INTITUTO SUPERIOR DE CIENCIAS E EDUCACAO A DISTANCIA

DEPARTAMENTO DE CIENCIAS SOCIAIS E HUMANAS

LICENCIATURA EM GESTAO DE RECURSOS HUMANOS

CHALLENGES OF WORKING REMOTELY (OUT OF OFFICE/ ONLINE) DURING

THE COVID-19 LOCKDOWNS DETAILS

Isaura Tomas Torres Tobias Bene

Maputo, May 2022

SUMMARY

1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................... 3
2. Definitions ............................................................................................................................... 4
2.1. Working from Home ........................................................................................................ 4
2.2. Benefits of WFH .............................................................................................................. 5
2.3. Drawbacks of WFH .......................................................................................................... 6
3. CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................................... 7
BIBLIOGRAFY .............................................................................................................................. 8
 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 organizations, 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 option. Carroll and Conboy [2] highlighted the fact that COVID-19 forced
organizations into rapid ‘big bang’ sudden adoption of online working from home practices; they
draw on the normalization 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. Matli 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. Richter discussed the implication of the lockdown on digital work tools for
research and practice, illustrating how the lockdown acted as a facilitator for online working. Also,
he indicated how the lockdown had a significant impact on people's lives and work practices.
However, many employees struggled due to variety of reasons, such as time management and
having to work around childcare commitments (when the schools are closed). Other factors also
play an important role, such as the need to share computer facilities and internet access at home
with other family members, in addition to increased stress from the increase in daily
videoconferences. According to Scheiber Covid-19 pandemic has significantly increased the
flexibility of the working hours but has also negatively influenced daily work patterns.

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 2. Definitions

Several keywords and key phrases were used to access relevant academic articles. Some of the
keywords need to be defined to clarify the reason behind usage of several different words in
different articles. These keywords are “working from home”, “telecommuting”, “teleworking” and
“remote work”. Baker et al. (2007:38), who prefer the phrase “remote working”, explain this
problem as follows: “Reasons include that remote working has been studied under various names
(e.g., teleworking, telecommuting, working from home), with no generally accepted definitions;
terms are used differently and interchangeably from study to study; and data gathering methods
and definitions vary.” The definition of “telework” proposed by the International Labor
Organization (ILO) in 1990 seems to be the most accepted definition “A form of work in which
work is performed in a location remote from a central office or production facilities, thus separating
the worker from personal contact with co-workers there and new technology enables this
separation by facilitating communication” point out an issue, which is important for this essay.
They quoted The International Telework Association and Council (ITAC) as follows “Telework
is a much broader term that means using telecommunications to work wherever you need to in
order to satisfy client needs; whether it be from a home office, telework center, satellite office, a
client's office, an airport lounge, a hotel room, the local Starbucks, or from your office to a
colleague 10 floors down in the same building wherever. (Thorstensson, 2019-2020)

2.1.Working from Home

Several studies within the economics and management literature have explored the implications of
WFH arrangements within single organizations prior to the pandemic. A randomized controlled
trial in a Chinese call-center found evidence of significant increases in worker productivity after
workers could select into WFH arrangements . While this study rigorously illustrates the possible
benefits of WFH, it is hard to extrapolate its findings to less standardized and routinized
occupations that are usually associated with knowledge workers. Choudhry, Foroughi, and Laron
(2020), however, also found clear benefits in WFH in an experiment that allowed patent examiners
from the United States Patent and Trademark Office to opt into WFH. Patent examiners, however,
typically work independently. Therefore, the extent to which the benefits of WFH would extend
to occupations characterized by a higher need for team work and coordination, and on managers

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in particular, is not yet known. We also do not know the extent to which pre-pandemic studies
could be extrapolated to understand the effect of a WFH in emergency contexts such as the ones
forced by the pandemic (for example, school closures, business disruptions, etc.). A recent study
finds evidence of some productivity benefits of WFH, but also some concerns around longer-term
effectiveness, creativity, and personal resilience. Evidence from a large sample of email and
meetings metadata shows stark increases in virtual meetings and emails after government-enacted
lockdowns during COVID (which effectively forced WFH on large samples of workers),
presumably as a way to compensate for the loss of physical interactions. (Thomaz Teodorovicz,
2021)

2.2.Benefits of WFH

Some of the employees prefer working from home rather than working at an office and there are
various reasons for this preference, which are explained below. One of the most influential reasons
for preferring working from home is the flexible scheduling options. Lupu states that flexible
scheduling enables employees to have a certain autonomy in planning their daily lives, including
both employee and family activities according to their needs, such as taking their children to school
or go to the doctor. Ford and Butts mention the possibility of the employees to modify their
working schedule daily or even hourly lists the benefits of flexible scheduling option as follows
being free to sleep in and work late, starting and ending early, working forty hours in four days
instead of five or six days a week, scheduling personal appointments (e.g. physician, dentist,
hairdresser) during office work-hours and completing the work later in the evening without using
vacation days. Another benefit of working from home for the employees is saving time in
commuting to the office, avoiding rush-hour traffic. Ford and Butts (1991:20) claim that
eliminating the stresses of driving in rush hour traffic may represent the most important advantage
for many employees. Indicates that by not commuting, employees will have more free time to
spend with their families. There is also a financial benefit from many aspects for the employees
working from home. They can save money “by dispensing with the commute to the office”, such
as “savings in gasoline and vehicle wear” (Ford and Butts 1991:20), “costs for parking or other
transportation”. Employees can also save money by eliminating costs of appropriate office clothing
and lunches. Another financial benefit they have is decreased cost with
“babysitting/kindergartens/nurses” and “not having to pay for afterschool programs”.

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Increased productivity was not the only advantage of remote working highlighted amongst
respondents. Spending less time travelling to work, the feeling of making a positive contribution
to the environment, as well as, being more focused due to less office distractions and interruptions
from colleagues were the top three advantages of working remotely. Other benefits highlighted
were the ability to spend more time with the family during the day and feeling less stressed due to
a flexible working allowed them to better manage their worklife balance and felt that not being
constrained to standard office hours allowed them to work when they were most focused and
productive. (Michel Ganado, 2020)

2.3.Drawbacks of WFH

There are also several drawbacks of working from home for employees. Lupu (2017:696) mentions
these drawbacks: “the technical problems that cannot be solved remotely, the unequal salaries
between employees working in the office and teleworkers; employee isolation, limitation of
normal interaction with the colleagues and difficulties in organizing union activities”.

Another important drawback for the employees is the hindrance of career advancement. Ford and
Butts (1991:21) claim that the saying “out of sight, out of mind” is valid for employees working
from home when it is time for promotions of the personnel. They claim that co-workers remaining
in the office have a higher chance to be known and get promoted quicker, as the management does
not know about the interpersonal communication skills and relationships of the employee working
from home. This situation affects his or her future employment as well, as the present employer or
the supervisors do not have a clear picture about the employee working from home and therefore
have doubts about making recommendations.

The final drawback of working from home for the employees is concerned with lacking
opportunity to have informal communication network with the colleagues. When the employees
do not have such interactions, they may feel alienated from the colleagues and company goals and
values. (Thorstensson, 2019-2020).

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 3. CONCLUSION

As a result of the thematic analysis of ten selected articles, it can be concluded that working from
home has an influence on productivity of the employees. While some of the factors of working
from home practice have positive influences on the productivity, some other factors have negative
influences. Moreover, there are some other factors, the influences of which depend on the
characteristics and attitude of the employees and the circumstances. If there is a suitable work
space at home, employees work more productively when they can Focus on their work and finish
their tasks without being interrupted and distracted by their Colleagues in the office. On the other
hand, lacking face-to-face communication with the colleagues may have an adverse effect on the
productivity of the employers. It becomes more difficult to access people for help and cooperation
in the absence of a team environment, whimore May lead to delays in receiving critical
information. It complicates the situation even further if There is a high level of task
interdependence and colleagues work with sequential tasks and need To wait for each other to
complete their tasks. Being in the same home environment in a Relatively long time causes feeling
of social and professional isolation and disconnectedness, Which affect productivity negatively.
Video calls are reported higher levels of job satisfaction And performance than those using
messaging or e-mail and therefore increasing productivity.

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BIBLIOGRAFY

Michel Ganado, M. L. (2020). The COVID-19-Remote Working Experiment. Malta.

Thomaz Teodorovicz, R. S. (2021). Working from Home during COVID-19. Harvard: Laboratory
for Innovation Science at Harvard.
Thorstensson, E. (2019-2020). The Influence of Working from Home. Karlstad.