The need to work from home in higher education during the first phase of COVID-19: Employee productivity, autonomy, work relationships, job satisfaction and well-being

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine the experiences of university teaching staff in Poland in a forced work-from-home situation and its impact on autonomy, productivity, labour relationships, work-life balance, and job satisfaction. A conceptual model based on the literature review was built and empirically verified using structural modelling. A pandemic-enforced shift to remote work negatively affected job satisfaction, increased productivity and reduced autonomy perceived by the university teaching staff. This study differs from the previous ones in that the requirement for mandatory remote work during the crisis has a different impact on employees’ perceptions of autonomy, satisfaction, productivity, work-life balance, and relationships compared to when the transition to remote work was a voluntary choice. Plenty of lessons remain to be learned from the initial response to the COVID-19 crisis and experience acquired under the disruptive circumstances of the pandemic. Universities should pay closer attention to the needs of employees and current digitalization trends and implement specific strategies to foster work-life balance so that research and teaching staff can develop academic activities and provide expected results even in an unfavourable environment while maintaining teaching quality. In the long run, these actions can lead to the creation of agile universities.