Effect of work from home setting on productivity of the employee

Abstract

Remote working or work from home is not a new concept. With the development of technology we have seen organizations being more flexible in terms of encouraging employees to have work-life balance. With the improvement in supporting IT infrastructure and the expansion of many firms across multiple time zones, there is an expanding set of proponents for giving more remote working options for all kinds of employees in the firm. The Covid-19 pandemic had a major effect on the changing trend urshering companies to adopt the most almost overnight to be in business, all non essential (where there is no need for the employee to be physically present) work is done online. This level of mass adoption means that the society can now assess whether remote work can be beneficial to the employees and employers, the results of which will decide whether the pandemic brought about a lasting change in our work habits or we should go back to our previous working habits. Subsequently, there is a small but growing body of research which is trying to explore the potential effects of remote work on both employers and employees. Some previous studies have infact shown that remote working has infact improved employee productivity. For example, in a certain study, call centre employees of a website Ctrip had volunteered to work from home. Only a randomly selected subset were allowed to work from home while the others were treated as a control group and the results show that the people who worked from home showed higher satisfaction while also being more productive.[1] In another study[2] , women with younger chidren desired more flexibility that comes with remote working, thus leading to the conclusion that remote workingoption could also lead to creating more inclusive workplaces.