Sociology project

RAJIV GANDHI NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF LAW, PATIALA

(PUNJAB)

SOCIOLOGY PROJECT

TOPIC :- WORK FROM HOME AND ITS UNIQUE CHALLENGES

HALLENGES

NAME – TARANG AJMERA

ROLL NUMBER – 20171

SUBMITTED TO - MRS. JASLEEN KEWLANI MA’AM

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ACKNOWLEDGEMNT

This project is a culmination of a lot of Hardwork and dedication . But there were some
people who helped in making this project through moral support and guidance.

First of all I would like to thank my sociology teacher Mrs. Jasleen Kewlani Ma’am who
guided me for the topic. She Provided eminent help in the completion of project. Her
guidance was the main driver of my project.

Secondly, I would like to thank Mr. G.S Vajpai, Vice Chancellor, RGNUL, Punjab and the
project committee who gave me this opportunity to work on this project and expand my
horizon of language as well as present this project.

Finally I would thank my Family and Friends who supported me throughout this project.
Their motivation and moral support helped me in completing this project on time.

TARANG AJMERA

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Table of Content

1. Introduction………………………………………………………….7

2. Challenges of working from home………………………………….10

2.1. Getting distracted by everything

2.2. Communicating with your quaran-team

2.3. Staying Motivated

2.4. Overworking

2.5. Feeling Isolated

3. Covid-19 and Indian IT Industry………………………………..12

4. Conclusion……………………………………………………….13

5. Bibliography………………………………………………………14

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1. INTRODUCTION

By the end of March 2020, governments worldwide had decided to take measures to
restrict the movement of their population in order to reduce the spread of Covid-19 and
maintain or reduce the R-number below 1, where R is the average number of people that
one infected person will pass on the virus to. These lockdowns lead to the temporary
closure of ‘non-essential’ businesses and forced millions of people worldwide to work
from home. In many countries, facilities such as schools, nurseries, universities,
commercial organisations, dental clinics, and social venues including restaurants and
coffee shops were closed. This lockdown has forced millions of workers to embrace
remote working when possible to do so and made working from home a must rather than
an option1.

Researches highlighted the fact that COVID-19 forced organisations into rapid ‘big bang’
sudden adoption of online working from home practices; they draw on the normalisation
process theory (NPT) and its underlying components which can be used to understand the
dynamics of implementing, embedding, and integrating new technologies and practices
into businesses. It presented the results of a survey with main findings indicating that
despite the positive characteristics of remote working using on-line technology, there are
many negative aspects and risks related to working from home such as unbalanced work
overload and pressures to perform timeously, which could affect health and wellbeing due
to stress-related issues.

1
Blake, K. D., Blendon, R. J., & Viswanath, K. (2010). Employment and compliance with pandemic influenza
mitigation recommendations. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 16(2), 212.

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According to Reports, Covid-19 had a significant impact on the workforce and careers on a
global level and it has affected many individuals' vocational behaviours and productivity
outcomes. Research conducted on working from home prior to the Covid-19 pandemic
found similar difficulties. For example, the work of various researcher confirmed that
working from home has many drawbacks and may create disruptions, especially amongst
those who prefer to working in an office environment and have family commitments and
duties. Prior to Covid19, some researchers discussed the advantages and issues in relation
to working from home difference between working from home before and after the Covid-
19 pandemic is that previously it was an optional measure, but due to Covid-19 it has
become a necessity within a very short period of time. Nevertheless, even after Covid-19
restrictions, some organisations have decided to permit or even require their employees to
work from home indefinitely. It identified key aspects that are missing from the working
from home culture, such as informal face-to-face meetings, the enjoyment of travel and
breaking the routine of staying in one place. 2

According to reports, the lock-down has required most office workers to fully embrace
online remote working and digital work tools such as collaboration platforms and video
conferencing tools to enable them to work 100% remotely in new innovative ways. Some
recent research has indicated that the lockdown has been found to help specifically in
reducing travel and pollution levels with potential positive impacts on global warming and
climate change.3

2
Dingel, J., & Neiman, B. (2020). How Many Jobs Can Be Done at Home?: NBER Working Paper No. 26948.

3
Taha, S., Matheson, K., Cronin, T., & Anisman, H. (2014). Intolerance of uncertainty, appraisals, coping, and
anxiety: The case of the 2009 H 1 N 1 pandemic. British Journal of Health Psychology, 19(3), 592–605.

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The lockdown has allowed many employees to connect and meet in new ways; and to work
more flexibly establishing new forms of management and independent working styles. This
has driven many employers to develop their organisational and data management
frameworks by using online tools to access resources and data. At the same time, the data
security protections requirement has increased significantly during Covid-19 lockdown. A
recent study has found that IT security demands have increased by 66% due to online
remote working, with the majority of on-line issues coming from, malicious emails, non-
compliant employee behaviour, and software vulnerabilities.

The widely available internet infrastructure and software availability has helped
organisations adapt to new working styles, which would have been much more difficult in
previous decades. Modern software, employee's ICT awareness and recent organisational
practices have shown inherent flexibility and openness, supporting a wide variety of work
practices without the need for technical customisation. However, it has been argued that if
working from home becomes more permanent, organisations will need more sophisticated
organisational measures and software to replicate, as far as possible, the ‘in-office’
experience.4

4
Gorlick, A. (2020). The productivity pitfalls of working from home in the age of COVID-19. Stanford News.
March, 30, 2020.

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Recent publications have also presented significant analysis of Covid19 pandemic and its
effect on a wide range of technologies and social aspects. It have discussed the
implications of Covid-19 pandemic on innovation, with reflections on several areas that
have seen a vast advancement in a short period of time such as e-learning, 3D printing,
flexible manufacturing, big data analysis, healthcare technologies, cashless payment and e-
commerce. On the technology and innovation management research agenda, the Covid-19
pandemic was discussed, and it was concluded that the pandemic has transformed the way
we live and work. Because innovation necessitates cooperation and communication, their
research looked at the impact of the pandemic on innovation when face-to-face encounters
are replaced with online communication, as well as the difficulties of visualising
innovation and collaboration.5

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Malik, M. H., & Velan, N. (2016). Trends and determinants of IT-BPM exports in India. Journal of Science
and Technology Policy Management.

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2. CHALLENGES OF WORKING FROM HOME

1. GETTING DISTRACTED BY EVERYTHING

Adjusting to a new workspace can be challenging — especially when that workspace

involves kids, pets, TV, couches, snacks, or any combination of the above.
Without the structured office environment to help you to feel like you’re in “work mode”,
it can be challenging to get in the zone and resist the siren song of, for example, watching a
quick episode of your favorite series, or getting into bed and thinking you can work from
there.

One of the biggest challenges of working remotely is getting the team

communication right. Communication can be complicated at the best of times, but when
you’re not in the same physical space, you have to consciously communicate things you
probably never even considered before. It’s hard enough to hold productive in-person
meetings to coordinate different team members’ efforts to remain aligned. When
everyone works from home, it becomes all the harder to stay on the same page6.

2. DEALING WITH HOUSEMATES (SOME OF WHOM MAY BE BABIES OR SMALL CHILDREN )

Whether you live with family or roommates, one of the biggest challenges of working from
home is peacefully co-existing with the other people in your shared space.
It can be hard for others — especially kids, but also grownups who aren’t familiar with
remote working — to understand that just because you’re at home all day doesn’t mean
you’re available. And like we mentioned above, not everyone has the option to set up a

6
< https://www.moneycrashers.com/challenges-working-home-business-avoid-failure/> Last accessed on 23
April, 2022.

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home office and close the door to get some space, so we might need to compromise in
order to find a way of working that works for you all.

3. STAYING MOTIVATED

Staying motivated is more than just not getting distracted. Distraction is short-term. It’s the
loss of concentration that prevents you from focusing on what you need to focus on and
can prevent you from making progress with your tasks.
On the other hand, staying motivated is more of a long-term, ongoing thing. It’s keeping
the faith that the work you’re doing is worthwhile.
It’s important to feel like your work is meaningful. But truthfully, it’s hard to focus on
work when we work from home. It can be difficult to zoom out and look at the long-term
company or career goals when things are stressful and uncertain at the moment.

4. OVERWORKING
People often think that remote working is all about sitting at home eating snacks, watching
TV, and not actually doing much work. But we’ve found that rather than underworking,
one of the major challenges of working remotely is not overworking.
When you’re working from home, there’s a tendency to throw yourself into it — especially
now, when work can provide some much-needed distraction.
Whether it’s putting in a few extra hours to get something over the line, or checking your
email before bed and accidentally spending 30 minutes writing a response that definitely
could have waited until the morning, before we know it, we’ve spent most of your day on
work, and haven’t properly managed to switch off and unwind.

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5. FEELING ISOLATED

Working from home leads to social isolation, which treated as one of the important
disadvantages of working from home. As the employees need to work in their home and
they can’t have regular communication which they would have had while they are working
in the office. Thus the workers who work from home feel isolation from their co-workers
at the workplace, in India during the first covid-19 lockdown due to lack of good network
connectivity employees’ feels poor interaction with higher authority. As employees
continued their work from home due to covid-19 the issue of poor connectivity is resolved
by organizations.7

6. PHYSICAL INFRASTRUCTURE
Physical infrastructure is one of the important determinants of the success of working from
home. As indicated by Bailey and Kurland, (2002) in their study, the inappropriate
working place negatively influences employee productivity. The during covid-19pandemic
working from home is a sudden change, where most of the employees of IT sector had no
preparation for working from home and they did not have appropriate working ergonomic)
found that ‘there were communication problems due to internet glitches’ which indicate
poor infrastructure. But, in the persistent pandemic environment the organizations might
have provided certain basic facilities to work at home and the employees might have
created their own physical working environment. Thus, the challenge of physical
infrastructure might have changed as the pandemic continued. 8

7
< https://www.naukri.com/blog/common-work-from-home-challenges-and-tips-to-overcome-them-covid-
article3/> Last accessed on 23 April, 2022.

8
Gurstein, P. (2001). Wired to the world, chained to the home: Telework in daily life. UBC Press.

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3. COVID-19 AND INDIAN IT INDUSTRY

In the Financial year (FY) 1998 it had contributed nearly 1.2 percent of GDP and in the FY
2019-2020 it has contributed over 8 percent of India’s GDP. The Indian IT sector has a
huge global presence with more than 80 countries, with more than 4 million employments
in the year 2019-20.
The Indian IT firms’ delivery centre operating in China had faced the challenges of covid-
19 and learnt a lesson that working from home is inevitable. Hence, 50 percent of IT firms
had preparedness (NASSCOM, 2020) prior to announcement of lock down in India in
March 2020. These firms provided laptops to their employees and they were using remote
collaboration tools. For example, the Indian IT firm Mindtree in advance had anticipated
the challenges connected to the operations during covid-19. Therefore, the firm conducted
a pilot study for Working from home before lockdown. On March 3, 2020 – Two-tier war
room was activated with central command at their Bangalore Head Quarter and local
ground teams in each region9.

The IT sector had adopted a four point response to counter the COVID-19 led challenges.
These include- they set-up a war room with centralized commands and local teams; use of
Apps for regular communication, COVID-19 awareness, and provide support for health
and work related challenges; upgraded IT infrastructure and ensured network security, data
privacy, and continual monitoring by deploying VPNs, requisite tools, and hardware;
securing stakeholder approvals, with service continuity assurance to clients, and extended
support and flexibility in addressing sudden requirements in this time of crisis.
(NASSCOM, 2020)

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Cooper, C. D., & Kurland, N. B. (2002). Telecommuting, professional isolation, and employee development in
public and private organizations. Journal of Organizational Behavior: The International Journal of Industrial,
Occupational and Organizational Psychology and Behavior, 23(4), 511–532.

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4. CONCLUSION
In summary, one of the social and economic consequences of the COVID-19 lockdown
has been a nationwide move towards working from home across the economy, including
sectors that had not previously embraced home working. This data suggests that individual
employees’ predominantly positive experiences of home working during this period have
influenced their attitudes and preferences towards flexible working and the division of
housework/care for the future. What is more, we see evidence to show that, as the number
of employees who work from home rises, it is likely that there will be a decline in stigma
around flexible working and reduced concern about flexible working negatively affecting
career outcomes.10

The research also suggests that there will continue to be a proportion of employees who
do not want to work from home. The following factors were key: a desire amongst many
workers for more in person collegial interaction, lack of equipment or space to carry out
work, and wanting to have clearer boundaries between work and home life. This suggests
that in the future managers need to have open discussions with employees to understand
what working arrangements would be the best to allow them to effectively balance work
and home commitments, including being clear about key aims and goals that need to be
met and what support the organisation can offer 11.
This open dialogue between line managers and employees about what can work in the
interests of all is crucial to enable a shift away from the organisational culture of
presenteeism and long hours in the office as a sign of commitment and productivity, to a
culture where employees are given more freedom over when and where to work as long as
key aims and goals are met.

10
Donnelly, N., & Proctor-Thomson, S. B. (2015). Disrupted work: Home-based teleworking (HbTW) in the
aftermath of a natural disaster. New Technology, Work and Employment, 30(1), 47–61.

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George, D., & Mallery, P (2003), ‘SPSS for Windows step by step: A simple guide and reference’, (4th ed.),
Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

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The research also highlights that many women have been undertaking the double/ triple
shifts of work/ care/ home- schooling throughout the COVID-19 lockdown and
limiting their capacity to work. Many are suffering from feelings of conflict and stress,
especially after four months of school closures. We may see a rise in women exiting the
labour market, in the near future, as well as an increasing number of women unable to
compete with their peers without children or with men in the workplace due to the
additional burdens they have experienced.
There needs to be increase in support, including more legal protection of workers with
care responsibilities, more protection for flexible workers, encouraging more
involvement from fathers, and providing ample resources for schools and other care
facilities ensuring that they are able to open safely.
Without purposeful and targeted approaches to support women/mothers, we may see an
increase in the gender gap in labour market outcomes/pay. 12

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NASSCOM (2020), CEO pulse review. Retrieved from the NASSCOM website
https://nasscom.in/knowledge-center/publications/ ceo-pulse-review-covid-19-impact-indian-tech-sector-june-
2020.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY
1) Wilson, M., & Greenhill, A. (2004). Gender and teleworking identities in the risk
society: A research agenda. New Technology, Work and Employment, 19(3), 207–
221.
2) Raišienė, A. G., Rapuano, V., Varkulevičiūtė, K., & Stachová, K. (2020). Working
from Home—Who is Happy? A Survey of Lithuania’s employees during the
COVID-19 quarantine period. Sustainability, 12(13), 5332.
3) Prasad, D. K., Rao, M., Vaidya, D. R., & Muralidhar, B. (2020). Organizational
climate, opportunities, challenges and psychological wellbeing of the remote
working employees during COVID-19 pandemic: A general linear model approach
with reference to information technology industry in hyderabad. International
Journal of Advanced Research in Engineering and Technology (IJARET), 11(4).
4) Pérez, M. P., Sánchez, A. M., de Luis Carnicer, P., & Jiménez, M. J. V. (2004). A
technology acceptance model of innovation adoption: The case of teleworking.
European Journal of Innovation Management.
5) Lapierre, L. M., Van Steenbergen, E. F., Peeters, M. C., & Kluwer, E. S. (2016).
Juggling work and family responsibilities when involuntarily working more from
home: A multiwave study of financial sales professionals. Journal of
Organizational Behavior, 37(6), 804–822.

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