In-person Work Research Articles

The Impact of Working from Home on Mental Health: A Cross-Sectional Study of Canadian Worker's Mental Health during the Third Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has seen a considerable expansion in the way work settings are structured, with a continuum emerging between working fully in-person and from home. The pandemic has also exacerbated many risk factors for poor mental health in the workplace, especially in public-facing jobs. Therefore, we sought to test the potential relationship between work setting and self-rated mental health. To do so, we modeled the association of work setting (only working from home, only in-person, hybrid) on self-rated mental health (Excellent/Very Good/Good vs. Fair/Poor) in an online survey of Canadian workers during the third wave of COVID-19. The mediating effects of vaccination, masking, and distancing were explored due to the potential effect of COVID-19-related stress on mental health among those working in-person. Among 1576 workers, most reported hybrid work (77.2%). Most also reported good self-rated mental health (80.7%). Exclusive work from home (aOR: 2.79, 95%CI: 1.90, 4.07) and exclusive in-person work (aOR: 2.79, 95%CI: 1.83, 4.26) were associated with poorer self-rated mental health than hybrid work. Vaccine status mediated only a small proportion of this relationship (7%), while masking and physical distancing were not mediators. We conclude that hybrid work arrangements were associated with positive self-rated mental health. Compliance with vaccination, masking, and distancing recommendations did not meaningfully mediate this relationship.

Maximising a remote Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) workforce through technology and transparency

The onset of COVID-19 in 2020 forced revenue cycle management organisations to ride the work-from-home trend. As the pandemic’s ‘stay-at-home’ mandates continued, these organisations began to experience the benefits of a remote workforce — improved work-life balance, employee satisfaction and productivity among others. When the restrictions of the pandemic lessened, the desire to maintain a flexible work environment remained strong. Organisations must now find ways to optimise their remote workforce without the comfort of walking the floors for real-time observation and feedback. They must now replace previous best practices of an in-person work environment with technology that provides real-time visibility into day-to-day activities, performance improvement opportunities, centralised workflow, advanced account segmentation strategies and modern payment options. By implementing technologies to amplify their workforce from within flexible workplace environments, organisations will reap the benefits of improved productivity performance. They will also create a work environment that boosts morale and reduces staff turnover by setting up their staff for success and investing in tools that remove barriers to achieving their goals and enhancing their experience.

Telehealth Frontiers: Social Telerobots in Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics

Background COVID-19 has severely impacted health in vulnerable demographics. As communities transition back to in-person work, learning, and social activities, pediatric patients who are restricted to their homes due to medical conditions face unprecedented isolation. Prior to the pandemic, it was estimated that each year, over 2.5 million US children remained at home due to medical conditions. Confronting gaps in health and technical resources is central to addressing the challenges faced by children who remain at home. Having children use mobile telemedicine units (telerobots) to interact with their outside environment (eg, school and play, etc) is increasingly recognized for its potential to support children’s development. Additionally, social telerobots are emerging as a novel form of telehealth. A social telerobot is a tele-operated unit with a mobile base, 2-way audio/video capabilities, and some semiautonomous features. Objective In this paper, we aimed to provide a critical review of studies focused on the use of social telerobots for pediatric populations. Methods To examine the evidence on telerobots as a telehealth intervention, we conducted electronic and full-text searches of private and public databases in June 2010. We included studies with the pediatric personal use of interactive telehealth technologies and telerobot studies that explored effects on child development. We excluded telehealth and telerobot studies with adult (aged >18 years) participants. Results In addition to telehealth and telerobot advantages, evidence from the literature suggests 3 promising robot-mediated supports that contribute to optimal child development—belonging, competence, and autonomy. These robot-mediated supports may be leveraged for improved pediatric patient socioemotional development, well-being, and quality-of-life activities that transfer traditional developmental and behavioral experiences from organic local environments to the remote child. Conclusions This review contributes to the creation of the first pediatric telehealth taxonomy of care that includes the personal use of telehealth technologies as a compelling form of telehealth care.

US Parents' Domestic Labor During the First Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

It is important to assess the long-term consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic for gender equality, but we know little about US parents’ domestic arrangements beyond the early days of the pandemic or how simultaneous changes in employment, earnings, telework, gender ideologies, and care supports may have altered domestic arrangements. This study assesses changes in parents’ domestic labor during the first year of the pandemic using fixed-effects regression on data from a longitudinal panel of 700 different-sex partnered US parents collected at three time points: March, April, and November 2020. Parents’ divisions of housework and childcare became more equal early in the pandemic, but divisions of housework reverted toward pre-pandemic levels by Fall 2020 whereas fathers’ shares of childcare remained elevated. Changes in parents’ divisions of domestic labor were largely driven by changes in parents’ labor force conditions, but shifts in gender ideology also mattered. Decreases in fathers’ labor force participation and increases in telecommuting in April portended increases in fathers’ shares of domestic tasks. As fathers increased their time in paid work and returned to in-person work by fall, their shares of domestic labor fell. Shifts toward more traditional gender ideologies were also associated with decreases in fathers’ shares of childcare in Fall 2020. Overall, results point to remote work as a possible means for achieving greater gender equality in domestic labor among couples, but shifts toward traditional gender ideologies may suppress any gains stemming from supportive work–family policies.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11113-022-09735-1.

In the Blink of an Eye

Hannah Foulger talks with Ben Townsley and Tanner Mason about their production Blink, written by Townsley, which is a guided meditation and radio play, initially produced in September 2020. Mason and Townsley discuss creating in-person work during the pandemic that translates to an at-home, personal experience in podcast form. Mason notes, “We produced the show in a very, very special nugget of time…. We had the necessity of keeping people safe, but in a creative way.”

At-Home Anthropology: A Recipe for Collaboration

ABSTRACT The COVID-19 pandemic drastically changed the way many schools and museums operate. Using a case study of a collection of digital resources for kids and families, the authors share their recipe for successful collaborations both in and outside of their museum. With a practitioner focus, the authors highlight the importance of not forgetting the lessons of pandemic successes in organizations during the return to in-person work.

Seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 Infection Among Working Women and Impact of Workplace Restrictions.

ObjectiveTo determine the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 virus infection among female workers who were restricted to working from home compared with those who continued to attend in-person work.MethodsAs part of national surveillance program, serum samples for SARS-CoV-2 antibody testing and nasopharyngeal swabs for SARS-CoV-2 PCR were obtained on 1636 female school staff and salon/spa workers who were restricted to work remotely (restricted group) and 1190 female health-care workers who continued in-person work (unrestricted group).ResultsSeropositivity rate was 5.1% among the restricted and 22.7% among the unrestricted group (P < 0.0001). Presence of symptoms at baseline (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 2.88; 95% CI 2.09–3.97), contact with a confirmed case (aOR 2.34; 95% CI 1.37–3.98), and unrestricted work type (aOR 4.71; 95% CI 3.24–6.86) were associated with a higher risk of infection, while increasing age was associated with a lower risk of infection.ConclusionPrevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection as determined by seropositivity was higher among women who were not subject to workplace restrictions.

Why Cultural Diplomacy Is More Relevant—And More Challenging—Than Ever

The authors, both violinists and founders of cultural diplomacy organizations, relate the challenges of conducting meaningful cultural diplomacy during a pandemic. Their work included video collaborations bringing together musicians from North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia; in-person work in the remote Sierra Tarahumara mountains of northern Mexico; and a unique project to promote the sustained livelihood and increased access of freedom and security of 326 Afghan musicians.

ADVICE: Optimizing meetings, a critical post-pandemic task for physician leaders

Meetings and committees occupy a significant amount of the working time of physician leaders and their teams. The amount of time spent in meetings has grown over decades and that growth has rapidly accelerated over the COVID-19 pandemic. The return to in-person work offers physician leaders the opportunity to optimize their meetings by thinking about the entire suite of meetings they and their teams are involved in. Creating a meeting inventory and evaluating it can reveal patterns, inefficiencies, and redundancies that can become targets for optimization. Effective meetings can create a competitive advantage for leaders, teams, and organizations and can support productivity and job satisfaction. Meeting optimization should be a high priority for physician leaders.

Improving Data Surveillance Resilience Beyond COVID-19: Experiences of Primary heAlth Care quAlity Cohort In ChinA (ACACIA) Using Unannounced Standardized Patients.

We analyzed COVID-19 influences on the design, implementation, and validity of assessing the quality of primary health care using unannounced standardized patients (USPs) in China. Because of the pandemic, we crowdsourced our funding, removed tuberculosis from the USP case roster, adjusted common cold and asthma cases, used hybrid online-offline training for USPs, shared USPs across provinces, and strengthened ethical considerations. With those changes, we were able to conduct fieldwork despite frequent COVID-19 interruptions. Furthermore, the USP assessment tool maintained high validity in the quality checklist (criteria), USP role fidelity, checklist completion, and physician detection of USPs. Our experiences suggest that the pandemic created not only barriers but also opportunities to innovate ways to build a resilient data collection system. To build data system reliance, we recommend harnessing the power of technology for a hybrid model of remote and in-person work, learning from the sharing economy to pool strengths and optimize resources, and dedicating individual and group leadership to problem-solving and results. (Am J Public Health. 2022;112(6):913-922. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2022.306779).

Prevalence of Previous COVID-19 Infection, COVID-19 Vaccination Receipt, and Intent to Vaccinate Among the US Workforce.

Objective:As COVID-19 vaccines become more accessible to all people in the United States, more employees are returning to the workforce or switching to in-person work. However, limited information is available on vaccination coverage and intent among the US workforce.Methods:We used data from the US Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey, fielded during April 14–May 24, 2021 (N = 218 787), to examine the prevalence of previous COVID-19 infection, vaccination receipt, and intent to vaccinate by essential worker status and employment type. In addition, we analyzed factors associated with vaccination receipt and reasons for not getting vaccinated.Results:More than 15% of the US workforce had a previous diagnosis of COVID-19, and 73.6% received ≥1 dose of COVID-19 vaccine; however, 12.4% reported that they probably will not or definitely will not get vaccinated. Vaccination coverage (range, 63.8%-78.3%) was lowest and non-intent to get vaccinated (12.9%-21.7%) was highest among self-employed adults across all essential and nonessential worker groups. Factors associated with receipt of vaccination were age, race, Hispanic ethnicity, educational attainment, annual household income, health insurance status, and previous COVID-19 diagnosis. The main reasons for not getting vaccinated were concerns about possible side effects and waiting and seeing if the vaccine is safe.Conclusion:Identifying and addressing disparities in COVID-19 vaccination coverage in the US workforce can protect groups with low vaccine coverage and increase understanding of reasons for vaccine hesitancy. Educating employees about the vaccine and its potential side effects, promoting a culture of health and safety in the workplace, and building social norms around vaccination can help create a safe work environment for all employees and their families.

Work from home in the post-COVID world

The working standard of shared office spaces has evolved in recent years. Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, many companies have instituted work from home (WFH) policies in accordance with public health guidelines in order to increase social distancing and decrease the spread of COVID-19. As the pandemic and WFH-related policies have continued for more than a year, there has been a rise in people becoming accustomed to the remote environments; however, others are more enthusiastic about returning to in-person work environments, reflecting the desire to restore pre-pandemic environments. As working from home is related to transportation issues such as changing commuting patterns and decreased congestion, motorized trips, and emission, there is a need to explore the extent of public attitudes on this important issue. This study used unique open-source survey data that provides substantial information on this topic. Using an advanced categorical data analysis method known as cluster correspondence analysis, this study identified several key findings. Not having prior WFH experiences, being eager to interact with colleagues, difficulties with adapting to virtual meeting technologies, and challenges with self-discipline while WFH were strongly associated with individuals who refused to continuously WFH at all after the pandemic. Individuals holding a strong view against the seriousness of the COVID-19 pandemic were also largely associated with never choosing WFH during and after the pandemic. For individuals with some prior WFH experiences, the transition to WFH every day in response to the outbreak was much easier, compared to those without prior experiences. Moreover, being forced to WFH during the COVID-19 pandemic positively influences the choice of WFH after the pandemic. The findings of this study will be beneficial to help policymakers and sustainable city planners understand public opinions about WFH.

Vaccinated: Marketing Workforce Hybridization

With a hybrid workplace model, employers offer exceptional workplace places, create greater collaboration and community for workers and showcase an example of the modern workplace that is digitally flexible and hybrid.This article aims to explore how the organizations and workers impacted by the long-term impact of the pandemic have accelerated the work-from-home movement and exacerbated organizational issues associated with remote work. This study used qualitative content analysis methods and relied on recent remote work research articles, digital surveys, and interviews. This article provides a viewpoint based on the authors' professional experiences in academia and the industry. This narrative review aims to underscore how the pandemic brought lasting workforce changes, including the prevalence and permanence of remote and hybrid work. The article aims to present how companies are moving toward a hybrid workforce, capitalizing on both the collaborative nature of in-person work and the flexibility of telecommuting. This research aimed to study the new work models providing opportunities to supercharge customer intimacy, workers' engagement, and productivity. This study finds that the worker's challenges regarding job satisfaction, productivity, and organizational commitment work in progress as the COVID-19 pushed organizations into unprecedented and unplanned remote work, and hybrid work is the best remedial approach.The article adds to the body of knowledge regarding remote work in organizations focused on the new hybrid work environment created by the global pandemic. The result of the study recommends that organizations create a level playing field for workers, regardless of their location, empower managers, and care for workers as their highest priority not only structurally but in ways of workspaces, working, and culture for hybrid work. The general discussion includes the conclusions from the study for further qualitative and quantitative investigations with significant implications for academicians, practitioners, and policy makers.

The Views of Mental Health Professionals Who Use Digital Methods to Support Care-Experienced Young People

The mental health of care experienced young people is a public health priority, with these individuals more at risk of experiencing poor mental health. While most mental health interventions have previously been delivered in-person, in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic many services were forced to change to a digital or blended format. While digital methods have been of great research interest, to date there has been scant research investigating the use of these methods with care experienced young people. The objective of this study was to explore the viewpoints of professionals who had experience of delivering digital mental health support to this group. A qualitative research design was employed, with ten semi-structured interviews conducted and analysed using a grounded theory approach. Themes relating to the move to online working, ensuring privacy and confidentiality online and accessibility of digital methods are discussed, as well as professionals’ intended method of future service delivery. Professionals were cautious to remove all in-person work with care experienced young people but were optimistic that, by providing an option to work digitally, there was the potential to provide services to a whole new group of service users who had previously been unable to access help.

The puzzle and persistence of biglaw clustering

Abstract Elite U.S.-based global law firms (“Biglaw” firms) concentrate in the costliest districts of superstar cities, especially two neighborhoods in Manhattan. This pattern has persisted despite both the dispersal of Biglaw clients across less-dense, lower-cost U.S. geographies and the development of telework capacity. It suggests a puzzle: law is among the occupations most conducive to remote work, yet Biglaw prior to the coronavirus pandemic required in-person work in the priciest places—meaning it paid (and continues to pay) a premium on both of its biggest expenses, wages and real estate. How might this equilibrium be explained, and what might lead it to change? This Article contends that Biglaw clustering reflects a management preference for the exploitation of proven strategies over the exploration of novel and uncertain ones—but that the pandemic telework experience is eroding this dichotomy. This analysis has direct implications for private international law (“PIL”) practice, where large-scale transactions and disputes are handled by Biglaw firms and involve significant international travel. This Article contributes to a growing literature on telework’s impacts on cities, labor markets, and industries, and is the first to extend that focus to Biglaw and PIL. A post-pandemic Biglaw embrace of dispersal via telework would destabilize standard accounts of collaboration in agglomeration economies. While the Article expresses skepticism about that outcome, it identifies a mechanism by which it might plausibly come about. Crucially, this mechanism—the replacement of an exploit vs. explore choice with two different exploit options—posits as the key driver not technology but management learning and innovation that quickened during the pandemic.

Topophilia, Placemaking, and Boundary Work

The COVID-19 pandemic fundamentally changed the nature of work by shifting most in-person work to a predominantly remote modality as a way to limit the spread of the coronavirus. In the process, the shift to working-from-home rapidly forced the large-scale adoption of groupware technologies. Although prior empirical research examined the experience of working-from-home within small-scale groups and for targeted kinds of work, the pandemic provides HCI and CSCW researchers with an unprecedented opportunity to understand the psycho-social impacts of a universally mandated work-from-home experience rather than an autonomously chosen one. Drawing on boundary theory and a methodological approach grounded in humanistic geography, we conducted a qualitative analysis of Reddit data drawn from two work-from-home-related subreddits between March 2020 and January 2021. In this paper, we present a characterization of the challenges and solutions discussed within these online communities for adapting work to a hybrid or fully remote modality, managing reconfigured work-life boundaries, and reconstructing the home's sense of place to serve multiple, sometimes conflicting roles. We discuss how these findings suggest an emergent interplay among adapted work practice, reimagined physical (and virtual) spaces, and the establishment and continual re-negotiation of boundaries as a means for anticipating the long-term impact of COVID on future conceptualizations of productivity and work.

Using Public Deliberation to Set Priorities: The Case of COVID-19 Vaccine Access in New York City.

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a record number of deaths in the United States and tremendous economic and personal strain. During 2020, in anticipation of a vaccine to slow the spread of disease, local and state governments in the United States developed plans for vaccine prioritization, given a limited initial supply. Recognizing the challenges inherent in prioritization, the New York City (NYC) health department sought guidance from members of the public about the fairest approach to early-stage vaccine distribution. To solicit recommendations from NYC residents on priorities regarding vaccine access for essential worker occupations, considering risk factors and preferred approaches to fairness. Five public deliberations were conducted with NYC residents (N = 91). Participants heard presentations on the COVID-19 vaccine, the local distribution of illness and death, and approaches to fairness in the context of deliberating on priorities for 6 essential worker occupations and 4 risk factors. Discussions were transcribed, and transcriptions were coded and analyzed using preidentified and emergent themes. Pre- and post-surveys, focused on factors relevant to prioritization, were administered during each public deliberation. Recommendations for prioritization emphasized risk of severe morbidity and mortality, and work and neighborhood conditions with fewer protections (eg, in-person work, exposure to many people). Participants prioritized elementary schoolteachers, grocery store workers, and bus drivers, underlying health conditions, and neighborhood of residence. Participants focused on equity, recognizing that those at highest risk were largely low-income populations of color and individuals living in low-resourced neighborhoods. Participants' focus on equity, and acknowledgment of racial and ethnic disparities, revealed a nuanced understanding of the broader determinants of health. Recommendations reinforced the NYC health department's approach to vaccine distribution. Results from these public deliberations confirmed community support for approaches prioritizing health equity, recognizing both societal and personal factors affecting vulnerability to poor health.

Analysis of Energy Consumption in Commercial and Residential Buildings in New York City before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic

This study compares the energy burden of New York City office buildings versus personal residences before and during the stay-at-home period of the COVID-19 pandemic. The scope is comprised of employees that, prior to the stay-at-home order, underwent a daily commute to and from a representative midtown Manhattan office building. Energy consumed by these employees with respect to the office building they work in, their transportation there, and their personal residence was determined using publicly available data. Energy usage and cost per person per day were compared in both remote and in-person work settings. The results of this study demonstrated that remote working conditions consume 39.7% less energy and required less personal expense compared to in-person working conditions. Additionally, the results found that a building occupancy of 65% is where the energy burden shifts from residential to commercial sectors. This study can be a starting point of discussion for businesses regarding staffing of commercial buildings and energy efficiency. Future work on this topic would benefit from having a more robust data set compared to the publicly available data used in this study.

Chasing targets in a pandemic: The impact of COVID-19 on HIV outreach workers for MSM (men who have sex with men) in Jakarta, Indonesia

ABSTRACT The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on HIV services globally, including community-based outreach programmes. This article draws on a qualitative study of HIV outreach workers for men who have sex with men (MSM) in Jakarta, Indonesia undertaken between July and September 2020. The research documented the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on HIV outreach programmes for MSM based on interviews, focus group discussions and video diaries collected from outreach workers. As a result of the pandemic, and in response to the guidelines issued by international donors and the Indonesian government, outreach workers shifted activities to ‘virtual outreach’ where possible. However, outreach workers consistently performed in-person work to address what they referred to as ‘urgent’ cases (e.g. required them to attend the clinic). Regardless of delivery mode, the steps comprising outreach work during the pandemic aligned with the ‘cascade of care’, which forms the dominant policy narrative for the management of HIV. Outreach work during the pandemic therefore continued to be based primarily on the objective of maintaining testing and treatment rates. Although outreach workers responded innovatively to the pandemic, including to the risk of COVID-19 infection, they were limited by the prevailing emphasis on targets in HIV programmes.

Closing the Social Distance

The following paper is centered around the potential for organizational change in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper argues that the disruption of “business as usual” during the COVID-19 pandemic provides opportunities to both highlight gendered organizational practices during remote work and explore how organizational actors might contribute to a more equitable restructuring of gendered communication practices once employees return to in-person work. First, the paper contextualizes the COVID-19 pandemic at the time of writing. Next, the literature review examines the notion of organizations as inherently gendered, the history of organizational change from Lewinian Planned Change to models of non-linear change, and bureaucratic organizational structures using a feminist lens. The discussion section then argues that complexity theories offer significant opportunities for improvement due to the destabilization of current workplace practices. This argument is followed up by examples of how organizations can successfully engage complexity theories to reduce gender inequality in the post-pandemic world. The paper concludes that by emphasizing consensus and autonomy, improvements to network communication and the merging of public and private spheres should be the first steps towards the ultimate goal of reducing gender inequality through the deconstruction of bureaucracies.