Abstract
<p>Virtual offices have been a growing trend in today’s work environment and have been used to improve organizational performance for several decades. However, more and more companies also experience the challenges and problems brought by the use of virtual office in current years. One famous example would be the Yahoo’s decision to withdraw its work-from-home program. Therefore, the studies about the dark side of virtual office start to attract interests from researchers and practitioners. This paper aims at providing a critical view of the changes in employees’ work life due to the shift to virtual office from four perspectives: communication, social relation, achievement recognition and work-life balance. This paper also discusses the impact of such changes on employees’ quality of work life in terms of job satisfaction. This paper intends to conceptually extend the understanding of alternative working arrangements by considering the “dark side” of virtual office in employees’ work life. </p>
Highlights
Yahoo’s recent decision to ban its work-from-home program has cast renewed interests and debates in the benefits of alternative work arrangements online
This paper aims at providing a critical view of the changes in employees’ work life due to the shift to virtual office from four perspectives: communication, social relation, achievement recognition and work-life balance
The conceptual framework consists of two parts: the left side is to describe the changes in virtual office from four perspectives: communication, social relations, achievement recognition and work-life balance, and the right side is to capture the impact of those changes on the employees’ perceived quality of work life which represented by job satisfaction
Summary
Yahoo’s recent decision to ban its work-from-home program has cast renewed interests and debates in the benefits of alternative work arrangements online. The shift from traditional workplace to virtual office helps employees enjoy flexibility in the timing and location of work. This alternative work arrangement enables employees to take more responsibilities. Without the understanding of whether the employees like the virtual office or whether the use of virtual office provides benefits (problems) to the employees, it’s impossible for the organization to provide the appropriate working environment to stimulate employee performance, and let alone achieving the positive outcomes through the alternative workplace arrangement. The author would discuss the changes of shifting to virtual office in terms of communication, social relations, achievement recognition and work-life balance; and the relationship between the changes and employees’ job satisfaction.
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