Telecommuting Work Research Articles

Organizational socialization strategies of interns transitioning to telecommuting work in uncertain times

PurposeThe study aims to examine how organizational socialization occurs for interns transitioning from onsite to telecommuting work, particularly in a context where traditional supports have been reduced due to the pandemic.Design/methodology/approachDrawing from interviews (n = 22) of undergraduates interning at advertorial and marketing firms, the study conducted a thematic analysis of workplace learning experiences of undergraduate interns─newcomers at the workplace when disruption of traditional ways of performing work activities occurred. In particular, the enforced telecommuting work-from-home arrangements due to the pandemic provided a unique setting for this study of internship learning in changing contexts. The analyses reveal differences in undergraduate interns’ experiences of organizational socialization when they were at the physical workplace as compared to when they had to work remotely.FindingsInterns reported benefitting from structured onboarding, supportive peer systems, and regular face-to-face meetings with supervisors, which facilitated their socialization and understanding of workplace culture before the pandemic. However, as telecommuting became the norm during the pandemic, these experiences shifted. Interns adapted by engaging in digital interactions to mirror office dynamics, extending work hours due to blurred work-life boundaries, and independently seeking information in the absence of direct guidance. When adapting to digital communication and independent learning, interns faced challenges like longer working hours and reduced spontaneous interactions, indicating a preference for the traditional, in-person socialization methods of the pre-pandemic workplace.Originality/valueThis study provides insight into interns’ experiences during the global shift to hybrid work as a result of the pandemic, contributing fresh insights into organizational socialization processes amidst workplace disruptions. The conclusions offer valuable implications for future adaptive onboarding practices in educational and professional settings.

Strategi Telecommuting Work: Sejauh Mana Pengaruhnya terhadap Kepuasan Kerja dan Kinerja

This study focuses on the relationship between telecommuting work with performance, job satisfaction, and work-life balance. This research is important because the telecommuting policy has been taken by many institutions considering the advantages of this policy are very efficient, such as reducing costs, time, and space. This study aims to provide an overview of the extent to which the impact of telecommunications works on the behavior of workers, especially workers in a university environment. Using descriptive research methods, this research used online questionnaires distributed to 174 lecturers at Syiah Kuala University. The data was analysed using SEM AMOS to see and test the relationship between variables. The results showed that telecommuting work showed a positive and significant relationship to job satisfaction, work-life balance, and performance. Likewise, the relationship between work-life balance, satisfaction, and performance showed positive and significant results. Finally, work-life balance and job satisfaction mediate the relationship between telecommuting work and performance.
 Keywords: Telecommuting Work, Job Performance, Job Satisfaction, Work-Life Balance.

Exploring Indian working mothers' transition to involuntary telecommuting

PurposeDuring the COVID-19 pandemic, many working mothers in India adopted involuntary telecommuting work option for the first time. However, no research explored their adjustments and experiences in the new work setting. This paper aims to gain an in-depth understanding of Indian working mothers' lived experience of involuntary telecommuting.Design/methodology/approachA phenomenological research design was adopted. The authors conducted 14 in-depth, semi-structured telephonic and online interviews. Data were analyzed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis framework.FindingsThe data analysis yielded two interconnected superordinate themes in this research: (1) characteristics of involuntary telecommuting and (2) the impact of involuntary telecommuting. Under the first theme, four sub-themes emerged: long working hours, increased family demands, reduced interaction with coworkers and technology-enabled communication with supervisors. The second theme comprised five sub-themes: time-based work interference with family, time-based family interference with work, strain-based family interference with work, absence of emotional and professional support and performance management concerns. Involuntary telecommuting mothers faced challenges due to lack of control over their daily work schedule and demands, along with an increased burden of unpaid household work, leading to difficulties in managing their work schedule and negotiating their professional role identity within the family. These findings emphasize that working mothers who participated in involuntary telecommuting encountered bidirectional time-based conflicts and unidirectional strain-based conflict.Research limitations/implicationsThe study examines a particular subset of women telecommuters who were working mothers with young children. These potential limitations are to be addressed in future research.Practical implicationsThe findings suggest that managers should develop HR policies and telecommuting ecosystems in order to enhance effectiveness of telecommuting. Specifically, organizations offering telecommuting work options should create opportunities for informal interaction among peers and formal one-to-one interaction with managers. Moreover, HR managers should develop and implement employee-friendly telecommuting policies.Social implicationsThe research contributes to HRM and gender literature.Originality/valueThe paper contributes to the discourses of work-life balance, workplace relationships and work policies within telecommuting literature.

Occupational self-efficacy as a predictor of work engagement employees working telecommuting during the covid-19 pandemic

The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on changes in the work environment, which has shifted from traditional to digital. Many companies have started implementing remote work systems (telecommuting). The telecommuting work system cause employees to be able to adapt to new work rhythms and face all other obstacles. The impact of the pandemic presents a challenge for companies in maintaining employee engagement to survive in an uncertain environment. Therefore, this study aims to test occupational self-efficacy's predictive power on employees' work engagement who work telecommuting during the Covid-19 pandemic. This study uses a quantitative approach with simple linear regression statistical analysis. In this study, 130 participants were found as active employees who worked at least two years in companies, had experience telecommuting during the pandemic, and were located in JABODETABEK. The results of simple linear regression showed that occupational self-efficacy was significantly able to predict 43.5% of the variance of work engagement (R2= 0.435, F (1, 128) = 98.698, p < 0.001).

Work-life balance crafting during COVID-19: exploring strategies of telecommuting employees in the Philippines

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study is to explore the work-life balance (WLB) crafting strategies of employees with telecommuting work arrangements during the COVID-19 pandemic. Qualitative data from 112 employees in the Philippines were collected through online surveys. Deductive thematic analysis was then conducted to identify the physical, cognitive and relational WLB crafting strategies that they practice. Results suggest that employees utilized a variety of WLB crafting strategies to be able to balance demands in both work and non-work domains while telecommuting during the COVID-19 pandemic. Physical crafting strategies include managing time, managing work tasks and managing the workspace. Cognitive crafting strategies include enforcing health-related self-care practices, and embracing the fluidity between work, rest and leisure. Relational crafting strategies include spending time with family and virtually connecting with co-workers. Results suggest that the strategies used by employees to achieve WLB during the COVID-19 pandemic are reflective of the physical, relational and cognitive WLB crafting strategies found in earlier literature, albeit nuanced by the effects of the pandemic in the work and family/life domains. Findings may help inform the design of WLB programs and initiatives that will enhance employee WLB during the COVID-19 pandemic and in future crisis situations.

Improved behavior model based on sequential rule mining

The fourth industrial revolution leads the manufacturing companies to develop future and smart factories by merging automation and digitalization to result a more efficient production method. An evolutionary and competitive experimental approach is necessary to foster the innovation and the rapid change of the automation and digitalization. Consequently, software becomes an important component of industrial automation. One of the major challenge in Industry 4.0 is to industrialize the production of software. Software factory, as one industry with a virtual production line to produce software for manufacturing companies, offers a form of flexible employment, called as telecommuting work. Although this form brings many benefits for both employee and employers, some risks associated with telecommuting work exist. Monitoring the employee behavior is one of the employer way to see the accountability of the employee. Hence, understanding the human behavior during the production process would be an important issue for fulfilling overall operational excellence in software factory. Among approaches proposed to discover the human behavior based on the sequence activities, process mining is one of which has received attentions lately. While most recent process mining approaches in the domain of human behavior address process discovery and post-analysis, few of them have paid attentions on pre-analysis. The pre-analysis is one of the ways to produce a reliable and high-quality of event log which purposely impacts on discovering a daily common behavior and disregarding irregular sequential behavior. This study aims to propose a new way of pre-analysis using sequential rule mining. The key contributions of this research first, is to determine the potential local behaviors using sequential rule mining considering time constraint. Second, the local behaviors are used to enhance event log for discovering relevant behavior model. Third, the mined model is verified by performing conformance checking approach to check the conformity between the behavior model and the real logs based on three measurements: f-measure, ABA, and DMF. The resulting local behaviors, called as rules, can be used for guiding stakeholders to pinpoint the relevant behavior for human capital and productivity enhancement.

IT, TV and Time Displacement: What Alexander Szalai Anticipated but Couldn’t Know

IT, TV and Time Displacement: What Alexander Szalai Anticipated but Couldn’t Know

An Evaluation of Performance by Older Persons on a Simulated Telecommuting Task

Telecommuting work represents a strategy for managing the growing number of older people in the workforce. This study involved a simulated customer service telecommuting task that used e-mail to answer customer queries about media-related products and company policies. Participants included 27 "younger" older adults (50-65 years) and 25 "older" older adults (66-80 years). The participants performed the task for two 2-hr sessions a day over 4 consecutive days. Although both age groups showed significant improvement across sessions on many of the performance criteria, in general the improvements were more marked for the older age-group participants. However, the participants from both age groups had difficulty meeting some of the task performance requirements. These results are discussed in terms of training strategies for older workers.

Making Telecommuting Work

Addresses how to make telecommuting work for software managers. It is possible to create a telecommuting culture-an environment in which people can successfully work from wherever they happen to be physically. The critical component of that culture is building and maintaining an open and trustful communication between the manager and the employee and between the employee and the rest of the team. One way to build that three-way communication is to create a track record of successful deliverables by clarifying the work required, facilitating interaction rules, clarifying how people work with each other one-on-one, and specifying how the telecommuter participates with the team

Technological developments: shaping the telecommuting work environment of the future

This paper examines the concept and the implementation of telecommuting and how it will affect the employee, organization and the general business environment. It also provides suggestions for employers implementing a telecommuting program. In this new millennium, it is obvious that the workforce and the way of work are changing drastically. Telecommuting, or allowing the employees to perform their jobs away from the central or primary business location, is increasing. While many jobs have some aspects that may lend themselves to telecommuting, white‐collar jobs that require a great amount of independent work are the most suitable for telecommuting. The paper also discusses the importance of selecting the right employees for telecommuting.

Perceptions and Expectations: Why People Choose a Telecommuting Work Style

:Telecommuting, the substitution of informotion technology capabilities for presence at a central work location, creates a host of opportunities and challenges for managers and workers in organizations. The authors used a longitudinal case study of the proposal and adoption of a telecommuting program to explore the motives that underlie the decision to telecommute. Twenty-six interviews were conducted with employees who were being given the opportunity to take part in the telecommuting program of an organization. The purpose of the investigation was to understand the advantages and disadvantages of telecommuting from the worker’s perspective.A decision to telecommute or not to telecommute is highly individuolized, but, regardless of the ultimate decision, employees had to consider common issues. Motivations to telecommute were both instrumental and affective. They included: the relaxed atmosphere at home, cost savings, more time to spend with family, lack of a commute, and avoidance of office politics. Motivations to stay at the office were also instrumental and affective, including the need for social interaction, career visibility, need for direct supervision, and the desire to separate home and work life.