The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on conventional work settings

Abstract

Purpose

To give insight into human resource (HR) policy makers of the impact of the abrupt change in working conditions as reported from their primary stakeholders – the employees.

Design/methodology/approach

Reported from a first-person point of view, 192 employees from Kuwait who are currently working from home were surveyed as to how the lockdown circumstances have impacted their conventional work expectations. The study compares the old working conditions (OWC) to the current working conditions (CWC) to give insight into the overall sentiments of the abrupt changes to the workplace.

Findings

It was found that most employees agreed that OWC need to be reviewed, and that the general sentiment was almost equally split on the efficiency of CWC in comparison to OWC, yet the majority was enjoying the flexible conditions. Moreover, the majority of respondents found that overall conventional work elements either remained the same or had been impacted positively rather than negatively. Also, if given an option of a hybrid model inclusive of partly working remotely and partly working on-site, a considerable majority reported that they are able to efficiently conduct atleast 80% of their work expectation. Finally, it was found that employee expectation is changing as they consider post COVID-19 conditions.

Research limitations/implications

This research was conducted using virtual crowd-sourcing methods to administer the survey and may have been enhanced should other methods have been integrated for data gathering. Also, a more comprehensive phenomenological approach could have been incorporated to add a qualitative method to the investigation. This could have freed the results of answer limitation and experience bias. Moreover, it is good practice to involve both quantitative and qualitative elements to any research when possible. Finally, future research can benefit from a bigger pool of participants so as to gain a clearer picture.

Originality/value

This research will give policy makers a look at what needs to be reviewed/changed for a successful roll-out of remote work in accordance with their original strategies.

Citation

Diab-Bahman, R. and Al-Enzi, A. (2020), "The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on conventional work settings", International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, Vol. 40 No. 9/10, pp. 909-927. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSSP-07-2020-0262