Working in Public Administration During Nonwork Time During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Jernej Buzeti,Špela Mar

doi:10.17573/cepar.2021.1.10

Abstract

With the outbreak of Covid-19, a pandemic was declared in March 2020 and countries introduced various measures to overcome it. As a result, employees worked more intensively from home with the use of information and communication technologies (ICT), which significantly affected the way of work, the length of the working day, and the time reserved for rest. The purpose of this article is to examine whether, during the pandemic, public employees in the Slovenian public administration worked during nonwork time. This is the first research of this kind in the Slovenian public administration. The research applied the quantitative method and an online questionnaire conducted in February 2021, whereby data from 1676 public administration employees were obtained. The results of the research show that at the time of the Covid-19 pandemic, 80% of the respondents performed work during nonwork time. In fact, public employees quite often worked late in the afternoon after working hours and on weekends. Interestingly, about 10% of public employees even worked during annual leave and sick leave. The results of the research contribute to theoretical and practical knowledge about work related activities during nonwork time.

Highlights

Organizations and employees need to constantly adapt to changes that are increasingly affecting the distribution of working time and performance
The survey was carried out to determine how often and when did public servants in Slovenian public administration at the time of the COVID-19 (SARSCoV-2) epidemic perform work tasks during nonwork time and whether during this time they responded to the working requests of superiors, colleagues and clients through information and communication technology (ICT)
The binominal test verified whether public servants in the Slovenian public administration were working during nonwork time during the COVID-19 epidemic

Summary

Introduction

Organizations and employees need to constantly adapt to changes that are increasingly affecting the distribution of working time and performance. Following the declaration of a global pandemic, due to the outbreak of COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) in March 2020, measures to protect human health and prevent the spread of the virus and reduce the consequences were introduced. Organizations have changed their ways of organizing work, working conditions and processes, and many employees have started working from home (ILO, 2020). 53) points out, employees in organizations respond differently to situations in the work environment and it is not surprising that during an epidemic period (Eurofound, 2021; Eurofound, 2020; DeFilippis et al, 2020; McCulley, 2020, cited in ILO, 2020; Reisenwitz, 2020, cited in ILO, 2020) the working hours of employees in general have lengthened, employees perform work during the time set aside for their rest As Buzeti (2020, p. 53) points out, employees in organizations respond differently to situations in the work environment and it is not surprising that during an epidemic period (Eurofound, 2021; Eurofound, 2020; DeFilippis et al, 2020; McCulley, 2020, cited in ILO, 2020; Reisenwitz, 2020, cited in ILO, 2020) the working hours of employees in general have lengthened, employees perform work during the time set aside for their rest

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