Task performance and job satisfaction under the effect of remote working: Call center evidence

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic affected the entire world and caused radical changes in conducting business. During the pandemic, some companies adopted hybrid working, and some requested their employees to work entirely from their homes or workplace. This study is performed to determine the differences in the perceived task performance of employees working from home compared to those operating from their workplace and the possible mediating effect of job satisfaction due to such distinction. The study sample is limited to one call center to prevent the interference of other organizational variables such as management style, human resources practices, organizational culture, and to only call center agents to prevent any interference of the position-related factors. All the call center agents (n=421) participated in this study. The data obtained was examined by a path analysis with the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The results show that the employees who work from home full-time or on certain days of the week have better general task performance perception compared to those who work only from the workplace. The work location has not been found to affect job satisfaction significantly.