Abstract
The Covid-19 pandemic has resulted, to date, in an estimated 29 per cent of the New Zealand (NZ) workforce moving quickly from centralised work locations to full time working from home (WFH). The literature prior to these extraordinary events suggests WFH is beneficial for employee wellbeing and performance, and organisational outcomes, notably productivity, retention, and business continuity in times of disruption. Lack of organisational preparedness, technological limitations, managerial reluctance, and the potential drawbacks of social isolation have meant that the rates of regular, planned WFH as a flexible work option have traditionally been low. This paper summarises the knowledge base of benefits and limitations of WFH prior to COVID-19 and speculates how the experiences of WFH during the pandemic are likely to shape the future of WFH for workers, organisations, and employees.
Highlights
The day before New Zealand (NZ) recorded its first case of the coronavirus on February 28, 2020, there was a report of “the largest mass exercise in remote working in global corporate history” (Field, 2020) as companies responded to the ‘stay at home’ message to help control the virus
Yost (2012) suggests that organisations should be ready to deal with the question, “if we can working from home (WFH) in a disaster, why can’t we always do it?” in NZ, early indications are that up to 90 per cent of workers in WFH-capable organisations wish to continue to WFH to some extent after the Covid-19 experience (University of Otago, 2020)
One of the case studies reported in Green et al (2017) recognised the limitations of their existing ICT systems for WFH during their disaster experience, and established a virtual platform and added collaboration and communication tools to be used in business as usual (BAU)
Summary
The day before New Zealand (NZ) recorded its first case of the coronavirus on February 28, 2020, there was a report of “the largest mass exercise in remote working in global corporate history” (Field, 2020) as companies responded to the ‘stay at home’ message to help control the virus. Moving to a WFH work arrangement can lead to work intensification for managers This was seen following the earthquakes in Christchurch where Donnelly & Proctor-Thomson (2015) found significant variation in the experiences and perceptions of team leaders compared to team members, with greater demands on team leaders to control and coordinate operations and support staff in challenging circumstances, which required enhanced communication. This has been the case for some team leaders in the current pandemic disruption (personal communication)
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