Also, more people are working globally through the use of technology, which is always improving.
Dutcher, E. G. (2012). The effects of telecommuting on productivity: An experimental
examination. The role of dull and creative tasks. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 84(1), 355–363. doi: 10.1016/j.jebo.2012.04.009
This study performs experiments to explore whether or not working from home as an effect on productivity levels. Two types of tasks were created for the participants, “creative” tasks and “dull” tasks. The results found that, when working remotely, there was a negative effect on productivity of the dull tasks, but a positive effect on the creative tasks. This is relevant to our topic because it shows whether or not productivity is impacted when workers switch to working from home, and it can help to support ideas when we suggest what methods to use in supporting employees working from home.
University of Toronto, Rotman School of Management. (2017, March 22). Too much structured
knowledge hurts creativity, shows study. ScienceDaily. Retrieved April 30, 2020 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/03/170322152736.htm
This article is about a recent study out of Rotman School of Management. The study conducted three experiments which were meant to measure whether or not the participant’s creativity was altered when given information that was highly structured, versus less structured. The study found that the participants that completed the tasks in which the information given was highly structured used less creativity and cognitive flexibility than the participants who completed the tasks with less structured information. A co-author of the study connects these findings to the workplace and management strategies, and suggests that managers give less structured information to encourage creative solutions. This is a relevant topic to our article because it suggests ways that managers should relay information to their employees while they are working remotely. Using the study in the article, we may suggest that managers give information to their employees in a less-structured format when seeking creative solutions, and not to micromanage them.
Prithwiraj, Choudhury, R., Larson, B. Z., & Foroughi, C. (2020, March 4). Is It Time to Let
Employees Work from Anywhere? Retrieved April 30, 2020, from https://hbr.org/2019/08/is-it-time-to-let-employees-work-from-anywhere
This article from Harvard Business Review goes over and comments on multiple studies about the increasing desire for work from home options, employee’s productivity while working from home, and possible economic results of more people working from home. The article ends with a list of possible strategies managers can take when managing employees working remotely. This article is relevant to our topic because it uses multiple studies to back up strategies managers may use to better manage employees working remotely, a highly increased possibility currently due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of the suggestions in the article include encouraging a more hands-off approach instead of micromanaging, using a common set of technological tools, teaching newly hired employees in a face-to-face environment, and considering the type of work and its ability to be done independently. These are all strategies we can bring up in our own article, supported by the data from the studies.
de Mello e Souza Wildermuth, C. &Pauken, P. D. (2008). A perfect match: decoding employee
engagement – Part I: Engaging cultures and leaders.Industrial and Commercial Training,40(3),122-128. doi:10.1108/00197850810868603
Part one of this two part article talks about the differences between engaged and disengaged employees. Employees become engaged through a handful of factors including motivational leaders, and an open, friendly workplace environment. Engagement can also be caused by lots of work, which can also in turn end up creating a burnout effect, which actually can cause an engaged worker to disengage.These factors do not go away just because some of the workforce now works from home. Businesses will need to look ahead thinking about these concepts and forecasting foreseeable problems arising from working from home.
de Mello e Souza Wildermuth, C. & Pauken, P. D. (2008). A perfect match: decoding employee
engagement – Part II: engaging jobs and individuals.Industrial and Commercial Training,40(4),206-210. doi:10.1108/00197850810876253
Part two of this journal talks about how engagement can stem from personality in combination with the type of work. People that are introverted may feel frustrated and burnt out in job positions where they have to deal with customers most of the day. Also people that tend to score higher in a neuroticism personality, tend to become more easily burnt out than someone who is categorized as an extrovert. This all ties into how a business could strategize when hiring for the “work from home” positions.
PR Newswire. “Businesses Report Employees Are More Engaged and Collaborative Since s COVID-19 Pandemic Began.” PR Newswire US, 21 Apr. 2020. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bwh&AN=202004210900PR.NEWS.USPR.NY84830&site=ehost-live.
This Article is from PRNewswire it talks about a study that was made that proved because of COVID-19 employee engagement had gone up by 63% when the study was done when they polled 403 communication executives and senior leaders. Employers make their employees more engaged by giving them the freedom to work from home and they become more empathetic towards their employees. The article talks about the steps employers are taking in order for their employees to feel engaged. It also talks about how the transition back to normal work and changes that must be made for the future workplace.
Wenham, C., Smith, J., & Morgan, R. (2020, April 20). Covid-19 is an opportunity for gender equality within the workplace and at home. Retrieved April 23, 2020, from https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1546
This article talks about how Covid-19 has unraveled things employers would not have known if this had not happened. Such as kids in the background, Messy house etc. With this visible to employees the article hopes that it will open employers’ eyes in order to raise more opportunities to employees such as flexible working schedules, better benefits. The hope is if we keep employees happy, they will become more involved and more collaborative and it will show in their work produced, the article talks about how crisis is an opportunity for change.
Renzulli, K. A. (2020). Work from Home Nation. Newsweek Global, 174(10), 22–29.
“Work from Home Nation” gives insight on how to create a workspace that allows the most productivity at home. While some businesses such as tech companies have soared. “Work from Home Nation” reports that “Free-ConferenceCall, a telecom service, says that usage in the U.S. is up 2,000 percent. (In Italy and Spain: 4,322 percent and 902 percent, respectively.) Kentik, a network analytics firm, says video-conferencing traffic has increased roughly 200 percent in North America and Asia.” The article has many stats, examples, anecdotes, and information on the importance of working from home. Some cited sources include the Society for Human Resource Management; studies from Harvard University; and stats from SHRM’s 2019 Employee Benefits Survey. The article concludes with advice on how to remotely align with the studies found in the beginning of the article before.
Baker, E., Avery, G. C. & Crawford, J. (2007). Satisfaction and Perceived Productivity when
Professionals Work From Home. Retrieved from https://opus.lib.uts.edu.au/bitstream/10453/6434/1/2007000202.pdf
In this journal, the study is conducted seeing how working from home affects different people, as well as the factors that are surrounding these workers. It talks about management styles, and how you can support your workers from home in many ways. It also talks about what kind of jobs work better from home. They conducted a field study and measured the results with the same metrics in different homes. Once the researchers got their results from the experiment they were able to quantify them and compare how different homes with different jobs, and different genders worked from home. The experiment also pointed out how many days a week the worker worked from home, and how long they have been with the company. I believe this gives us a good insight, scientifically how productive workers can be from home, with many variables contributing.
Morikawa, M (2020. April, 10). Covid-19, Productivity, and Teleworking. Retrieved from
https://voxeu.org/article/covid-19-teleworking-and-productivity
In this scholarly article, Morikawa studies how productive Japanese workers are from home. He brings up the fact that man workers were trying to get their employers to let them work from home even before the COVID-19 outbreak from the long commutes and terrible traffic. He concludes that face-to-face jobs in the service sector, such as doctors, restaurant staff, and salon workers are almost impossible to meet the productivity levels that they were at in face to face contact. Morikawa was able to connect with over 100 companies to get data about productivity levels, and then break that apart deeper into gender, and worker tier such as management or fellow (hourly).
Chase Yaw, Scott Wilson, Desirae Payne, Eric Rocha Gonzalez, Kathryn Miller