Leading and Working From Home in Times of COVID-19: On the Perceived Changes in Leadership Behaviors.

The aim of this study was to identify specific management practices that promote the psychological health of remote workers in the context of the COVID‐19 crisis. A two‐round Delphi study was conducted among 28 teleworkers and 22 managers. A list of 60 specific management practices was presented and participants had to identify whether each one could be used in the current remote working context and, if so, how useful it was to promote psychological health at work. Results indicate that most specific management practices usually used in a face‐to‐face setting can also be used in a remote context (85%). Practices that show consideration, establishing work structure, and allowing flexibility were also identified as the most useful to promote remote workers' psychological health during the pandemic. This study contributes to the advancement of knowledge about specific management practices, remote working, and crisis management. It also suggests specific practices that managers can adopt to promote the psychological health of their employees during a period of crisis, even while managing from a distance.

In contrast to the majority of European countries, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Swedish authorities did not put the country in lockdown, but mainly presented relatively mild recommendations to work from home and not gather in groups of over 50 persons. Thus, much of the decision-making and restrictions to prevent the spread of the virus had to occur at the organizational level, i.e., within companies. This paper reports the findings from an online survey carried out in June–September 2020 (n = 196), in which Swedish media managers were asked to focus on perceived media leadership during the COVID-19 crisis. The results indicate that Swedish media managers acted with confidence in their remote leadership and engaged in crisis management leader tasks in line with previous crisis management research. While managers learned to appreciate remote work, they stressed the difficulty of being an inspiring leader in a remote setting and the challenge of motivating creativity, one of the most important components in managing journalism and media work.

Based on the job-demands resources theory, we examine whether leadership behavior affects followers' work engagement in the context of remote work during times of crisis, and how this effect can be explained. We focus on consideration leadership and its impact on followers' engagement under conditions of enforced remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic. Therein, we examine the role of optimism as a potential mediator. To better understand how the impact of consideration leadership behavior unfolds during crises, we examine whether being new to remote work and feeling personally impacted by COVID-19 amplified the proposed relationship between consideration leadership and followers' engagement. A sample of 729 German employees participated in a three-wave study across 6 weeks in May and June 2020. Longitudinal structural equation modeling uncovered direct positive effects of consideration leadership on changes in followers' work engagement in the second time lag (T2 to T3), while optimism did not mediate this effect. Multigroup comparisons revealed that employees who worked from home were particularly responsive to consideration leadership. No moderating effects were found for whether the COVID-19 pandemic personally impacted employees. The discussion highlights the critical role of leadership in followers' motivation and wellbeing in times of crisis and remote work.

The COVID-19 crisis has led to massive increases in working from home (WFH), compelling many individuals to telecommute in challenging circumstances. Further, the strong emphasis on WFH is likely to continue after the pandemic. In this study, we examine the impact of WFH on job performance before and during the COVID-19 crisis. Using longitudinal data on patent examiners at the United States Patent and Trademark Office, we assess the WFH efficacy under various conditions, such as self-selection into WFH, degree of WFH, transition to a WFH mandate, and the passage of time during that mandate. Results show an overall detrimental impact of the WFH mandate on job performance. Even individuals who initially opted into WFH can suffer job performance reduction when circumstances worsen and presumably due to prior expectations for the WFH setting being unmet. However, we also find that such performance decline begins to recover over time, suggesting individual and organizational learning. Although the pandemic is an extreme example of unfavorable circumstances, our study suggests a more tenuous relationship between WFH and job performance than emerges in literature generally focused on voluntary WFH and favorable context.

The implementation of full-remote and hybrid working systems continues to improve and be maintained now. In addition to the convenience, remote working affects the psychological condition of workers. Human Resource (HR) workers who perform remote working need to ensure their psychological condition because they become role models for employees in the company. This study aims to get a comprehensive overview of the well-being of HR workers who implement full-remote and hybrid systems. Qualitative research methods are used with thematic comparison analysis. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews. The characteristics of the respondents in this study are 1) HR employees; 2) Work for a minimum of 6 months; 3) Implement a remote working system (full remote or hybrid working). The research respondents consisted of four people, which are two full-remote workers and two hybrid workers. This study shows that overall remote working can simplify the work processes of employees because its flexibility. On the other hand, the differences were found between the two types of remote working, specifically full-remote work system gives employees more flexibility in managing their work, but workers tend to feel social isolation. Meanwhile, the hybrid work system makes it easier for workers to meet social needs, but workers tend to increase physical complaints. The results of this study can become practical suggestions at the individual, managerial and organizational levels in providing specific guidelines for remote working.

PurposeThe purpose of this study was to examine whether remote work moderates the mediated relationship between leadership behavior (transformational leadership and leader incivility), followers' self-control, and work-life balance.Design/methodology/approachThe authors conducted a three-wave, time lagged study of 338 followers. Drawing on social information processing theory, a moderated mediation model was proposed: it was hypothesized that remote work strengthens the relationship between leadership behavior (transformational leadership and leader incivility), follower self-control, and subsequent work-life balance (moderated mediation). The theoretical model was tested using OLS regression in SPSS.FindingsThe results show that working remotely strengthens the mediated relationships between leadership behavior, self-control, and work-life balance.Practical implicationsOrganizations need to consider the interaction between remote work and leadership. Leader behaviors have a stronger relationship with follower self-control and work-life balance when the frequency of remote work is higher, so it is important to increase transformational leadership and reduce leader incivility in remote contexts. Leadership training programs and respectful workplace initiatives should be considered.Originality/valueThis study demonstrates the importance of leader behaviors for followers' self-control and work-life balance in relation to remote work. This study is the first to examine the boundary condition of remote work in relation to leadership behavior, follower self-control, and work-life balance.

Consequences of technostress for users in remote (home) work contexts during a time of crisis: The buffering role of emotional social support

PurposeWe enquire whether short-time work (STW) avoids firings as intended by policymakers and is associated with unintended side effects by subsidising some establishments and locking in some employees. Additionally, where it was feasible, establishments used working from home (WFH) to continue working without risking an increase in COVID-19 infections and allowing employed parents to care for children attending closed schools.Design/methodology/approachUsing 21 waves of German high-frequency establishment panel data collected during the COVID-19 crisis, we investigate how STW and WFH are associated with hirings, firings, resignations and excess labour turnover (or churning).FindingsOur results show the important influences of STW and working from home on employment dynamics during the pandemic. By means of STW, establishments are able to avoid an increase in involuntary layoffs and hiring decreases significantly. In contrast, WFH is associated with a rise in resignations, as can be expected from a theoretical perspective.Originality/valueWhile most of the literature on STW and WFH is unrelated and remains descriptive, we consider them in conjunction and conduct panel data analyses. We apply data and methods that allow for the dynamic pattern of STW and working from home during the pandemic. Furthermore, our data include relevant establishment-level variables, such as the existence of a works council, employee qualifications, establishment size, the degree to which the establishment was affected by the COVID-19 crisis, industry affiliation and a wave indicator for the period the survey was conducted.

Remote work refers to working some portion of one’s work hours from a location that is not a main, shared office space. Initial discussions of remote work began as early as the 1970s, but increases in technology, particularly the home computer, greatly increased the availability of remote work. The biggest change in the remote work landscape occurred in 2020 following the COVID-19 pandemic, when an unprecedented number of workers worked from home due to shelter-in-place orders. Post-pandemic, many organizations are offering hybrid work arrangements, where employees work remotely a few days per week. There is considerable interest in developing best practices surrounding a remote and hybrid work force, and the research literature is still burgeoning. To date, main areas of focus have been on individual (e.g., job satisfaction, organizational commitment, career advancement) and organizational (e.g., turnover, profit) outcomes associated with working remotely compared to working a standard arrangement. Research findings on remote work are often inconsistent. On the one hand, remote work increases flexibility and autonomy which improves performance and job attitudes, but at the same time can blur boundaries and increase professional isolation which harms well-being and work-nonwork management. Part of these mixed findings may be due to the presence of several key boundary conditions. For example, remote work experiences seem to vary considerably based on the extent of remote work, remote worker personality, and the nature of the job. Lastly, there is a small body of research on effective supervisory practices for remote workers, with findings suggesting that although core leadership behaviors matter, there are also unique skills that effective remote work managers must possess.

The coronavirus (Covid-19) crisis required the workforce to work from home (WFH) during the lockdowns. Aligning the staff for work-from-home (WFH) schedules requires proper human resource planning for employee satisfaction and continued organizational performance. The paper provides empirical evidence on an institutional study on employee satisfaction and performance while working from home. Also, other variables on ICT usage and internet accessibility formed the foundations for further discussions on workforce alignment. Recommendations on the viability of WFH after the pandemic crisis will be described.

Germany’s capacity to work from home

PurposeThe rich qualitative study builds on 11 semi-structured interviews with nine neurodivergent employees and two business professionals supportive of neurodiversity to understand the lived experiences of dealing with crisis in a remote working environment.Design/methodology/approachThe purpose of the reported research is to understand how neurominorities experience remote working in the times of crisis and what the implications of this are for human resource (HR) professionals.FindingsMoving to remote work resulted in a lack of routine, distractions and working long hours, which can all be difficult for line managers to monitor. Further problems with communication in a virtual environment and lack of understanding by others were found to be particularly burdensome to neurodivergent individuals. On the positive note, remote working in the times of crisis allowed for avoiding sensory overwhelm and was seen as an important step in creating a healthy work–life balance (WLB).Practical implicationsThe findings of this study point HR practitioners' attention towards building a more neurodiversity friendly post-pandemic workplace and prompt employers to offer working arrangements, which better suit employees' domestic and personal circumstances.Originality/valueThis study addresses the lack of research on the impact of the Covid-19 crisis on neurominorities. In doing so, it answers recent calls to move away from universal HR as a route to positive employee outcomes and facilitates a more accurate reflection of organizational reality for disadvantaged members of society.

We propose an index of working from home (WFH) capacity for the German economy, drawing on rich survey and administrative data. We find that 56 percent of jobs are WFH feasible, most of which are located in urban areas and in highly digitized industries. Using individual-level data on tasks and work conditions, we show that heterogeneity in WFH feasibility is largely explained by differences in task content. WFH feasible jobs are typically characterized by cognitive, non-manual tasks, and PC usage. We compare our survey-based measure with popular task-based measures of WFH capacity, which usually rely on determining tasks that are incompatible with WFH, and show that task-based approaches capture variation in WFH capacity across occupations quite accurately. Finally, we demonstrate that our WFH index constitutes a strong predictor of actual WFH outcomes during the Covid-19 crisis and discuss applications in the context of the pandemic and the future of work.

Implementing a nurse leader fellowship model.

Changing Ethical Behavior in Times of Economic Crisis in Organizations