Appropriately organized work and employees' concerns related to work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic: the case in Slovenia
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-09-2021-0402 |
| Published date | 09 May 2022 |
| Date | 09 May 2022 |
| Pages | 63-80 |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Industrial/labour relations,Employment law |
| Author | Maja Rožman,Vesna Čančer |
Appropriately organized work and
employees’concerns related to
work from home during the
COVID-19 pandemic: the case
in Slovenia
Maja Ro
zman and Vesna
Can
cer
Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Maribor, Maribor, Slovenia
Abstract
Purpose –The main aim of the paper is to establishthe effects of appropriately organized work as well as the
effects of the employees’concerns related to work during the COVID-19 pandemic on work efficiency and work
satisfaction among employees working from home during this period. The empirical research includes 619
employees in Slovenia, who participated in the survey during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Design/methodology/approach –Structural equation modeling was used in exploring the effects between
constructs.
Findings –Based on the results,the authors found that appropriatelyorganized work during the COVID-19
pandemic has a positive effect not only onthe work efficiency of employees who workfrom home during the
COVID-19pandemic in Slovenia but alsoon their work satisfaction.Also, based on the results, the authorsfound
that the employees’concerns relatedto work during the COVID-19pandemic have a negativeeffect on the work
efficiencyand on the work satisfaction of employees who work fromhome during this period in Slovenia.
Originality/value –The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically changed the way we live and work; therefore, this
paper contributes to the creation of new working conditions and employee management during and also after
the COVID-19 pandemic.
Keywords COVID-19 pandemic, Appropriately organized work, Work efficiency, Work satisfaction,
The employees’concerns related to work
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
The global outbreakof coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)is affecting every part of human
lives,including the physical world (Rumeand Islam, 2020). COVID-19first appeared in Wuhan,
China, inDecember 2019 with a notable outbreak.Further, it spread all overthe world at a very
high speed dueto its high communicability (Saleh,2020). On March 11, 2020, the WorldHealth
Organization (WHO) announced the characterization of COVID-19 as a pandemic (Hassany
et al.,2020). Since February 2020, affected countries have locked down their cities, industries
and restricted the movement of their citizens to minimize the spread of thevirus (Khan et al.,
2021). The measures were taken to control the spread of the virus, and the slowdown of
economicactivities had significanteffects on the companies (Cao etal.,2020).In April 2020, the
Office for National Statistics(2020) reported that in the UnitedKingdom (UK), 46.6% of people
in employmentdid some work from home, mainlydue to the pandemic. Going forward,making
the working environment more conducive to people’s requirements will become a really
Employees’
concerns
related to work
from home
63
© Maja Ro
zman and Vesna
Can
cer. Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published
under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute,
translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes),
subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be
seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/0142-5455.htm
Received 16 September 2021
Revised 27 February 2022
20 April 2022
Accepted 22 April 2022
Employee Relations: The
International Journal
Vol. 44 No. 7, 2022
pp. 63-80
Emerald Publishing Limited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/ER-09-2021-0402
important strategy for every organization (Office for National Statistics, 2020). Before the
pandemic, research in the UK suggested that 64% of people thought that their working
environment had a negative impact on their health. People willreturn to work, but how they
perceive working will be changed (Open Access Government, 2020). Given the new way of
working, the well-being of employees is probably more importanttoday than it has ever been
before.More importantly, companiesneed to look at how the environmentcan enhance the way
peoplework and improve theirproductivity and satisfaction(Tull et al., 2020).Most people have
learned to cope with and adapt to workingfrom home, but many would like the flexibility to
decide when,how and more importantly, what environmentthey will be going into. Therefore,
companies needto provide the same comfort factorin offices as employees were doing in their
homes so that peoplewant to come into the office environment (Saleh, 2020;Asmundson and
Taylor, 2020). COVID-19 has had a drastic and sudden impact on the practices of both
workplacesand within companies (Carroll and Conboy,2020). COVID-19 forced, if not all,then
most, employees globally to adjust their work patterns (Davison, 2020). From a business
context, employers had to find new ways to ensure productivity from workers working
remotelyfrom their homes. As a result,the flexibility of workingfrom home became a new way
of operatingfor many workers (Matli,2020). Thus, workplacemanagement during and afterthe
COVID-19 pandemichas become a global challenge(Hou et al., 2021). The workplace redesign
shall embracea high level of flexibilityto suit the changes in the businessenvironment, human
preference and environmental requirements on sustainability, safety and health (Madero
G
omez et al., 2020).According to Etheridge et al. (2020)and Khan et al. (2021), there has been a
sharp decline in employees’job satisfaction since the onsetof the pandemic. Work hours have
increased substantially in the wake of the pandemic. Many employees reported that they are
working more hours (either officially or unofficially) than they were before the pandemic
(Etheridge et al.,2020;Khan et al., 2021). This is most often due to the extra work that online/
remote work entails, an increasednumber of parent or student meetings/communicationsand
an increased number of work meetings/communications (Toscano and Zappal
a, 2020). Also,
employees are increasingly worried about the loss of jobs and salary reduction during the
COVID-19 pandemic. These factors,in turn, lead to less work satisfaction and work efficiency
(Xiao et al.,2020).
Current times, where there are more and more complications and problems related to work
regulation due to epidemiological problems, require the adjustment of both employers and
employees. In response to the uncertainties brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, many
companies have partially or completely switched to working from home. While some
employees have been working from home for at least part of the time, the new situation and
the transition to work from home is a new challenge for the vast majority, as well as for their
employers. There is not much literature and research that is comprehensively and
systematically based on theoretical knowledge or studies about employees’concerns related
to work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic, appropriately organized work and also
research based on the case of the Slovenian companies. With this research, we wanted to fill
that gap. The study contributes to the existing literature with new insights related to the
design of an appropriate work environment for employees during the COVID-19 and even
after the COVID-19 pandemic, which lead to an increase in work efficiency and work
satisfaction. Also, the paper provides new perspectives on how the employees’concerns
related to work during the COVID-19 pandemic reduce work efficiency and satisfaction. The
main aim of this paper is to establish the effects of appropriately organized work as well as
the effects of the employees’concerns related to work during the COVID-19 pandemic on
work efficiency and work satisfaction among employees working from home during the
COVID-19 pandemic.
After a qualitative study in which we used a descriptive approach to investigate the
above-written constructs in the existing literature, we carried out an empirical study using a
ER
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