work from home research topic

The Evolution of Work from Home

Full days worked at home account for 28 percent of paid workdays among Americans 20-64 years old, as of mid 2023, according to the Survey of Working Arrangements and Attitudes. That’s about four times the 2019 rate and ten times the rate in the mid-1990s that we estimate in time-use data. We first explain why the big shift to work from home has endured rather than reverting to pre-pandemic levels. We then consider how work-from-home rates vary by worker age, sex, education, parental status, industry and local population density, and why it is higher in the United States than other countries. We also discuss some implications of the big shift for pay, productivity, and the pace of innovation. Over the next five years, U.S. business executives anticipate modest increases in the share of fully remote jobs at their own companies and in the share of jobs with hybrid arrangements, whereby the employee splits the workweek between home and employer premises. Other factors that portend an enduring shift to work from home include the ongoing adaptation of managerial practices and further advances in technologies, products, and tools that support remote work.

We thank the Templeton World Charity Foundation, Smith Richardson Foundation, Stanford University, Chicago Booth School of Business, Asociacion Mexicana de Cultura A.C., Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, Toulouse Network for Information Technology, the MIT Mobility Initiative, and the Hoover Institution for funding to conduct the Survey of Working Arrangements and Attitudes. We thank the editors for their guidance and helpful remarks on an early draft. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

I worked for McKinsey and company as a management consultant from 2001-2002. I have not received any funding from them after that time.

I am part of the Toulouse Network for Information Technology, which carries out research on IT and productivity. From this network I receive an annual honorarium, which is funded by Microsoft.

I do occasional consulting on management practices for government and policy agencies, like the Canadian Government, the World Bank, the European Union, the British Government, and the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development.

I produced a report in 2008 for the World Economic Forum on management practices in private equity for which I received an honorarium.

I am a paid speaker at corporate events at which I discuss among other things working from home, management practices and policy uncertainty.

MARC RIS BibTeΧ

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REVIEW article

Influence of working from home during the covid-19 crisis and hr practitioner response.

• College of Economics and Management, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, China

The pandemic has changed the way people work, and more and more people are choosing to work from home (WFH). Unlike traditional work patterns, this approach has limitations and has had a significant impact on both organizations and individuals. It also brings many challenges to the work of HR practitioners. HR practitioners, as key players in strategic human resource management, need to take advantage of management innovations under the crisis to improve employees’ work flexibility and effectively address the impact of working from home. This study aims to address the need for employee skill improvement, psychological stress relief, work-family balance, and company culture reinforcement from an HRM perspective because of the impact of WFH work patterns during the COVID-19 crisis.

Introduction

The recent rapid worldwide spread of a novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19 virus) has led to a severe global economic downturn ( Al-Mansour and Al-Ajmi, 2020 ). Governments imposed total lockdown, banning non-essential travel, and requiring the closure of all non-essential activities. The strict government control measures led to many inconvenient working conditions. Traditional ways of working encountered serious challenges. The impact of COVID-19 on the global economy was similar to that of the 2008 crisis, although its long-term consequences were more severe. The impact on company performance is more pronounced in heavily impacted areas and industries, such as education and healthcare. We need to adopt a temporary COVID-19 strategy with companies responding quickly ( Ahlstrom and Wang, 2020 ). Many companies have opted for flexible work practices, such as working from home to reduce the spread of disease and losses. During the COVID-19 crisis, most people were already using online commerce as well as work from home (WFH) and digital businesses. In response to the outbreak of the crisis, work patterns changed and the WFH model grew rapidly ( Zou et al., 2020b ). However, with the rise of WFH, its corresponding side effects emerged.

First, unlike traditional office models, WFH requires people to learn new online office skills along with virtual work communication skills. There may also be unplanned virtual work sessions. In addition, working from home requires attention to the confidentiality of office data to prevent leakage. This also raises the need to adapt to the new office environment, and employees’ WFH skills need to be trained and strengthened.

Second, when working from home, people lack face-to-face communication with colleagues, and once problems arise at work, it is difficult to solve them quickly through online virtual communication. Online network communication to solve problems leads to increased psychological stress and anxiety. This is also extremely harmful to people’s mental health.

In addition, WFH leads to the occupation of family members’ space. With the new crown pneumonia epidemic, people tend to occupy family space for their own work needs. When people work at home, some family tasks, such as childcare or housework, need to be shared between them. This creates a conflict between family and work. The imbalance between work and family can negatively impact job productivity, and HR practitioners need to consider how to mitigate this conflict.

Even, once the office work style is abandoned, people tend to overlook the impact of company culture. Since working from home people can only communicate and work through the virtual space of the Internet, people tend to ignore the role of culture. In fact, in times of crisis, the effect of culture cannot be neglected, and HR practitioners should take various measures to guide the role of culture.

The study found that while WFH has some advantages during this phase, it also has different effects on people, such as conflicts with family from taking up home space, inability to adapt to telecommuting, and lack of support from leaders or co-workers, but the following four areas are the objective and rationale of this study’s discussion.

1. Employees who Working From Home (WFH) face a home-based work environment where they need to learn special office skills.

2. WFH can make people feel isolated and can also lead to psychological stress.

3. During an outbreak, home-based employees often face conflicts between caring for their families and working.

4. Home-based employees often ignore the potential incentives of culture under the COVID-19 crisis.

Therefore, based on the impact of WFH on the above four aspects, this study proposes corresponding support measures from the perspective of human resource management.

Literature Review

Person-environment (p-e) fit theory.

The theory of person-environment fit, first proposed by Lewin in 1951 ( Kahana et al., 1980 ), considers the positive benefits of person-environment matching for individuals. People adapt to changes in their environment (e.g., those who choose to WFH due to a pandemic) and reap the greatest benefits, such as avoiding the risk of contracting COVID-19 ( Chung-Yan, 2006 ). In the wake of the new coronavirus outbreak, many academics and HR practitioners have been thinking about how to adopt flexible work arrangements (FWAs), such as WFH, as a more appropriate way of working.

Different aspects of the P-E fit model have been extensively studied by several scholars, and the person-environment fit can be subdivided into the person-vocation fit (P-V fit), person-job fit (P-J fit), person-group fit (P-G fit), and person-organization fit (P-O fit). From the division of these four concepts, it can be seen that the fit between the individual and the work environment should not only be in harmony with the organization at the macro-level, but also harmony with the work team at the micro-level, and most importantly, with one’s work ( Cable and Derue, 2002 ; Ahmad, 2012 ).

The P-V fit is like the P-J fit, but the difference between the two is that the P-V fit tends to be more of a professional skills match. Without the professional skills required for the job, individuals cannot fully adapt to the work environment and thus constrain themselves, and the specialized skills needed by WFH require home-based workers to develop appropriate job skills, such as office skills and communication skills. These skills are different from those required for office work. New training models (online virtual) and content need to be provided.

Person-job fit refers to the idea that people meet the needs of their work, but they also derive satisfaction from their work. When individual satisfaction is not achieved, anxiety, stress, and psychological breakdowns can occur.

Person-group fit focuses on the need for harmony between the team and the work environment, and between the individual and the team, in order to achieve optimal work results. Employees who WFH are far from face-to-face interaction in the office; they are more likely to communicate online. It is important to know how to build online virtual teams. However, they also face another challenge: the “family and work imbalance.” In fact, in the WFH model, people spend more time with their families (another fun and challenging “team”). How family relationships are managed is also a way to support WFH.

Person-organization fit is an indication of the alignment of individual and organizational goals. Specifically, it means that the individual and the organization are aligned in terms of culture and values. The degree of personal and organizational culture fit directly affects the performance of employees. The pandemic brings about a shift in the way people work as well as get used to working from home. But they often ignore the importance and role of culture. Organizations need to consider how to strengthen the role of culture under WFH.

Several studies have shown that there should be consistency between HRM practices and P-E fit, especially in the context of COVID-19. By integrating strategic HRM with P-E, HRM practices and policies support P-E fit and thus gain competitive advantage for the firm.

Hypothesis 1: The P-E fit model can be used to produce satisfactory results for organizations and individuals in a pandemic crisis. The application of the model can also explain and support HRM in addressing the impact of the WFH model on job skills, stress, family, and culture.

Crisis Management During a Pandemic

A crisis is a situation that affects a company’s organizational sustainability, performance, and ultimately threatens its viability. Managers are concerned that crises can negatively affect different types of businesses at any time and place, as in the case of the new crown pandemic crisis. In the workplace, crisis management is an effective response to a crisis at work – discrimination, physical injury, emotional harm, or some type of natural disaster. Implementing crisis management requires managers to understand what people need and how they can help.

Crisis management can be a challenging task, especially in an organization’s human resources department (HRD). HRD plays an important strategic role in crisis management, yet it is rarely described and analyzed in the literature ( Christina and Fotios, 2015 ). Indeed, from a practical perspective, crisis management has been a neglected area of HRM, despite the growing recognition of the impact of different crises on performance outcomes. It is recommended that an effective crisis management team (CMT) be established to address issues of concern throughout the organization ( Blythe, 2004 ). As a member of the CMT, the HR director is responsible for providing leadership to the company and its employees during a crisis event (COVID-19).

From the perspective of HR managers, a crisis-driven HR strategy is more effective. They believe that it is much easier to manage employees during a crisis than to manage other resources. The design of crisis management processes requires a high level of strategic integration between job skills, stress relief, work-family balance, and corporate culture ( Wang et al., 2009 ).

The approach to crisis management used by HR should be different from that used by other functions. HR leaders address organizational crises through crisis management preparedness, including improving job skills, balancing work and family, relieving psychological stress, and strengthening culture ( Lockwood, 2005 ).

Hypothesis 2: COVID-19 has a serious impact on the survival of the company, and the crisis management awareness of HR practitioners can reduce the impact of the crisis in four aspects: work skill improvement, psychological stress relief, family-work balance, and cultural role.

Impact of WFH on Enterprises, Employees, and HR Practitioners

Impact on businesses.

The new crown pneumonia pandemic caused widespread devastation in countries around the world. Tens of millions of people were infected; the economy was in recession and many people lost their jobs. Governments implemented many controls. These measures slowed the spread of the epidemic and some businesses were severely damaged.

A number of studies on the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on companies can draw preliminary conclusions about crisis management in companies. Companies in all industries, large and small, had to adapt their business models to changing environmental conditions within a short period of time. New crown pneumonia affects all corporate characteristics, including working methods, corporate performance, and corporate culture. After quickly responding to the new crown pneumonia crisis, they made a series of strategic adjustments to ensure the survival of the business.

1. The problem faced by the company is that the skills of the employees are not sufficient for the WFH pattern. The company needs highly skilled employees to carry out their work, but the office work skills of the past are no longer sufficient to meet the company’s needs.

2. The psychological stress caused by WFH to employees has a negative impact on the achievement of corporate goals.

3. This conflict cannot be avoided due to the replacement of office space with home space. The company needs to consider sacrificing home space to meet the work needs of employees.

4. The role of corporate culture is significantly weakened by the loss of physical distance contact.

Some agile companies have adopted strategies that include flexible HRM policies and practices, which are effective in the short term, but in the present and post-COVID-19 era crisis impact, companies need to focus on diversity and long-term HR strategy research.

Impact on Employees

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the homes of employees suddenly became the main place of economic activity. Many countries have used their homes as a buffer against economic downturns and have taken action to support this WFH ( Jenkins and Smith, 2021 ). We argue that businesses and governments see housing as a supporting pillar for economic development. Even employers who offer work-at-home jobs can be seen as an effective way to deal with the epidemic. It takes everyone – managers, employees, and their families – to adapt.

Advances in technology have made it possible for people to WFH, and this has affected the way people, especially staff. It has also benefited some companies during the difficult times of the pandemic. Companies have adopted the WFH model, relying on modern technology to reduce the corresponding regulatory costs ( White, 2019 ).

Work from home can improve performance due to its flexibility. Employees can decide when and where to work. Many employees are satisfied with the flexibility they get from the WFH model. Working from home can also improve performance because there are no interruptions, employees have fewer breaks, and there is no contact with co-workers ( Garg and Rijst, 2015 ).

However, some people use their home as a free workplace that can be used inexpensively in an emergency (e.g., COVID-19) but neglects its function as a place to live. As a result, employees are faced with corresponding challenges and problems:

First, the model requires upgrading employees’ WFH work skills. This demand for WFH is driving the digitization of human work at an alarming rate due to the explosion of COVID-19 ( Savi, 2020 ). Employees need to work and communicate online, which requires special skills, such as new office skills and online communication skills. However, some specific industries, such as low-skilled services, cannot adopt this model. In addition, network accessibility and online task suitability can affect the feasibility of the model.

Second, internal psychological stress. Research has shown that a lack of social support and the feeling of working alone can lead to loneliness ( Rook, 1985 ), and also to stress ( Liu and Guo, 2007 ). Some individuals are more stressed during a pandemic because they are unable to communicate their anxiety to others. In addition, with uncertainty about the future, such as layoffs, pay cuts, and bankruptcies, employees experience a serious increase in internal stress. Further studies also found that employees’ psychological stress also has a direct negative impact on hiring commitment ( Ali and Kakakhel, 2013 ; Velnampy and Aravinthan, 2013 ).

Third, employees who WFH often have conflicts between taking care of their families and their jobs during an epidemic. Telecommuters work longer hours than those who work in formal offices, which is a major reason for work-family imbalance. Their work style is flexible so they have unlimited access to online offices ( Song and Gao, 2020 ); this model also breaks down the boundaries between work and non-work. It reduces the company’s need for office space but increases the employees’ need for living space because of the need for extra rooms to WFH ( Behrens et al., 2021 ). In addition, when some employees need to take care of their families, their families may stay at home while they are working ( Kara et al., 2021 ). Employees expect a dedicated workspace at home with fewer distractions from family members, which is associated with a better work-family balance ( Allen et al., 2021 ).

Finally, the role of culture is weakened. In WFH situations, the functions embodied in corporate culture are weakened, such as leadership culture and cooperative culture. The manager’s ability to control and supervise subordinates is also affected. In addition, managers may be concerned about the impact of working from home on contracts and employee reputation. Unlike traditional office work, this model reduces opportunities for intimate psychological interactions while reducing face-to-face communication. While information and communication technology (ICT) can facilitate online interaction and collaboration with colleagues, they lack the enthusiasm for face-to-face interaction, which is seen as key to developing closer social relationships ( Vayre and Pignault, 2014 ). Failure to address the lack of interpersonal interaction can ultimately lead to employees feeling disconnected from the corporate culture and work environment ( Marzban et al., 2021 ; Wilson, 2021 ).

Impact on HR Practitioners

In the field of human resource management, it has long been recognized that employees feel frustrated and stressed in situations of danger or uncertainty, such as COVID-19 ( Kumar et al., 2021 ). The stress caused by an outbreak can provide HRM practitioners with constructive insights to help them assess opportunities and developments in an environment of threat and uncertainty. As the company continues to adjust its HR policies and practices in the face of COVID-19, it will be crucial to understand how these outbreaks affect employee P-E fit, and how to address dangerous misfits. The pandemic has had a serious impact on HRM policies and practices in different industries. The prominent impact is manifested in a series of challenges for HR practitioners as a result of the shift in work patterns.

1. What training approaches and innovative training content do HRM adopt for the WFH model where work skills differ from the traditional office requirements of the past?

2. How can HRM consider mitigating the increased internal stress of home-based workers, which is damaging to both individual and organizational performance?

3. How can HRM consider developing a more reasonable work-family balance plan, given the negative impact of workplace conflicts with families?

4. As one of the important promoters of corporate culture, how can HR practitioners enhance the role of culture in the new work model?

Not surprisingly, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced HR professionals to rethink and redefine their roles as organizations begin to adapt to the way people work ( Nutsubidze and Schmidt, 2021 ).

Hypothesis 3: Organizations may adopt the WFH work model in the event of a pandemic, but it presents four unprecedented challenges for companies, individuals, and HR practitioners. In the face of the crisis and challenges, HR management needs to respond and react accordingly.

HR Practitioners’ Reactions to the Impact of WFH

The main impacts during WFH are job skill requirements, psychological stress, conflict with family, and WFH culture. HR practitioners need to provide feedback and strategies to these impacts.

Upgrading WFH Skills: Innovative Training Content and Methods

During the pandemic, employees lost their motivation to advance in their careers because they were working from home too long. They needed to develop the knowledge and skills to thrive in their current environment. As remote workers become more interested in improving their capabilities, HR practitioners should take the lead in organizing relevant skills training to meet employees’ desire to learn and grow. Predictably, when employees WFH, they will be trained to improve their performance and support the company’s growth in the post-pandemic era ( Caligiuri et al., 2020 ).

Countless practical examples show that HRM has developed strategies to overcome the disadvantages of the pandemic. These strategies, such as innovations in training methods and content, contribute to improving employees’ competencies, maintaining their motivation, and reducing their psychological stress ( Gigauri, 2020 ; Zou et al., 2020a ).

Human resource management increasingly draws inspiration from online virtual training designs. When working from home, employees can learn a wide range of skills through online courses ( Hamouche, 2021 ). To meet the needs of their own continuous development in a pandemic situation, HR departments are conducting training needs surveys and coordinating with other departments to design online training courses. It is conceivable that online virtual classes in the future will become the new normal for training in the era of the new pneumonia crown ( Alhat, 2020 ).

In addition to the usual vocational skills training, the ongoing crisis has created new training needs, such as ICT. In particular, ICT can also be used to train recruits in work and collaboration skills. Many companies now see the need to prepare for a long-term pandemic as standard work content decreases and the WFM model remains intact. Currently, improving employee skills through training is the most effective use of time ( Hamouche, 2021 ). This is driving a growing demand for technology-driven training programs around the world.

Often, many employees must use computers and the Internet while working from home. Human resource practitioners value the need for information security training. Employees who WFH should receive basic training on cybersecurity hazards and how to effectively prevent information risks and avoid leaks of private company data.

Alleviate Psychological Stress Caused by WFM

According to the principle of personal preference in economics, not everyone wants to WFH ( Perrigino and Raveendhran, 2020 ). The work-family conflict caused by WFH is a major source of stress for employees and has a negative impact on their psychological health ( Sharma et al., 2016 ); this imbalance can lead to managers’ negative perception of WFH and affect their beliefs; and pressure from professional groups can also affect HR practitioners’ idea of working from home. HR practitioners can take some appropriate measures to alleviate this stress.

Psychologists believe that a home-friendly workplace can help reduce employee stress and depressive symptoms ( Shepherd-Banigan et al., 2016 ). Based on a cost–benefit analysis, we believe that improved work-family relationships can influence organizational goals, such as improved organizational performance and corporate reputation. HR practitioners should play an important role in establishing such a workplace. Although employees WFH, HR practitioners can develop family-friendly work programs, interact with employees and their families, and show concern for employees during the COVID-19 crisis. The program usually consists of a “supportive family-friendly program” and a “supportive family management team,” which represents HRM efforts to help employees balance work and family responsibilities ( Thomas and Ganster, 1995 ).

HR practitioners can provide stress relief training, such as stressor analysis, threat and infection risk prevention, mental health in WFH, and work-family balance. To reduce the risk of infection in face-to-face training, HR can provide online virtual training.

In addition, the sustainability of HRM policies and practices plays an important role in reducing employee dissatisfaction and job stress. Important HRM policies related to employees include compensation and benefits, performance evaluation, promotion, and transfer. With the impact of the pandemic, the sustainability of these policies helped to alleviate the mental stress and job slack of the work-at-home employees.

One Support: Work-Family Balancing

Some companies affected by new coronary pneumonia have had to adopt flexible working practices to reduce the risk of an outbreak. According to various analyses, WFH can help employees balance career development and work. It can also reduce commuting time and companies can save on office costs by having smaller office spaces ( Gajendran and Harrison, 2007 ). However, WFH has a significant impact on the work-home balance ( Perrigino and Raveendhran, 2020 ). WFH often blurs the boundaries between work and home roles ( Schieman and Young, 2010 ). Even people who WFH are not satisfied with the distribution of family tasks after working for a long period of time. Long working hours and occupying home space also increase the likelihood of work–family conflict ( Solís, 2016 ). We believe that helping employees achieve work-life balance should be a key part of HR practices and strategies if it ensures optimal employee satisfaction, rather than leaving them feeling dissatisfied, exhausted, and stressed.

Research has found that work–family conflict is more correlated with work schedule flexibility when working from home. In fact, WFH is divided into traditional (typical “9–5” working hours) and non-traditional (irregular working hours; Duxbury et al., 1996 ). Non-traditional WFH has a high degree of flexibility in terms of work schedule, which is different from traditional work hours. When developing WFH policies, HR practitioners should fully consider the individual preferences of WFH employees, based on the different characteristics of WFH employees ( Golden, 2012 ). Based on individual preferences, HR policies should allow telecommuters to flexibly schedule their working hours to meet their individual needs. Flexible work schedules for non-traditional WFH can alleviate work–family conflicts during a pandemic.

In addition, the potential for work–family conflict increases with longer work hours. During the COVID-19 pandemic, telecommuters used their home space as an office. Unlike traditional office work, they spent more time on work without realizing it ( Dockery and Bawa, 2020 ). The relatively less time spent with family members undoubtedly leads to strong work-at-home conflicts. Even some telecommuters work hard on weekends and holidays. Long hours of WFH can increase family unhappiness and stress, which can affect the family atmosphere ( Song and Gao, 2018 ). HR practitioners should consider a policy of not working long hours when developing work schedules. An effective HR policy can alleviate the excessive work hours caused by remote workers who work too many hours at home.

Finally, the assignment of family tasks is particularly important for home-based work balance. Indicators of family functioning include perceptions of the quality of relationships and the degree of equity in how family tasks are shared within the family. These indicators of family functioning are used to indicate the extent of work–family conflict ( Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre, Curtin University School of Economics et al., 2017 ). Family members will perceive that the division of responsibilities within the family is fair and reasonable, and rationality will influence the relationships between family members. Companies, especially human resource practitioners, should provide employment assistance programs for remote workers during the pandemic, including family member relationship management, reconciliation of family and work responsibilities, and post-conflict resolution.

Cultural Reinforcement in the WFH Model

Corporate culture is a complex network of corporate norms, organizational vision, and member attitudes with specific group characteristics. It can be reinforced through training, punishment, rewards, etc. ( Kuchinke, 1999 ). Culture needs to be adapted to the environment external to the organization, especially in the context of the new crown pandemic crisis. As the impact of the pandemic crisis expands and the psychological stress of work-at-home employees increases, corporate culture will become a focus of attention for managers or HR practitioners.

If HR practitioners want to reduce the disruption of WFH and improve WFH arrangements, they should create a WFH culture with high execution and low barriers. HR practitioners need to focus on the following areas:

When selecting and hiring talent during a pandemic, HR needs to focus on whether these individuals are a good fit for the company culture. P-E fit theory states that individuals will choose companies when their ideas align with the organization’s culture, WFM model, and development philosophy. Newly hired employees still need to receive initial culture training from the company.

Because of the pandemic, working from home requires a more collaborative spirit. Remote workers enhance communication and collaboration with each other through virtual organizations. Despite their different backgrounds and lack of face-to-face interaction, a collaborative culture is more likely to emerge in the WFH model ( Borkovich and Skovira, 2020 ; Singh and Kumar, 2020 ).

Research has shown that leadership is a culture-specific element. HR practitioners should have some leadership in times of crisis to help their companies survive the crisis. We believe that HR practitioners with strong leadership skills are able to identify and effectively deal with cultural conflicts in different work models. Several studies have concluded that leadership culture in crisis enables employees to successfully deal with the effects of crisis ( Colville and Murphy, 2006 ). In the current work model, managers with leadership skills are able to meet employees’ expectations and guide the company through the effects of the pandemic.

An overly idealized employee culture, such as high performance and high results orientation, can lead to cultural barriers during WFH. The perception is that leaders want employees to work properly in the office, and when they WFH, managers cannot directly supervise them or communicate face-to-face about their performance. This is why employees do not want to WFH ( Lott and Abendroth, 2019 ). HR practitioners should encourage managers to rationally evaluate the performance of employees who WFH through an online evaluation system. In addition, work-from-home support programs for HR practitioners can help reduce the cultural barriers in the WFH model.

Future Research Direction

Work from home will continue to have an impact on business and work. In addition to the recommendations, the study has already provided, there are some theoretical and practical studies on the HR side that need to be strengthened in the current and post-pandemic era: Organizations use E-HR in the WFH model to help HR practitioners work more efficiently; during the pandemic, traditional offline HR operations were replaced by online work. Virtual online HR management is required to complete recruitment and staffing; unlike office workflow, HR practitioners need to optimize job responsibilities and workflow for employees working from home; and the impact of the crisis has led to a more popular relationship-oriented HR system. This system brings employees tighter together with the organization and brings a strong organizational commitment; in a pandemic situation, a period HR strategy should be developed to help the organization overcome the crisis; and corporate social responsibility helps companies to improve performance and better position themselves during the pandemic.

Limitations

The study needs to strengthen the literature citations. Though the study reviews a range of literature and what we have reviewed is current and relevant, the recommendations need to be bolstered by the previous literature. In addition, this paper only analyzes the effects of WFH on people during COVID-19 and should compare the effect before the COVID-19 outbreak. Therefore, the study needs to compare and analyze the influence from the timeline.

In the future, we also need to consider: Does WFH still widespread in the post-COVID-19 era? If there are still many companies using the WFH model, what is the impact on people at that time?

COVID-19 has affected the lives of many people. To prevent the future spread of this pandemic, many organizations have had to change their traditional ways of working. The advent of WFH has brought some convenience, but as the impact of the pandemic has deepened, it has also had certain effects on organizations, employees, and HR practitioners that will continue in the post-pandemic era. Through a discussion of the relevant literature, this study argues that during the COVID-19 crisis, when people were working from home, our managers, especially HR practitioners, needed to address issues, such as job skills enhancement, employee stress under the crisis, work-family imbalance, and corporate culture reinforcement. Focusing on these issues has benefits for both organizations and individuals, especially in the current crisis. Future research will also need to consider the implications of this work model in the post-COVID-19 era.

Author Contributions

ZC contributed to conception and design of the study. He also contributed to manuscript revision, read, and approved the submitted version.

Conflict of Interest

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Keywords: working from home, COVID-19 crisis, influence, HR practitioner, response

Citation: Chen Z (2021) Influence of Working From Home During the COVID-19 Crisis and HR Practitioner Response. Front. Psychol . 12:710517. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.710517

Received: 16 May 2021; Accepted: 27 August 2021; Published: 23 September 2021.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2021 Chen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Zhisheng Chen, [email protected]

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Research Article

Learning from work-from-home issues during the COVID-19 pandemic: Balance speaks louder than words

Roles Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – original draft

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliation Department of Social Sciences, The Education University of Hong Kong, Tai Po, Hong Kong

Roles Formal analysis, Writing – original draft

Affiliation Department of Information Systems, Business Statistics and Operations Management, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Hong Kong

Roles Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – review & editing

• Amanda M. Y. Chu, 
• Thomas W. C. Chan, 
• Mike K. P. So

• Published: January 13, 2022
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261969
• Reader Comments

During the 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, many employees have switched to working from home. Despite the findings of previous research that working from home can improve productivity, the scale, nature, and purpose of those studies are not the same as in the current situation with the COVID-19 pandemic. We studied the effects that three stress relievers of the work-from-home environment–company support, supervisor’s trust in the subordinate, and work-life balance–had on employees’ psychological well-being (stress and happiness), which in turn influenced productivity and engagement in non-work-related activities during working hours. In order to collect honest responses on sensitive questions or negative forms of behavior including stress and non-work-related activities, we adopted the randomized response technique in the survey design to minimize response bias. We collected a total of 500 valid responses and analyzed the results with structural equation modelling. We found that among the three stress relievers, work-life balance was the only significant construct that affected psychological well-being. Stress when working from home promoted non-work-related activities during working hours, whereas happiness improved productivity. Interestingly, non-work-related activities had no significant effect on productivity. The research findings provide evidence that management’s maintenance of a healthy work-life balance for colleagues when they are working from home is important for supporting their psychosocial well-being and in turn upholding their work productivity.

Citation: Chu AMY, Chan TWC, So MKP (2022) Learning from work-from-home issues during the COVID-19 pandemic: Balance speaks louder than words. PLoS ONE 17(1): e0261969. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261969

Editor: Mohammad Hossein Ebrahimi, Shahrood University of Medical Sciences, ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN

Received: June 1, 2021; Accepted: December 14, 2021; Published: January 13, 2022

Copyright: © 2022 Chu et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: Due to ethical restrictions, data are available from The Education University of Hong Kong for researchers who meet the criteria for access to sensitive data. Data requests will need to be submitted to Dr. Amanda Chu, Principal Investigator ( [email protected] ) for access to sensitive data.

Funding: This work was partially supported by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology research grant “Big Data Analytics on Social Research” (grant number CEF20BM04). The funding recipient was MKPS. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

Covid-19 leads to working from home.

Before the 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, most companies had not adopted the work-from-home (or working from home, WFH) approach. Employees needed to go to their offices on every working day. During the COVID-19 pandemic, individuals have been and are continuing to be advised to maintain social distancing to minimize the chance of infection [ 1 ]. To control the crisis, some countries and cities even need to institute lockdown measures to restrict the activities of their citizens [ 2 ]. However, under social distancing and lockdown policies, many employees are not able to go to their offices as usual. To maintain business operations, a majority of companies have responded improvisationally by introducing new WFH arrangements, although most of them have had little experience with such arrangements [ 3 , 4 ]. Because WFH can reduce infection rates and is accompanied by the low economic costs of confinement [ 5 ], it should be a suitable measure for facing the COVID-19 challenge. However, not everyone is happy with working from home or is able to carry it out [ 6 ].

Consequences of working from home

The WFH arrangements during the COVID-19 pandemic may have an impact on employees’ psychological well-being and, by extension, on their work performance. Because many employees have been forced to make WFH arrangements as a result of social distancing or lockdown policies during the COVID-19 pandemic, their WFH experiences may differ from those of employees in earlier studies, who were voluntarily working from home for a variety of reasons [ 4 , 7 , 8 ].

Indeed, the forced home confinement during lockdowns to control COVID-19 might affect individuals’ psychological well-being, including increasing their chances of disturbed sleep and insomnia because of the stressful situation and lack of positive stimuli [ 9 ]. Previous studies have confirmed the association between lockdown and negative psychological outcomes [ 10 ], such as higher stress levels [ 11 ]. However, the impact of WFH on workers’ psychological well-beings is not yet known. Being forced to engage in WFH but also unprepared for it may cause added stress on employees. On the positive side, remote employees have a high control of their working schedule and are able to work flexibly, which may have a positive impact on their job satisfaction [ 7 ]. They can adjust their working time so that they can fulfill other demands in their life, including family matters. A study [ 12 ] revealed that job flexibility could reduce work-to-home conflicts (conflicts caused by work issues interrupting home issues), and those reduced conflicts may help employees lower the distress of not fulfilling their family responsibilities.

Previous research has also suggested that positive psychological well-being is important for maintaining productivity in the workplace [ 13 ] although relatively little research has been done to study negative psychological well-being on employees’ job performance, especially during the WFH period. In addition, giving employees autonomy at home, along with controlling their boundaries, such as whether they conduct non-work-related activities during working hours, may be a great concern for employers [ 14 ]. According to the stress mindset theory, stress can be either enhance or debilitate one’s productivity [ 15 ] and growing evidence has shown that mindset shapes one’s stress response [ 16 ]. If employees hold the mindset that stress is debilitating, they will tend to focus on negative information from stressors, and that in turn will reinforce their negative beliefs and cause them to take action to avoid the stressors. In contrast, if employees hold the mindset that stress is enhancing, they will focus on positive information about stressors and will face their stresses and cope well with them [ 17 ]. By applying the stress mindset theory, we believe that when employees face stress, some can cope with it and maintain their focus on their work tasks while others may move on to other tasks to avoid the stress, instead of focusing on their work tasks. Those other tasks could be non-work-related activities, such as playing sports, shopping, and handling family matters. However, little empirical research has been conducted in these areas because they involve sensitive questions, such as whether the respondent is feeling stressed, and whether the respondent is conducting non-work-related activities during working hours [ 18 ]. Respondents are less willing to provide honest responses when they are asked such sensitive questions directly, and that dishonesty leads to response bias [ 19 ]. Therefore, we adopted the modified randomized response technique (RRT) to collect data on stress and non-work-related activities during working hours.

This research sought to investigate how the WFH environment affects individuals’ psychological well-being, and in turn how WFH impacts their work productivity and the frequency with which they conduct non-work-related activities during working hours when they are working from home.

Materials and methods

Methodology, participants..

A purposeful sample of 500 full-time employees in Hong Kong who experienced WFH for the first time during the COVID-19 pandemic was recruited online. The survey took place in early September 2020, which was near the end of the second period of growth in the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Hong Kong [ 20 ]. Table 1 shows a summary of the respondents’ demographic data. Such a diversity of participants reduces potential bias caused by the influence of socioeconomic backgrounds.

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Survey design.

We identified our target respondents through personal networks and referrals, and then contacted them via emails and informed them of the study’s rationale. After confirming that the individuals were indeed our target respondents, we invited them to complete our self-administrated online questionnaire. All respondents were informed of the following in the first page of the online questionnaire: (1) the researcher’s name, affiliation, and contact details; (2) the topic and the aim of the study; and (3) the assurance that information about participation was anonymous and would be gathered on a voluntary basis. We obtained the respondents’ consent by asking them to click a button on the screen before starting the questionnaire. The study was conducted according to the prevailing guidelines on ethics in research, and it was approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee of The Education University of Hong Kong (reference number 2019-2020-0104).

Sensitive questions and confidentiality.

To ensure full confidentiality of the participants’ responses, we made the survey anonymous, and applied the RRT for the sensitive questions about stress and non-work-related activities during working hours. We followed the guidance of Chong et al. (2019) and Chu et al. (2020) [ 18 , 21 ] by implementing the RRT and constructing a covariance matrix for the responses. For details of the RRT procedure and application of RRT, readers may refer to Chong et al. (2019) and Chu et al. (2020) [ 18 , 21 ].

To ensure that the respondents understood the purpose of using the RRT to further protect their privacy and clearly understood how to answer the RRT questions, we also included a brief introduction to the RRT procedures before we asked the RRT questions.

All items in the survey were measured on a seven-point Likert scale. Unless otherwise specified, we provided seven options for each item, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree), and we asked each respondent to pick the option that best described the situation.

Constructs and items

To build the research model, we constructed our survey questions on the basis of seven constructs, with each construct consisting of two to three items. A complete list of items is available in the S1 Table .

Company support.

Communication with colleagues and access to technical support are important for enabling a smooth transition to WFH [ 22 ]. Following the work of Sull et al. (2020) [ 22 ], we developed three items to measure company support. A high score indicated strong support from the company for employees who were working from home.

Supervisor trust.

When employees work from home, they have little opportunity to meet with their supervisors [ 23 ]. In the absence of supervisors and employees working face-to-face, supervisors’ trust in their subordinates is an important contribution to successful WFH [ 24 ]. We used three items to measure supervisor trust, with a high score indicating a high level of supervisors’ trust in their employees during WFH.

Work-life balance.

A favorable environment and a healthy balance between working time and personal time could be an advantageous result of WFH [ 25 ]. With reference to Chaiprasit and Santidhirakul (2011) [ 26 ], we developed three items to measure work-life balance during WFH, with a high score indicating a good work-life balance.

On the basis of the existing literature, we developed three items to measure employees’ level of stress: sleep quality [ 27 ], loss of energy [ 28 ], and depressed mood [ 29 ]. A high score indicated a high level of stress during WFH.

For the current study, we modified the three items relating to happiness that were developed by Chaiprasit and Santidhirakul (2011) [ 26 ]. The original items were in a five-point Likert scale, but we converted them into a seven-point Likert scale for measurement consistency in our study. A high score indicated a high level of happiness during WFH.

Non-work-related activities.

During WFH, family issues and entertainment activities can distract employees from their work [ 30 ]. Following Ford et al. (2020) and Javed et al. (2019) [ 31 , 32 ], we developed two items referring to these two possible distractions to measure the respondents’ non-work-related activities and we used a seven-point scale, ranging from 1 (never) to 7 (very many times), to quantify the respondents’ engagement in non-work-related activities [ 33 ]. A high score indicated a high frequency of conducting non-work-related activities during working hours when working from home.

Work productivity.

We adopted the top three factors from the Endicott Work Productivity Scale [ 34 ] as items for measuring work productivity. The items were originally in a five-point scale, ranging from 1 (“never”) to 5 (“almost always”), but we modified the wording to adapt the scale to our context on WFH and our seven-point Likert scale approach. A high score indicated a high level of perceived productivity during WFH.

Research model and hypotheses

Wfh environment and psychological well-being..

Employees have had no choice but to work from home when their companies or government policies have required it in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. For WFH to be successful, company support is necessary in three areas. First, some employees have insufficient equipment for WFH, and some may lack sufficient knowledge of the use of telecommunication technology [ 35 ]. Companies need to support their employees by providing them with the necessary equipment [ 36 ] and training them in the use of new technology [ 37 ]. Second, to avoid any impact of WFH on employees’ home time, companies have to set clear guidelines for distinguishing between work time and home time [ 38 ]. Third, companies have to decide when to start WFH and when to resume the normal working mode, and then they have to give their employees sufficient notice about the need to switch modes. We expected that company support during WFH would enhance job happiness [ 39 ] and would moderate the stresses from work and family. Therefore, we developed the following hypotheses:

• Hypothesis 1a : Company support will negatively affect employees’ stress when they are working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Hypothesis 1b : Company support will positively affect employees’ happiness when they are working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.

As we have already noted, employers and employees do not see each other face-to-face in the WFH working environment. Thus, on one hand, employees have to show their employers that they are self-disciplined in completing their tasks on time and maintaining the expected quality of work [ 40 ] and, on the other hand, employers have to trust their employees that they have already tried their best in working on their assigned tasks [ 41 ]. In fact, some previous literature has mentioned that trust is the most critical factor in making WFH a success [ 42 ]. Therefore, we expected that supervisors’ trust in their subordinates would be important in maintaining employees’ happiness and reducing their stress on work [ 43 ]. Correspondingly, we developed the following hypotheses:

• Hypothesis 2a : Supervisor trust will be negatively related to employees’ stress level when the employees are working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Hypothesis 2b : Supervisor trust will be positively related to employees’ happiness when the employees are working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A previous study of managers and fitness trainers discovered that loss of work-life balance could potentially boost the level of work-related stress because the workers spent extra time on work and did not have sufficient time for other life matters [ 44 ]. The association between a poor work-life balance and perceived job stress, which is caused by conflict between one’s job and other life activities, was further confirmed in a previous study on Australian academics [ 45 ]. The researchers explained that difficulty in maintaining work-life balance caused employees to feel additional stress. Moreover, research by Haar et al. (2014) [ 46 ] revealed that work-life balance was negatively related to depression across seven cultures in Asia, Europe, and Oceania, whereas work-life balance was positively associated with job and life satisfaction. Another study on healthcare employees also discovered a positive relationship between work-life balance and job satisfaction [ 47 ]. In addition, Fisher (2003) [ 44 ] found that having a good work-life balance could minimize the interference between employees’ work life and their personal life, thus allowing them to maintain their job engagement and family involvement at the same time, and fostering greater happiness in their work. Thus, we formulated the following two hypotheses:

• Hypothesis 3a : Work-life balance will be negatively related to employees’ stress level when they are working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Hypothesis 3b : Work-life balance will be positively related to employees’ level of happiness when they are working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Psychological well-being, non-work-related activities, and productivity.

Previous studies have revealed the causal relationship that increased stress leads to a reduction in employees’ productivity [ 48 – 50 ]. Indeed, chronic stress can have several negative effects on employees, including insomnia, concentration difficulty, and increased risk of depression, all of which are likely to reduce productivity.

Some employees may choose to conduct non-work-related activities (e.g., non-work-related computing) while at work [ 33 ]. In our context, non-work-related activities are not referring to necessary activities such as going to the washroom or having a short break. We are considering situations in which an employee chooses to conduct non-work-related activities during work hours even if he or she could do those activities later. The reasons for conducting non-work-related activities during work hours are varied. Some studies have suggested that non-work-related activities can be caused by resistance and lack of management [ 51 , 52 ]. If an employee has a negative impression of the company or of management, that worker will have a low level of working engagement. In other words, a stressful working environment or management style can generate negative feelings in employees, and those negative feelings may motivate them to do something unrelated to their work during work hours. Accordingly, we formulated Hypotheses 4a and 4b as follows:

• Hypothesis 4a : Employees’ stress level will be negatively related to their work productivity when they are working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Hypothesis 4b : Employees’ stress level will be positively related to employees’ participation in non-work-related activities during working hours when they are working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In contrast, happiness can have a positive impact on employees’ productivity. Under a classic piece rate setting, happier individuals have greater productivity than less happy individuals do, no matter whether the happiness derives from long-term or short-term events [ 53 ]. If employees think that they can achieve happiness by performing better at work, they will work harder for that reinforcement [ 54 ]. Therefore, the following hypothesis was also included:

• Hypothesis 5 : Employees’ happiness will be positively related to their work productivity when they are working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Moreover, employees may have difficulty in concentrating on their work when they are working from home because of the lack of an organizational climate and in response to interruptions from family members [ 55 ]. In particular, employees who have children need to shoulder extra child care duties because of school closures [ 56 , 57 ]. At the same time, a feeling of insecurity because of rising numbers of COVID-19 cases also can distract employees [ 10 ], perhaps promoting them to conduct non-work-related activities during working hours at home to drive themselves out from the feeling of insecurity. Two major types of non-work-related activities are (1) activities fulfilling some demand in one’s life, such as caring for children, doing housework, or other activities that the person cannot escape when working from home; and (2) entertainment activities, such as playing video games and sports during working hours [ 31 , 32 ]. Some previous research has suggested that conducting non-work-related activities at work, such as using the Internet for personal purposes in the workplace, can affect job performance [ 52 , 58 ]. Hence, the final hypothesis we postulated was as follows:

• Hypothesis 6 : Employees’ participation in non-work-related activities during working hours will be negatively related to their work productivity when they are working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Statistical analysis

We tested our hypotheses using structural equation modeling (SEM) in AMOS statistical software. The main purpose of using SEM in our analysis was to test the hypotheses about the constructs that we determined from the observed items we collected from the respondents [ 59 ].

To ensure that our model had a consistent construction, we analyzed the convergent validity and discriminant validity of the constructs by considering their Cronbach’s alpha values, average variance extracted (AVE) values, and square root of AVE values, on the respective constructs and the item loadings. Cronbach’s alpha measures the internal consistency of constructs [ 60 ]. The average variance extracted provides the average of variation explained by a construct [ 61 ].

Moreover, we assessed the model fit using (1) absolute fit indexes, including the goodness-of-fit index (GFI) and the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA), and (2) incremental fit indexes, including the comparative fit index (CFI) and the normed fit index (NFI) [ 62 ].

After confirming that the model was consistent and had a good fit, we examined the model by SEM. We then calculated the significance of each path using a two-tailed t -test to test the cause and effect relationships among the constructs.

Model consistency

We list the summary statistics, including the mean and standard deviation of each item, the item loadings, and the Cronbach’s alpha of each construct in Table 2 . The correlations between constructs, average variances extracted (AVEs), and the square roots of the AVEs are listed in Table 3 . The Cronbach’s alpha of each construct was above the benchmark value of acceptable reliability 0.7 [ 63 ], thus suggesting a good internal consistency of each construct. In order to ensure that each item represented its construct, each item needed to have a loading larger than 0.4 [ 64 , 65 ]. All of the item loadings in our research exceeded 0.4, and the AVE value for each construct was larger than 0.5 (except one, which was 0.5), thus demonstrating that the items satisfied the requirements for convergent validity [ 66 , 67 ]. In addition, the square root of the AVE of each construct was larger than its correlations with all of the other constructs [ 67 ] meaning that the discriminant validity was at an acceptable level.

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261969.t003

Model goodness of fit

The cut-off criteria of a good model fit are: RMSEA < 0.06, and GFI, CFI, and NFI ≥ 0.9 [ 68 – 71 ]. In this case, the study’s model demonstrated a satisfactory fit (RMSEA = 0.061; CFI = 0.947; GFI = 0.919; NFI = 0.922).

Testing of hypotheses

We report the standardized path coefficients and the significance of each of the hypotheses in Fig 1 . Based on a significance level of 5%, four hypotheses were significant and six were not significant.

N.S. represents not significant. *** indicates a p -value less than 0.01. The numbers to the right of the hypotheses’ numbers are the standardized path coefficients.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261969.g001

The research findings supported Hypotheses H3a, H3b, H4b, and H5. Hypothesis H3a was supported ( β = -0.222, p < 0.001), indicating that work-life balance was negatively related to the employees’ stress level when those employees were working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Hypothesis H3b was also supported ( β = 0.750, p < 0.001), indicating that employees’ work-life balance was positively related to their happiness when those employees were working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Hypothesis H4b was supported ( β = 0.626, p < 0.001), indicating that employees’ stress level was positively related to the employees’ participation in non-work-related activities during working hours when those employees were working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Hypothesis H5 was supported ( β = 0.418, p < 0.001), indicating that employees’ happiness had a positive effect in promoting their work productivity.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many employees who were accustomed to working in the office and did not have previous WFH experience to do their work from home during part of the pandemic, because of social distancing or lockdown policies. In this research, we sought to investigate the effects that switching to WFH in response to the COVID-19 pandemic had on employees’ psychological well-being and, by extension, on their work productivity. We applied the stress mindset theory to study the relationships between three stress relievers (company support, supervisor trust, and work-life balance) on the positive and negative sides of employees’ psychological well-being (happiness versus stress), which in turn affected their job performance (productivity and non-work-related activities during working hours) when they were working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Interestingly, among the three stress relievers we studied, work-life balance is the only reliever that have influenced on the employees’ psychological well-being. At the same time, this reliever has a positive effect on one’s psychological well-being by promoting happiness and relieving stress. Our research findings also suggest that when employees feel happy in their WFH arrangements, their work productivity increases. Surprisingly, when the employees encountered stress in their WFH arrangements, they still maintained their work productivity, but at the same time, they participate more in non-work-related activities to relieve their stress. The good news is that their non-work-related activities did not affect their work productivity. Our study takes the lead in developing a research model that shapes the relationship between employees’ WFH environment and their psychological well-being and performance in relation to sudden and forced WFH during the COVID-19 pandemic. As a methodological contribution, our study adopted the modified randomized response technique to ask the sensitive questions involved in the study, including queries about the employees’ negative psychological well-being status and their engagement in non-work-related activities. We provided extra protection to their privacy by using this survey method, so as to encourage them to provide truthful responses when answering such sensitive questions. Management may wish to consider adopting the same methodology in an effort to collect honest responses when sensitive questions are involved in the workplace.

Regarding the effect of stress relievers on psychological well-being, we found that having a healthy work-life balance promotes happiness and also relieves stress. However, WFH does not imply an improvement in work-life balance, especially when the employees do not have a suitable environment to work. Employees should have a private workspace, which allows access to a strong and stable Internet connection, and has sufficient equipment to carry out their work at home. If employees encounter difficulties when they are working from home, management should provide the employees with flexible arrangements and alternative approaches to work. For example, if an employee does not have a comfortable environment to work, management may arrange a private space or room in the office for the employees given that a proper social distance is maintained.

As is the case in other fast-paced metropolises, Hong Kong has long followed the standard practice of employees working in a formal office environment and offering them no flexible working options [ 72 ]. During the pandemic, when the employees are allow to work from home, some companies have also set strict rules, such as requiring staff to stay at home during working hours or to answer calls from supervisors within three tones. However, a blurred boundary between work space and home space can make it difficult for employees to set a clear line of separation between their work and their home life [ 73 ]. Under a work-life balance working approach, it is assumed that employees can reserve enough time to handle non-work-related life issues and activities while managing their work tasks. Although some previous studies have suggested that non-work-related activities in the workplace affect work productivity [ 52 , 58 ], our research findings did not support that argument in regard to WFH. In other words, performing non-work-related activities during work hours at home does not necessarily appear to impact work productivity. In fact, when employees are feeling burned-out, they could relieve stress via such non-work-related activities and hence maintain their work engagement. For example, at the time when use of the Internet was just emerging in the workplace, Internet recreation in the workplace was found to make employees more creative [ 74 ] and help employees to become accustomed to the new and advanced systems [ 75 ].

Therefore, management may wish to offer their employees a flexible working hour to help the employees to meet their needs when they are working from home [ 57 ]. Management could also encourage employees to set boundaries, as long as the committed working hours per week are achieved, thereby enabling them to secure the balance between their work and home life. Feeling happy, satisfied, and enthusiastic when working from home can help workers maintain a high level of productivity [ 76 ].

Limitations and future research

The present study had certain limitations. First, the significance of the research findings is dependent on the reliability of self-reports. To minimize bias, in this study we attempted to collect the most representative responses, including through application of the RRT for sensitive questions and through use of an anonymous, web-based survey, as well as through the choice of highly diverse participants. A pretest and pilot test were also conducted before the actual survey, to ensure the quality of the study. Second, this study was based on 500 employees in Hong Kong, a group that certainly cannot represent the worldwide population. In addition, the working and living environments in Hong Kong may be significantly different from those in other regions or countries. Additionally research among more heterogeneous samples will be needed to test the research model.

Conclusions

Although managers are trying their best to maintain their employees’ work productivity at the same level as that prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, it is also important for them to maintain a good balance for their employees between work and life and provide flexibility in their working time and arrangements. Our research findings suggest that a healthy balance between work and home life makes employees feel happier, and in turn has a significant effect on them maintaining a good level of work productivity when they are required to switch to WFH. Meanwhile, an imbalance between work and life would have a negative impact on employees’ psychological well-being, spurring them to carry out non-work-related activities during working hours. Interestingly, those non-work-related activities apparently do not influence WFH employees’ work productivity. We conclude that balance is the key to successful implementation of sudden and forced WFH during the COVID-19 pandemic and achieving a smooth transition from working at the office to working from home.

Supporting information

S1 table. list of all items and measures..

Suffixes with–S and–U indicate that the items are sensitive questions and are paired with unrelated questions.

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New Insights from Home/Work Study: How Working from Home Impacted Cognitive Function during COVID-19

The pandemic abruptly disrupted workplaces overnight, transforming many homes into offices. Here are the newest takeaways from our Home/Work study.

To examine the role environmental factors in the home play on the cognitive function of remote workers, our team designed a study led by Dr. Anna Young that studied 206 office workers who worked in remote or hybrid-remote settings across the U.S. over one year. The team equipped participants with real-time indoor environmental monitors in their home workstations and bedrooms. To measure cognitive function, participants responded to a combination of surveys and cognitive function tests in a custom smartphone application.

The Home/Work study found the following key takeaways:

• The indoor air quality in people’s homes played a crucial role in the cognitive performance of office workers who worked remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Home offices with too-warm or too-cold temperatures performed worse on tests of cognitive function, including overall “throughput” and creative problem-solving.
• The researchers found evidence that higher CO 2 concentrations indoors – a useful indicator of ventilation rates – also had an impact on participants’ ability to inhibit cognitive interference during these tests, even when CO 2 levels were low.

“Our study underscores the importance of ensuring homes have clear air for clear brains while working from home. Indoor air that is too hot, too cold, or too stale may impair how well our brains can problem-solve and think creatively,” explains Dr. Anna Young, who was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Healthy Buildings program at the time of the study and is now a Fellow at Emory University.

“We know from prior research that the air we breathe at work and at school influences our cognitive performance, so these results are in line with what we know about how indoor environments influence our ability to perform at our best, be it at an office, school, our homes, or anywhere else, for that matter,” says Dr. Joseph Allen, Director of the Healthy Buildings Program.

In a previous study, the so-called CogFX study, the team researched the impacts of IAQ on cognitive function among 302 office workers in six countries (China, India, Mexico, Thailand, the UK, and the US).

More information about the CogFX study can be found on our website or this blog post.

A nna Young, Shivani Parikh, Sandra Dedesko, Maya Bliss, Jiaxuan Xu, Antonella Zanobetti, Shelly Miller, Joseph Allen. Home indoor air quality and cognitive function over one year for people working remotely during COVID-19. Building and Environment (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.buildenv.2024.111551

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The future of healthy buildings must be one where they are the norm, not the exception. Health cannot and should not be a luxury item, afforded to only those that can afford it. This applies to healthcare, working conditions, access to food, and, yes, the buildings where we live, work, play, pray, and heal.

Our goal is to improve the lives of all people, in all buildings, everywhere, every day. A healthy building is a human right.

What’s next for remote work: An analysis of 2,000 tasks, 800 jobs, and nine countries

For many workers, COVID-19’s impact has depended greatly on one question: Can I work from home or am I tethered to my workplace? Quarantines, lockdowns, and self-imposed isolation have pushed tens of millions around the world to work from home, accelerating a workplace experiment that had struggled to gain traction before COVID-19 hit.

Now, well into the pandemic, the limitations and the benefits of remote work are clearer. Although many people are returning to the workplace as economies reopen—the majority could not work remotely at all—executives have indicated in surveys that hybrid models of remote work  for some employees are here to stay. The virus has broken through cultural and technological barriers that prevented remote work in the past, setting in motion a structural shift in where work takes place, at least for some people.

Now that vaccines are awaiting approval, the question looms: To what extent will remote work persist ? In this article, we assess the possibility for various work activities to be performed remotely. Building on the McKinsey Global Institute’s body of work on automation, AI, and the future of work, we extend our models to consider where work is performed. 1 The future of work in Europe: Automation, workforce transitions, and the future geography of work , McKinsey Global Institute, June 2020; The future of work in America: People and places, today and tomorrow , McKinsey Global Institute, July 2019; Jobs lost, jobs gained: Workforce transitions in a time of automation , McKinsey Global Institute, December 2017. Our analysis finds that the potential for remote work is highly concentrated among highly skilled, highly educated workers in a handful of industries, occupations, and geographies.

More than 20 percent of the workforce could work remotely three to five days a week as effectively as they could if working from an office. If remote work took hold at that level, that would mean three to four times as many people working from home than before the pandemic and would have a profound impact on urban economies, transportation, and consumer spending, among other things.

The virus has broken through cultural and technological barriers that prevented remote work in the past, setting in motion a structural shift in where work takes place, at least for some people.

More than half the workforce, however, has little or no opportunity for remote work. Some of their jobs require collaborating with others or using specialized machinery; other jobs, such as conducting CT scans, must be done on location; and some, such as making deliveries, are performed while out and about. Many of such jobs are low wage and more at risk from broad trends such as automation and digitization. Remote work thus risks accentuating inequalities at a social level.

The potential for remote work is determined by tasks and activities, not occupations

Remote work raises a vast array of issues and challenges for employees and employers. Companies are pondering how best to deliver coaching remotely and how to configure workspaces to enhance employee safety, among a host of other thorny questions raised by COVID-19. For their part, employees are struggling to find the best home-work balance and equip themselves for working and collaborating remotely.

In this article, however, we aim to granularly define the activities and occupations that can be done from home to better understand the future staying power of remote work. We have analyzed the potential for remote work—or work that doesn’t require interpersonal interaction or a physical presence at a specific worksite—in a range of countries, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. We used MGI’s workforce model based on the Occupational Information Network (O*NET) to analyze more than 2,000 activities in more than 800 occupations and identify which activities and occupations have the greatest potential for remote work.

The potential for remote work depends on the mix of activities undertaken in each occupation and on their physical, spatial, and interpersonal context. We first assessed the theoretical extent to which an activity can be done remotely. This depends on whether a worker needs to be physically present on-site to do a task, interact with others, or use location-specific machinery or equipment.

Many physical or manual activities, as well as those that require use of fixed equipment, cannot be done remotely. These include providing care, operating machinery, using lab equipment, and processing customer transactions in stores. In contrast, activities such as information gathering and processing, communicating with others, teaching and counseling, and coding data can theoretically be done remotely.

Additionally, employers have found during the pandemic that although some tasks can be done remotely in a crisis, they are much more effectively done in person. These activities include coaching, counseling, and providing advice and feedback; building customer and colleague relationships; bringing new employees into a company; negotiating and making critical decisions; teaching and training; and work that benefits from collaboration, such as innovation, problem-solving, and creativity. If onboarding were to be done remotely, for instance, it would require significant rethinking of the activity to produce outcomes similar to those achieved in person.

For instance, while teaching has moved to remote work during the pandemic, parents and teachers alike say that quality has suffered. Similarly, courtrooms have functioned remotely but are unlikely to remain online going forward out of concern for legal rights and equity—some defendants lack adequate connectivity and lawyers, and judges worry about missing nonverbal cues in video conferences.

So we have devised two metrics for remote work potential: the maximum potential, including all activities that theoretically can be performed remotely, and a lower bound for the effective potential for remote work, which excludes activities that have a clear benefit from being done in person (Exhibit 1).

To determine the overall potential for remote work for jobs and sectors, we use the time spent on different activities within occupations. We find that remote work potential is concentrated in a few sectors. Finance and insurance has the highest potential, with three-quarters of time spent on activities that can be done remotely without a loss of productivity. Management, business services, and information technology have the next highest potential, all with more than half of employee time spent on activities that could effectively be done remotely (Exhibit 2). These sectors are characterized by a high share of workers with college degrees or higher.

Remote work potential is higher in advanced economies

The potential for remote work varies across countries, a reflection of their sector, occupation, and activity mix. Business and financial services are a large share of the UK economy, for example, and it has the highest potential for remote work among the countries we examined. Its workforce could theoretically work remotely one-third of the time without a loss of productivity, or almost half the time but with diminished productivity. (Exhibit 3). Other advanced economies are not far behind; their workforces could dedicate 28 to 30 percent of the time to working remotely without losing productivity.

In emerging economies, employment is skewed toward occupations that require physical and manual activities in sectors like agriculture and manufacturing. The potential for time spent on remote work drops to 12 to 26 percent in the emerging economies we assessed. In India, for instance, the workforce could spend just 12 percent of the time working remotely without losing effectiveness. Although India is known globally for its high-tech and financial services industries, the vast majority of its workforce of 464 million is employed in occupations like retail services and agriculture that cannot be done remotely.

Although India is known globally for its high-tech and financial services industries, the vast majority of its workforce of 464 million is employed in occupations like retail services and agriculture that cannot be done remotely.

A hybrid model that combines some remote work with work in an office is possible for occupations with high remote work potential

For most workers, some activities during a typical day lend themselves to remote work, while the rest of their tasks require their on-site physical presence. In the US workforce, we find that just 22 percent of employees can work remotely between three and five days a week without affecting productivity, while only 5 percent could do so in India. In contrast, 61 percent of the workforce in the United States can work no more than a few hours a week remotely or not at all. The remaining 17 percent of the workforce could work remotely partially, between one and three days per week (Exhibit 4).

Consider a floral designer. We estimate that between half and one-quarter of his job can be done remotely. He can take orders by phone or online and contract for delivery through an app, but floral arrangement itself requires being in a shop where the flowers are stored in a refrigerated case and ribbons, moss, vases, and other materials used to create a floral design are at hand. To make a floral designer’s job more remote would require dividing his various tasks among all employees in a flower shop. In contrast, credit analysts, database administrators, and tax preparers, among others, can do virtually all of their work remotely. In general, workers whose jobs require cognitive thinking and problem solving, managing and developing people, and data processing have the greatest potential to work from home. These employees also tend to be among the highest paid.

The ability to work remotely also depends on the need to use specialized equipment. According to our analysis, a chemical technician could work remotely only a quarter of the time because much of her work must be done in a lab housing the equipment she needs. Among healthcare occupations, general practitioners who can use digital technologies to communicate with patients have a much greater potential for remote work than surgeons and x-ray technicians, who need advanced equipment and tools to do their work. Thus, among health professionals overall, the effective remote work potential is just 11 percent.

Even for the same activity, the context in which a job is done matters. Consider the activity “analyzing data or information,” which can be done remotely by a statistician or financial analyst but not by a surveyor. Crime scene analysts and workers who analyze consumer trends both engage in what O*NET describes as “getting, processing, analyzing, documenting and interpreting information,” but the former must go to the location of, say, a murder while the latter can do his work in front of a computer at home. A travel agent can calculate the cost of goods or services from a kitchen table, but a grocery clerk does that from behind a counter in a store.

And then there are jobs that require workers to be on-site or in person more than four days a week. Due to the physical nature of most of their work activities, occupations such as transportation, food services, property maintenance, and agriculture offer little or no opportunity for remote work. Building inspectors must go to a building or construction site. Nursing assistants must work in a healthcare facility. Many jobs declared essential by governments during the pandemic—nursing, building maintenance, and garbage collection, for example—fall into this category of jobs with low remote work potential.

This mixed pattern of remote and physical activities of each occupation helps explain the results of a recent McKinsey survey of 800 corporate executives  around the world. Across all sectors, 38 percent of respondents expect their remote employees to work two or more days a week away from the office after the pandemic, compared to 22 percent of respondents surveyed before the pandemic. But just 19 percent of respondents to the most recent survey said they expected employees to work three or more days remotely. This suggests that executives anticipate operating their businesses with a hybrid model  of some sort, with employees working remotely and from an office during the workweek. JPMorgan already has a plan for its 60,950 employees to work from home one or two weeks a month or two days a week, depending on the line of business.

Hybrid remote work has important implications for urban economies

Currently, only a small share of the workforce in advanced economies—typically between 5 and 7 percent—regularly works from home. A shift to 15 to 20 percent of workers spending more time at home and less in the office could have profound impacts on urban economies. More people working remotely means fewer people commuting between home and work every day or traveling to different locations for work. This could have significant economic consequences, including on transportation, gasoline and auto sales, restaurants and retail in urban centers, demand for office real estate, and other consumption patterns.

A McKinsey survey of office space managers conducted in May found that after the pandemic, they expect a 36 percent increase in worktime outside their offices, affecting main offices and satellite locations. This means companies will need less office space, and several are already planning to reduce real estate expenses. Moody’s Analytics predicts that the office vacancy rate in the United States will climb to 19.4 percent, compared to 16.8 percent at the end of 2019, and rise to 20.2 percent by the end of 2022. A survey of 248 US chief operating officers found that one-third plan to reduce office space in the coming years as leases expire.

The impact of that will reverberate through the restaurants and bars, shops, and services businesses that cater to office workers and will put a dent in some state and local tax revenues. For example, REI plans to sell off its new corporate headquarters before even moving in and instead begin operating from satellite offices. In contrast, Amazon recently signed leases for a total of 900,000 feet of office space in six cities around the United States, citing the lack of spontaneity in virtual teamwork.

As tech companies announced plans for permanent remote work options, the median price of a one-bedroom rental in San Francisco dropped 24.2 percent compared to a year ago, while in New York City, which had roughly 28,000 residents in every square mile at the start of 2020, 15,000 rental apartments were empty in September, the most vacancies in recorded history.

Nor is residential real estate immune from the impact of remote work. As tech companies announced plans for permanent remote work options, the median price of a one-bedroom rental in San Francisco dropped 24.2 percent compared to a year ago, while in New York City, which had roughly 28,000 residents in every square mile at the start of 2020, 15,000 rental apartments were empty in September, the most vacancies in recorded history. Conversely, bidding wars are breaking out in suburbs and smaller cities as remote workers seek less harried, less expensive lifestyles and homes with a room that can serve as an office or gym—though it is unclear how successful companies will be with workers scattered in far-flung locales.

Remote workers may also shift consumption patterns. Less money spent on transportation, lunch, and wardrobes suitable for the office may be shifted to other uses. Sales of home office equipment, digital tools, and enhanced connectivity gear have boomed.

Whether the shift to remote work translates into spreading prosperity to smaller cities remains to be seen. Previous MGI research in the United States and Europe has shown a trend toward greater geographic concentration of work  in megacities like London and New York and high-growth hubs, including Seattle and Amsterdam . These locales have attracted many of the same type of younger, highly educated workers who can best work remotely. It remains to be seen whether the shift to remote work slows that trend, or whether the most vibrant cities remain magnets for such people.

Organizations will have to adjust their practices to capture potential productivity gains from remote work

Is remote work good for productivity? Ultimately, the answer may determine its popularity, especially given the long period of waning labor productivity  that preceded the pandemic. So far, there is scant clarity—and widespread contradiction—about the productivity impact. Some 41 percent of employees who responded to a McKinsey consumer survey in May said they were more productive working remotely than in the office. As employees have gained experience working remotely during the pandemic, their confidence in their productivity has grown, with the number of people saying they worked more productively increasing by 45 percent from April to May.

With nine months of experience under their belts, more employers are seeing somewhat better productivity from their remote workers. Interviews with chief executives about remote work elicited a mixed range of opinions. Some express confidence that remote work can continue, while others say they see few positives to remote work.

With nine months of experience under their belts, more employers are seeing somewhat better productivity from their remote workers.

One impediment to productivity may be connectivity. A researcher at Stanford University found that only 65 percent of Americans surveyed said they had fast enough internet service to support viable video calls, and in many parts of the developing world, the connectivity infrastructure is sparse or nonexistent. Developing digital infrastructure will require significant public and private investment.

For women in particular, remote work is a mixed blessing. It boosts flexibility—not needing to be physically co-located with fellow workers enables independent work and more flexible hours—as well as productivity, with less time wasted commuting. Yet remote work also may increase gender disparity in the workplace, exacerbating the regressive effects of COVID-19. The female workforce in many economies is more highly concentrated in occupational clusters like healthcare, food services, and customer service that have relatively low potential for remote work. Previous MGI research on gender parity found that jobs held by women are 19 percent more at risk than jobs held by men simply because women are disproportionately represented in sectors most negatively affected by COVID-19.

Some forms of remote work are likely to persist long after COVID-19 is conquered. This will require many shifts, such as investment in digital infrastructure, freeing up office space, and the structural transformation of cities, food services, commercial real estate, and retail. It also risks accentuating inequalities and creating new psychological and emotional stresses among employees, including from isolation. For most companies, having employees work outside the office  will require reinventing many processes and policies. How long before someone invents the virtual watercooler?

The authors wish to thank Olivia Robinson, Gurneet Singh Dandona, and Alok Singh for their contributions to this article.

This article was edited by Stephanie Strom, a senior editor at the McKinsey Global Institute.

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Expert Commentary

Working from home: What the research says about setting boundaries, staying productive and reshaping cities

The coronavirus pandemic forced millions of U.S. employees to begin working from home. This research provides insights on our new telework reality.

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by Clark Merrefield, The Journalist's Resource June 8, 2020

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Over the past 12 weeks, the coronavirus pandemic has forced millions of employees in America to begin working from home. Before the pandemic, 2.5% of U.S. employees teleworked full-time, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Now, almost everyone who can telework is doing so.

Some economists expect the share of people teleworking full-time to remain high even after the pandemic ends. We collected a variety of research to address big questions employers, employees and cities face as America’s office workers consider the future of working from home.

Research indicates there is no one-size-fits all approach when it comes to telework arrangements. Everyone now teleworking faces challenges, from caring for children to adjusting to virtual collaboration with coworkers. Some people will be more productive working from home, some people less so.

One constant in the academic literature is that the type of work matters when it comes to whether telework arrangements are successful. People with complex jobs that can be performed independently generally fare better than those with less complex jobs that require extensive interaction with colleagues.

It’s important to remember most jobs cannot be done at home, and tens of millions of workers have temporarily or permanently lost their jobs — though the economy regained 2.5 million jobs in May. An estimated 37% of U.S. jobs are conducive to telework, according to an analysis from University of Chicago economists Jonathan Dingel and Brent Neiman .

Google and Facebook are two major employers that have told employees to plan on teleworking through 2020. Twitter has told employees if they can telework and want to keep teleworking, they can “do so forever.”

Work-from-home arrangements will likely expand beyond the tech world — and beyond the pandemic. Executives at about 1,750 firms from a variety of industries across the country expect 10% of full-time employees to telework every workday after the pandemic ends, according to the May monthly panel survey by economists at the Atlanta Fed, Stanford University and the University of Chicago. The executives expect 30% of their workforce to telework at least one day a week after the pandemic, triple the 10% rate before.

Keep reading to find out what the research says about employee productivity and setting boundaries while working at home, how mass teleworking could transform cities — and more.

My work and home life have completely melded. How can I set boundaries?

It’s one of the bigger questions for workers thrust into full-time telework — especially those simultaneously caring for children. Academic research can provide guidance for striking a balance.

For the paper “ Strategies for Successful Telework: How Effective Employees Manage Work/Home Boundaries ,” from June 2016 in Strategic HR Review , Kelly Basile and T. Alexandra Beauregard conducted 40 in-depth interviews with people teleworking full or part-time at an organization that did not have a culture of long work hours. Basile is an assistant professor of management at Emmanuel College. Beauregard is a reader in organizational psychology at Birbeck, University of London.

“When work and home activities take place in the same physical space, physical, temporal and psychological boundaries between work and home can become blurred,” Basile and Beauregard write.

The workers they interviewed use physical, time-based, behavioral and communicative strategies to set boundaries. For example, after their workday was done, full-time teleworkers with dedicated office space at home had an easier time devoting their full attention to non-work responsibilities, compared with those without a home office.

Teleworkers accountable to other responsibilities, like walking a dog or caring for children after school, had stronger work-home boundaries than those only accountable to themselves. Certain routine behaviors, like shutting down a computer at the end of the day, or turning off the ringer on a work phone, also helped establish boundaries. Those with children or spouses at home during telework time were most successful when they communicated clearly and consistently that they needed their workday to be free of household noise and interruptions.

“In organizations where after-hours communications, early meetings and weekend working are the norm, employees preferring segmentation will have difficulty establishing and maintaining boundaries between work and personal time,” Basile and Beauregard write. It’s another theme throughout the academic literature: Whether telework works for individual employees depends on company culture.

For “ Toward Understanding Remote Workers’ Management of  Work-Family Boundaries: The Complexity of Workplace Embeddedness ,” from December 2015 in Group and Organization Management , Kimberly Eddleston and Jay Mulki conducted 52 interviews with sales and service employees from across the U.S. who worked from home full-time. Eddleston is a professor of entrepreneurship and innovation at Northeastern University and Mulki is an associate professor of marketing there.

Many of the interviewees worked at organizations where it was common to work more than 40 hours a week, sometimes outside of regular hours. Even though interviews were in-depth, the authors caution that because their sample is small, their findings cannot be generalized to the broader population.

Still, the findings indicate a telework divide between men and women. About 62% of the interviewees were women. Some women experienced benefits — spending time with their families while also being able to step away for urgent deadlines. But more than half of women working remotely — compared with just a tenth of men — reported their spouse didn’t respect boundaries between work and family. “You know, I get distracted by my private life,” one woman told the researchers. “It kind of interferes with my professional life.”

With an acuity applicable to today’s era of widespread coronavirus telework, Eddleston and Mulki write that “organizations should educate remote workers on the need to establish boundaries between work and family, and train these workers to resist temptations to perform work activities during family time.”

How does telework affect worker productivity?

Tens of millions of Americans are unemployed because of the new coronavirus, and data from the Bureau of Labor statistics show labor productivity is down considerably. The BLS defines labor productivity as “a measure of economic performance that compares the amount of goods and services produced (output) with the number of hours worked to produce those goods and services.”

For those who still have jobs and are teleworking, productivity can depend on personal motivation, type of work and home environment. Research indicates people who work from home can, overall, be as productive as office-dwellers.

In one widely cited November 2014 paper in the Quarterly Journal of Economics , researchers found call center workers at a large Chinese travel agency randomly assigned to work from home four days a week for nine months increased performance 13% compared with those who stayed in the office. Attrition also halved among teleworkers. The authors note that “the job of a call center employee is particularly suitable for telecommuting. It requires neither teamwork nor in-person face time.” The company required teleworkers in the office one day a week for training on new products and services.

In “ Are Telecommuters Remotely Good Citizens? ” from May 2014 in Personnel Psychology, Ravi Gajendran , David Harrison and Kelly Delaney‐Klinger surveyed 323 employees from various industries, including technology, banking, health care and manufacturing. Gajendran is an associate professor of management at Florida International University. Harrison is a professor of management at the University of Texas, Austin. Delaney-Klinger is an associate professor of management at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.

About 37% of the sample had a telework arrangement, with 80% of teleworkers working from home. The researchers found an association between teleworking and higher job performance ratings from supervisors. They suggest higher performance among teleworkers has to do with their finding that teleworkers believe they have more autonomy than regular commuters.

“Further, perceived autonomy is likely to be influenced by telecommuting intensity — the more extensive telecommuting is, the higher the discretion employees perceive over where and when they work,” write Gajendran, Harrison and Delaney-Klinger.

Work-from-anywhere arrangements could be even better for productivity than working from home, depending on the type of work. That’s according to “ Work-From-Anywhere: The Productivity Effects of Geographic Flexibility ,” a Harvard Business School working paper by Prithwiraj Choudhury, Cirrus Foroughi and Barbara Larson, released in December 2019. Work-from-home arrangements assume employees live close enough to go to the office a few days a week, or as needed, according to the authors. Work-from-anywhere arrangements let employees work remotely and physically far from their organization’s offices.

The authors exploit a natural experiment at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, where in 2012 management and union representatives launched a work-from-anywhere policy. The rollout was staggered, so employees transitioned at different times from being in-office, to work-from-home, to work-from-anywhere. The authors find that patent examiners working from anywhere were 4.4% more productive than examiners working from home. All examiners had at least two years on the job.

“[Work-from-anywhere] examiners relocate to lower cost-of-living locations and we report a correlation between relocating to a below-median cost-of-living location and productivity,” Choudhury, Foroughi and Larson write. They note two limitations: Their study focuses on a single organization, and patent examiners, by and large, don’t depend on coworker interaction to do their jobs.

Flexible work arrangements could also allow some older workers to work longer, if they want to. That’s according to a January 2020 paper in the American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics . The authors surveyed 2,772 clients of The Vanguard Group, an investment company. Participants were at least 55 years old with at least $10,000 in their Vanguard accounts. The sample skews wealthier, healthier and more educated than the national population.

“The willingness to work is stronger when jobs offer a flexible choice of hours worked,” the authors find. “Individuals are willing to take substantial earnings reductions to gain an hour of flexibility.”

Won’t I miss out on office relationships and opportunities for collaboration?

A constant throughout the literature is that whether telework arrangements are successful or not depends on the type of work. One study, published February 2018 in the Journal of Business and Psychology , surveyed 273 telecommuters and supervisors from a company with a voluntary telework program. The authors found teleworkers with complex jobs had better job performance than telecommuters with less complex jobs, “and their performance increased with higher levels of telecommuting.”

Then there are individual personalities. An outgoing person, for example, might miss office camaraderie, while an introvert might relish the demise of water cooler chatter. In “ Getting Away From Them All: Managing Exhaustion from Social Interaction with Telework ,” from February 2017 in the Journal of Organizational Behavior , Jaime Windeler , Katherine Chudoba and Rui Sundrup find that part-time telework allowed exhausted workers the chance to recover.

Windeler is an associate professor of business analytics at the University of Cincinatti. Chudoba is an associate professor of management information systems at Utah State University. Sundrup is an assistant professor of computer information systems at the University of Louisville.

Based on survey results from 258 workers from a variety of industries and regions in the U.S., the authors found workers were less exhausted when they had quality in-person interactions with coworkers. Quality is a subjective measure that “reflects an individual’s appraisal of the adequacy of support or satisfaction with interpersonal interactions,” the authors write.

But exhaustion increased as interactions became more frequent. Telework acted as a salve for office exhaustion. Participants represented the demographic characteristics of people with jobs conducive to telework and uniformly worked at small, medium and large companies. Taking a break from the office may be a good way to recharge, but collaboration remains fundamental to the human experience.

“The tendency for people to work together — to establish and run businesses, to conduct research projects, and to create and share music — is a foundation of human culture,” write then-Stanford University doctoral researcher Priyanka Carr and Stanford associate psychology professor Gregory Walton in a July 2014 paper in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology . “For individuals, working with others affords enormous social and personal benefits.”

Will my career growth suffer if I’m not able to go to the office?

Some research suggests workers who want flexibility, like a telework option, may face stigma in the workplace. But the current widespread telework situation is unprecedented. If everyone at a company is teleworking, then, by definition, regular commuters can’t level stigma toward teleworkers.

If work life ends up looking similar to pre-COVID times, with some number of workers still regularly going to an office and others going in sometimes or not at all, promotions may hinge on what’s normal for each employee’s work unit. That’s according to “ Is There a Price Telecommuters Pay? ” from February 2020 in the Journal of Vocational Behavior by Timothy Golden and Kimberly Eddleston . Golden is a professor of enterprise management and organization at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Eddleston is the Northeastern University professor mentioned earlier.

The authors analyzed survey results and salary and promotion growth data from a sample of 405 employees of a technology services firm. Roughly equal numbers were women and men.

People who teleworked extensively received more promotions when teleworking was part of their work unit’s culture and when they did extra work outside regular hours. Extensive teleworkers who did extra work and had the opportunity for face-to-face interactions with their supervisors also saw higher salary growth.

“Indeed, while work context factors examined in our study tended to decrease career penalties for telecommuters including those who telecommuted extensively, the greatest career benefits were attained by those who only occasionally telecommuted,” Golden and Eddleston write.

What will happen to cities if office workers don’t come back?

It’s another big question that may come down to whether coronavirus telework arrangements persist — and, if they do, how city leaders fill the void from lost office rent and ancillary business revenue, like workers buying lunch at cafes.

Research shows telework may affect whether people live in cities or suburbs. More telework could mean more urban sprawl, with people moving away from city cores and reducing density. In a simulated mid-sized city where every worker teleworks at least one day a week, transportation costs decrease 20% and geographic area expands by about 26% — according to “ Telework: Urban Form, Energy Consumption and Greenhouse Gas Implications ,” by William Larson and Weihua Zhao in Economic Inquiry from April 2017.

Larson is a senior economist at the Federal Housing Finance Agency and Zhao is an assistant professor of economics at the University of Louisville. Their simulated city is based on characteristics of the Charlotte, Indianapolis, Kansas City and San Antonio metropolitan areas, including average geographic area, average number of occupied units and median household income.

Greenhouse gas emissions fall slightly and housing units become slightly larger in Larson and Zhao’s telework simulation. Another potential side effect: “While telework increases the welfare of those who telework, it also makes those who do not telework better off through reduced congestion,” they write.

The authors of “ Working from Home and the Willingness to Accept a Longer Commute ,” from July 2018 in The Annals of Regional Science , also hint at a link between teleworking and urban sprawl. Based on surveys of nearly 7,500 Dutch workers spanning 2002 to 2014, they find people working from home at least one day per month were willing to accept 5% longer commute times, on average. Researchers report similar findings from the Netherlands in a September 2007 paper in the Journal of Housing and the Built Environment , with telecommuters more likely than regular commuters to live on the edge of or outside cities.

On the other hand, if fewer workers drive every day into city centers, that could free up space for more bicycling and public transportation, according to E&E News , an energy and environmental news outlet.

Check out our other coronavirus-related resources , including tips on covering biomedical research preprints and a roundup of research that looks at how infectious disease outbreaks affect people’s mental health. Also, don’t miss our feature on rural broadband in the time of coronavirus.

About The Author

Clark Merrefield

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How to help employees with adhd address the challenges of remote work.

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Work-from-home regulations are coming. companies aren’t ready..

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Jimena Murillo Chávarro

Flexibility is key to integrating meaning and work.

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Why you should make friends at work.

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Organizational structure, relational power is the new currency of hybrid work.

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Organizational behavior, declare ‘calendar bankruptcy’ to move beyond meeting-driven culture.

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The loneliness of the hybrid worker.

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How shifts in remote behavior affect employee well-being.

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Working from home can make us healthier and happier. Employers benefit too. Here’s the evidence if you need any convincing

Ty Ferguson , University of South Australia ; Carol Maher , University of South Australia , and Rachel Curtis , University of South Australia

Is linking time in the office to career success the best way to get us back to work?

John L Hopkins , Swinburne University of Technology

Working from home since COVID-19 ? Cabin fever could be the next challenge

Farzam Sepanta , Carleton University ; Laura Arpan , University at Buffalo , and Liam O'Brien , Carleton University

What’s it worth to work from home? For some, it’s as much as one-third of their wage

Lynette Washington , University of South Australia and Akshay Vij , University of South Australia

Plants and bookcases in, living rooms and blank walls out: how your Zoom background can make you seem more competent

Paddy Ross , Durham University

Rural communities are being left behind because of poor digital infrastructure, research shows

Aloysius Igboekwu , Aberystwyth University ; Maria Plotnikova , Aberystwyth University , and Sarah Lindop , Aberystwyth University

Stress levels in Australian workplaces among the highest as we battle constant interruptions and irritating colleagues

Libby (Elizabeth) Sander , Bond University

This desk is mine! How noisy offices can make us more territorial

Oluremi (Remi) Ayoko , The University of Queensland

Remote work marks the path to a greener future

Patryk Makowski , Technological University of the Shannon

Can employers stop you working from home? Here’s what the law says

Giuseppe Carabetta , University of Technology Sydney

Working from home has worked for people with disability. The back-to - the-office push could wind back gains

Sue Williamson , UNSW Sydney ; Helen Taylor , Australian Defence Force Academy , and Vindhya Weeratunga , Australian Defence Force Academy

The shift to working from home will be difficult to reverse

Andrew Parkin , University of Toronto and Justin Savoie , University of Toronto

Working from home immoral? A lesson in ethics, and history, for Elon Musk

Dale Tweedie , Macquarie University

Our bedrooms aren’t refuges anymore – working, studying and eating in them is bad for our sleep

Christian Tietz , UNSW Sydney and Demet Dincer , UNSW Sydney

Remote working improves the lives of female managers - but at a cost

Willie Tafadzwa Chinyamurindi , University of Fort Hare

Digital nomad visas offer the best of two worlds: what you should know before you go

HILDA finds working from home boosts women’s job satisfaction more than men’s, and that has a downside

Mark Wooden , The University of Melbourne ; Esperanza Vera-Toscano , The University of Melbourne , and Inga Lass , The University of Melbourne

Morning or evening type? Choice of hours is the next big thing in workplace flexibility

Stefan Volk , University of Sydney

Burnout and isolation: Why employees and managers can’t ignore the social and mental health impact of working from home

Kiffer George Card , Simon Fraser University

‘Let’s just do it’: how do e-changers feel about having left the city now lockdowns are over?

Tania Lewis , RMIT University ; Andrew Glover , RMIT University , and Julian Waters-Lynch , RMIT University

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3 new studies end debate over effectiveness of hybrid and remote work.

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Experts say hybrid and remote working are signs of the future, and new science-backed studies show ... [+] mental health benefits to "the new normal."

The debate over remote and hybrid work continues to grow. Some companies resisted, and iron-fisted leaders pulled the old hat trick (“It’s your job to work hard and deal with stress, so grin and bear it.”), arguing against the concept of remote work. Others cited productivity concerns and tactical problems that limited a supervisor’s ability to observe and coach employees. A handful of business leaders pushed back. Josh Feast, CEO of Cognito Corporation, argued that supervisors could find innovative ways to connect with and manage workers from afar “by ensuring their colleagues feel heard and know they are not alone. Exhibiting heightened sensitivity to emotional intelligence—particularly in a time where physical isolation has become a necessity—is vital.” Alice Hricak, managing principal of corporate interiors at Perkins and Will, said working from home showcases new approaches and debunks old ideas that it leads to low productivity, less visibility and little opportunity for collaboration.

What Does The Scientific Data Show?

To resolve the debate, it’s time to go beyond subjective opinion and look at the objective science. David Powell, president of Prodoscore said their data showed that if an employee was highly productive in-office, they’ll be productive at home; if an employee slacked off at the office, they’ll do the same a home. “After evaluating over 105 million data points from 30,000 U.S.-based Prodoscore users, we discovered a five percent increase in productivity during the pandemic work from home period,” he said. “Although, as we know, any variant of the Covid-19 virus is unpredictable, employee productivity is not.”

Two studies in early 2022 validated the views of remote/hybrid work advocates. Research from Owl Labs found that remote and hybrid employees were 22% happier than workers in an onsite office environment and stayed in their jobs longer. Plus, remote workers had less stress, more focus and were more productive than when they toiled in the office. Working from home led to better work/life balance and was more beneficial for the physical and mental well-being of employees.

A study from Ergotron sampled 1,000 full-time workers. It found that as workers become more acclimated to hybrid and remote office environments since the onset of Covid-19, the hybrid workplace model has empowered employees to reclaim physical health, and they are seeing mental health benefits, too.   A total of 56% of employees cited mental health improvements, better work-life balance and more physical activity. Key highlights from the study include:

• Job Satisfaction. Continuing to embrace flexibility is essential. Most employees (88%) agree that the flexibility to work from home or the office has increased their job satisfaction.
• Physical health. The hybrid workplace has empowered employees to reclaim physical health. Three-quarters of respondents (75%) stated that they move more frequently and have a more active work style when working remotely.
• Work-life balance . Three quarters of respondents say their work-life balance has improved as a result of hybrid or remote working. Even though some employees are dedicating more time to their work, if they’re able to fit it in and around other aspects of their lives, they say they feel the positive effects of a better work-life balance.
• Comfortable work environments. Of the workers surveyed, 62% said improved workspaces with comfortable, ergonomic furniture are important and improve company culture. 
• Wellness programs. More than three-quarters of respondents (76%) revealed that their employers implemented wellness programs to support mental and physical health, with 30% of those being brand new since the onset of the pandemic.

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“Promoting health and wellness among employees can improve well-being and productivity,” said Chad Severson, CEO of Ergotron. “Over the past two years, employees have adapted to the hybrid and remote work landscape—and they now prefer it. As employers look to attract and retain talent, focusing on practices that promote well-being and help employees thrive wherever they work will be critical.”

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Research at Home: 11 Research Topics to Get You Started

Are you looking for topics that you can research at home to comply with the research requirements of your course? This article is for you. Explore the 10 research topics and develop your own. Read on to find out more about these research topics.

For students confined in their homes, research skills application during the pandemic due to COVID-19 poses quite a challenge. The quarantine forces them to look for research problems at home to start a meaningful research venture.

Expectedly, students turn to Google to seek possible research topics at home that they can do under quarantine. Given this assumption, I did look for research problems that students could work on in their homes to verify if there are answers to such questions.

However, after using several keywords that revolve around research at home due to the constraints of the pandemic, I could not find any straightforward answer. The nearest answer I could get is a person who answered the question on quora.com, saying there are many research topics at home that students can explore. But then he enumerated three research topics without even expounding on them.

Hence, I took the initiative of writing this article for students who need guidance along the  conceptualization stage  of their walk to understand how the world works. We walk the talk.

This article explores ten topics that students or young researchers can work on in the safety of their homes. While some research instructors would leave the task for students to fend for themselves, I saw the need to share what I think. Giving them a list of possible research topics that I can think of paves the way to student learning. I usually give examples to jumpstart the minds of my students, being a firm believer of the adage “Practice what you preach.” I demonstrate what I teach.

Of course, I know that I do not monopolize the ideas out there. And I know creativity resides in everyone. For budding researchers, they must develop their thinking skills and engage the creative part of their brain. After all, one of the  qualities of a good researcher  is to be creative in pursuing higher levels of learning.

Table of Contents

Research problems at home.

The following research problems at home settings can help you explore and apply your research knowledge and skills. These research topics cropped up in my mind while exploring areas of inquiry that my students can pursue even while under quarantine.

These research topics are suggestive, not prescriptive; meaning, you as a research student can adopt flexibility in your choice of research focus given these suggestions. Creativity and novelty are keys to a meaningful research venture.

In addition, I include those research problems that interest me but which are outside of my specialization. But I conduct simple researches on things out of curiosity and hunger for discovery, especially those research topics where I can use my knowledge and skills in statistics, systems modeling, and data visualization.

Physiological Effects of the Pandemic to Families

I have come across reports that some people have  insomnia  due to the threats of COVID-19. It would be interesting to know the reasons why people have difficulty sleeping. You can ask a family member who exhibits such a problem.

You may use the Case Study approach in this instance, focusing on the individual with the problem and recording the process. Some questions I could figure out are as follows:

• How much time do you spend lying in bed before you are able to sleep?
• Are there things that bother you that keep you from sleeping?
• Do you engage in activities to ease your insomnia? What are these?
• How do you feel if you have not slept the night before?
• Are you taking medicines to remedy your sleeplessness?

Note that all these questions have answers that will lend themselves to some form of measurement scale. If you are able to quantify them, a study with more respondents will be possible. Consider the case study as a benchmark for a larger study on sleeplessness due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

I found a useful android app, Sleep Monitor, to measure and monitor sleeping patterns. Researchers can use this simple app in lieu of costly polysomnogram or sleep study to assess a person’s sleeping behavior.

I have had sleep problems before but Sleep Monitor helped me identify the cause of my insomnia. I realized that I have sensitive ears, so I reduced the sources of noise in my room. I worked towards a sound intensity of less than 30 decibels. It helped a lot.

Children’s Behavior at Home

How children behave during a pandemic would be an interesting research topic. I would hypothesize that complete families (i.e., at least the father, mother, and child) would be happy to be together and establish a closer bond. Mothers are able to nurse their young kids, guide them in their assignments online any time of the day, play with them, among other things. Hence, kids perhaps would be happier in their homes while studying.

Really? Nobody knows.

Perhaps they may be more irritable as they could not be with their friends to play. Peer-to-peer interaction is limited. Sharing notes with colleagues about their experience would be worth a data to analyze. Problems of validating the data, however, would be a challenge in this research problem.

Nevertheless, I believe it’s worth pursuing.

Mini-Ecosystems at Home

As a research project in environmental science, you might want to study plants and animals living within and around your home. Microecosystems such as ponds, the garden, a mini-forest, or a grassy portion of your home can serve as study areas. You can poke, dig, and take photographs of insects, arthropods, reptiles, birds, and perhaps mammals.

Just at the back of our home, I took pictures of insects, moths, birds, and mammals and contribute to  Project Noah . You can add to the body of knowledge by giving information on the animal or plant species. Characterize them by giving details such as the location where you saw them, their feeding habits, reproductive behavior, nesting habits, among other things. We call this citizen science.

You might want to do morphometrics where you measure the different parts of the animal after you have captured them. You may employ a mark-recapture experiment of small animals that visit your home.

Read More : 5 Easy Science Experiments at Home

Challenges of Online Education

I heard that teachers face unique challenges while carrying out their duties to impart knowledge to their students. It’s a struggle for both teachers and students. Teachers who were unprepared for online activity get to construct their instructional modules in record time.

Read More : Choosing Best Online Resources for Kids

In my case, it didn’t matter much as I have designed instructional modules even before the pandemic. I already developed and maintained websites that house the contents of the subjects I teach.

If you are interested on how I implemented my online classes during the pandemic, you might want to see my original work titled  Blended Website Learning Model  to help enrich students’ learning.

At this point, I would say that the system I developed is quite effective in teaching and mentoring my students. And I would like to compare this system with other systems employed by other educational institutions.

Hence, I have come up with indicators that I measured during system implementation. During the last week of this semester, I plan to administer a questionnaire to get feedback from my students. The information I get will be helpful in further refining the instructional approach I employed in the model. Perhaps I can correlate student performance with the quality of their internet connectivity, the time they allocate for online work and fulfilling their assignments, among other related activities.

The questions I will ask will be something like the following:

• Is there a relationship between the student’s quiz scores and their attendance in short online sessions?
• Is there significant relationship between the student’s rating of internet connectivity and the length of time it takes them to submit their class outputs?
• Is there a relationship between the student’s punctuality in the submission of class work and the type of digital gadget that they use to access the internet?

All these questions imply the use of variables that allow statistical analysis to take place. Variables may be nominal, ordinal, interval, or ratio .

Household Coping Activities

Asking questions on how the household head copes with the food scarcity threat under quarantine would be worth knowing. Reporting the creativity of people due to lockdowns can help other people who struggle to make ends meet.

Assuming that households do not just rely on government support, the following questions can trigger an exploration:

• What activities does the breadwinner do at home to meet or augment the food needs of the family?
• What support do other members of the family give to the breadwinner?
• Which coping activities work best?
• How long can the present monetary resources support the family?
• Do households conduct formal meetings with members of the family to cope with the pandemic? If there are, what strategies have they come up with?
• What expenses do members of the family incur? Do they set a certain amount of money to specific items?

Read More : Mastering Your Money: 8 Amazing Personal Finance Tips to Build Wealth

Study the Backyard Pollinators

If you have a large lawn or you have considerable space in your backyard where trees, flowers, or vegetables are grown, observing the kinds of pollinators that visit your place might be worth looking at. Pollinators can range from birds, bees, insects, reptiles, and others that you might not expect.

Knowing the time these pollinators come, what plant species they visit, how many flowers they visit, among others you can figure out can be a good science discovery.

Specifically, some  statistical and non-statistical questions  to ask are as follows:

• What types of pollinators are present in your yard?
• Is there a one-to-one correspondence between the pollinator and the plants that they visit?
• How many plant species does a specific pollinator visit?
• Is there an association between the time of day and the appearance of pollinators?
• How much time do bees (as pollinators) spend on each flower?

Higher level, relational questions may be asked by the researcher to reflect higher-order thinking skills. Doing so depends on the set of  research objectives  set forth at the beginning of the study. It all comes down to the level of complexity that you would want in your research at home. You need to review the literature before anything else to identify what has not been studied yet.

Compare stars at night to determine sky’s darkness

Gazing at the stars at night presents an opportunity to study the weather. Counting the visible ones at certain times of the season can help you compare good and bad weather days. More stars become visible if no clouds are found in the horizon.

If you can afford a good quality telescope, that would be the tool of the young astronomer in you. Telescopes have become affordable these days. If you still can’t afford it, count the stars with your naked eye.

Study the ingredients of canned goods as your research at home

You can look at the ingredients of canned and other packaged goods stocked in your homes to avoid getting out and buying the family’s food needs. Many of the food items that last contain preservatives to extend shelf life.

Here’s a video by Eleanor Nelsen on how preservatives work.

Although preserved foods can keep you alive for an extended time period, it would be wise to consider other means to get your food in a healthy way. At the beginning of the pandemic, I explored different ways to grow food. In the process, I discovered an interesting gardening method called  lithic mulching .

Without much ado, I started planting vegetables and bought seeds on rare occasions of buying the groceries. My harvest sure helped a lot in keeping the family safe from the clutches of COVID-19. Plus, of course, the healthy diet the greens can give to the body.

The gardening activity posed challenges because I encountered pests and plant diseases. These problems are areas of interest that one can add to their list of research problems at home.

Time and Motion Study

You may conduct a time and motion study in your home using the video camera of your cellphone. Although this research method is applied to improve work systems in organizations, banks, schools, and other offices, it may be interesting to see how people spend their time at home.

You might want to study members of your family to find out how much time they spend on a task and what tasks they are working on. That will be an excellent research at home that you can report to your teacher, compare notes with your classmates, and get insights from them. Sharing the findings with your family might help improve their behavior towards tasks that they need to do at home.

Just make sure the subjects are not aware that they do not know you are doing it. If they are aware that you are studying them, they will change their behavior. We call that the  Hawthorne Effect .

Experimental Study on Renewable Energy

Given that more energy will be consumed when you spend your time at home most of the time, exploring ways to generate electricity through renewable energy innovations will help you on the bill payments.

Build a simple wind turbine and see how much energy it can generate. Compare its electrical output with other alternative energy generating innovations like solar panels, or a mini-hydroelectric power plant if you live next to a river. That example of a mini-hydroelectric power plant I linked here can support up to 15 households! No more brownouts or blackouts.

You can vary your product designs and compare the amount of energy produced by those renewable energy innovations. Thus, you can come up with something that you might even sell for a profit.

Meta Analysis

Writing a  meta-analysis  does not require you to leave your home to do research. The research activity essentially reviews and synthesizes relevant research publications about a research topic. It systematically combines data obtained from selected qualitative and quantitative studies that deal with a specific issue or problem.

The meta-analysis intends to come up with a single conclusion that has stronger statistical power. Stronger statistical power is achieved because of the greater number of subjects involved, greater diversity, and corroborating evidences that support or refute the hypothesis of the study. Meta-analysis builds on the principle that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Conduct a Literature Review

All of these research problems or research topics require a thorough review of the literature to achieve a certain level of quality. Well-written research makes a good review of literature on the research topic before these are implemented. The main purpose of such a review is to avoid duplicating the work of others. The  gap in knowledge  is identified, making the research a worthwhile endeavor and worth sharing.

While research at home settings poses quite a challenge to students due to limited movement, the areas of inquiry mentioned in this article and the specific research topics enumerated can help jumpstart an educational activity that will enhance critical thinking.

Ideas beget ideas. Just allow your mind to wander but be ready to capture amazing ideas that pop in your head with a quick jot on your ideas notes. Your subconscious mind works 24/7 even while you sleep. So it is always a good idea to keep a small notebook and pen next to you.

Ideas beget ideas. P. REGONIEL

I would not recommend using a cellphone to write your notes, as you will need to browse items using it and get distracted with other time-consuming popular apps like  Tiktok ,  Facebook ,  Messenger,  or  WhatsApp  that draw your attention. A  good researcher  needs to focus on narrowing a research topic. It’s alright to use those apps once you have finished your task.

Although I use  Keep Notes  in listing the things I need to buy like groceries and hardware, things to remember, draft messages of sensitive matters, among others, I tend to lose my notes causing me to spend more time searching for it. Further, keeping notes in electronic form becomes problematic when your cellphone’s battery is out of juice.

Concluding Notes on Research at Home

Virtually everyone, with the right tools and attitude, can research at home. Confinement due to the COVID-19 pandemic presents an opportunity that enables students to think creatively. Right in our homes lie many issues and problems that research will be able to address as the topics raised in this article demonstrated.

Once you identify research problems at home, you will encounter new challenges and opportunities along the way. New areas of home-based inquiry, research problems or research topics arise, thereby enriching your experience as a student. Education, despite the pandemic, goes on.

This is a good time to undertake a review of the literature on a research topic that you are interested in. Research problems at home can be identified with a little imagination.

© P. A. Regoniel 6 June 2021

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How to Come Up With Original Ideas: Five Powerful Sources Within You

Research Topics on Education: Four Child-Centered Examples

About the author, patrick regoniel.

Dr. Regoniel, a faculty member of the graduate school, served as consultant to various environmental research and development projects covering issues and concerns on climate change, coral reef resources and management, economic valuation of environmental and natural resources, mining, and waste management and pollution. He has extensive experience on applied statistics, systems modelling and analysis, an avid practitioner of LaTeX, and a multidisciplinary web developer. He leverages pioneering AI-powered content creation tools to produce unique and comprehensive articles in this website.

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Remote Working Dissertation Topic Ideas

Published by Owen Ingram at December 29th, 2022 , Revised On August 16, 2023

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, remote working has become increasingly popular, and many businesses are considering implementing more remote employment contracts. Although working remotely offers apparent advantages for many people, it also has drawbacks and practical and legal difficulties.

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Remote employment is a new area of study, and so we have suggested some ideas for you to consider. So here is our list of remote working dissertation topics.

This Article Provides A List Of Remote-Working Dissertation Topics:

• What aspects do remote employees believe to be critical in deciding to work remotely?
• How does managing remote employees compare to managing employees who work on-site?
• How much does gender affect a worker’s decision to work remotely?
• Why are distant workers’ levels of productivity and quality
• Lower than those of on-site workers?
• What can be done to increase the output and standard of remote workers?
• Why can only tech professionals choose their place of employment?
• How can affiliate marketing make it possible for you to work from home?
• Does remote work increase or decrease the labour productivity of a company?
• The great remote work revolution winners and losers
• Back to the office or remote work? The statistics just changed
• The revolution in remote work: how to succeed from anywhere
• Why is yahoo not? Allow employees to work remotely
• Obtaining your boss, working remotely, and spending more time engaging in your favourite activities
• How can remote work be successful for everyone?
• Employee resources and advice for remote work
• Keeping the kids busy while you work from home
• Facts and figures about remote work that you should know
• Risks: Elon musk’s perspective on remote work has challenges
• The top websites for remote employment in 2022
• Genuine remote work does exist, so why did it only start to gain popularity during the covid-19 pandemic?
• Reasons why the value of remote work remains today
• The mysterious absence of remote work in job listings
• Is the “remote work window” privilege about to end? The phenomenon of remote work analysis
• The impact of distant work on information workers’ ability to collaborate
• Evaluating the expansion of remote work and its effects on effort, well-being, and work-life balance
• A review of the literature on the impact of working from home on British workers’ productivity and quality of life
• Research on the employee perceptions of remote work and cyber security in an international organization during the pandemic
• An examination of work-life balance and remote employment in the UK
• A work design perspective on practical remote work during the covid-19 pandemic
• Remote work affects women’s work-life balance and attitudes toward gender roles
• Effects of employer surveillance on distant employees
• The impact of remote work on information workers’ ability to collaborate
• An investigation into the attitudes of information technology professionals toward working from home
• An overview of the negative consequences working from home has on physical and mental health: how can we improve health?
• The effects of remote work and digital labour on individuals, businesses, and society

The success of your dissertation depends on how catchy and interesting your topic is. Take your time to consider various remote working issues before you make the final choice. Make sure that you find enough relevant material on the selected title before you start writing a dissertation . 

If you need a professional dissertation service that can help you with the topics, the proposal or the whole thesis paper, we are just a click away .

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• Assess impacts on mental health. Choose a topic aligning with your field and research interests.

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It is common knowledge that students can only graduate with honours if their dissertations are well written. You can develop a successful career by writing a dissertation on the subject matter that interests you most.

Finding a unique wedding dissertation topic is difficult. We have gathered a list of 30 top wedding dissertation topic ideas for you.

Feminist dissertation topics focus on the people who believe that women should have equal chances and rights as men. Feminism is a historical, social, and political movement founded by women to achieve gender equality and remove injustice.

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For many U.S. moms, pandemic brought increase in time spent caring for kids while doing other things

The coronavirus pandemic created widespread child care challenges in the United States in 2020. Those difficulties lasted into 2021 for some parents, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of government data examining the way parents spent their time before and during the outbreak.

While there was relatively little change in the amount of time parents spent directly caring for their children between 2019 and 2020, the time they spent on secondary child care – that is, supervising their children while doing other things, such as working, doing chores or watching television – went up significantly.

And the increased time commitment on secondary care persisted into 2021 for one group of parents in particular: mothers with children ages 5 to 12, according to the analysis, which looks at time use data covering the 2019-2021 period.

This Pew Research Center analysis is based on data from the American Time Use Survey covering the 2019-2021 period and conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Microdata used in this analysis comes from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) provided by the University of Minnesota.

The analysis focuses on the time married and partnered parents spent on secondary child care, which the BLS defines as times when parents had at least one child under age 13 in their care while doing activities other than primary child care.

The sample used in this analysis includes married and partnered parents with minor children living in the household. Because secondary care is only reported for children under 13 years old, we only carry secondary care estimates for parents whose youngest child is younger than 13 years old. Full-time working parents are individuals working 35 hours or more per week. Finally, because American Time Use Survey data collection was interrupted during part of the first semester of 2020, we only use data from the second half of 2019, 2020 and 2021.

For mothers whose youngest child was age 5 to 12, average time spent on secondary care increased by about 2.5 hours from 2019 to 2020, from an average of 5.8 to 8.2 hours a day, before dipping to an average of 7.1 hours a day in 2021. The 2021 average was still considerably higher than before the onset of the pandemic, even as other aspects of life began to normalize in the outbreak’s second year.

Mothers with a youngest child age 4 or younger, by comparison, didn’t see a statistically significant increase in the time they spent on secondary child care in the 2019-2021 period.

As has long been the case, there are sizable gender differences in the amount of time that parents spend on child care. These patterns continued in 2020 and 2021, with fathers spending considerably less time than mothers on both primary and secondary child care.

Among fathers with a youngest child age 5 to 12, time in secondary care increased 1.2 hours from 2019 to 2020. However, for fathers whose youngest child was 4 or younger, time in secondary child care remained stable in this time span.

As a whole, parents with children younger than 13 saw an increase in time spent on secondary care in the first year of the pandemic. In 2019, fathers with children 12 or under spent an average of 4.5 hours on secondary child care. Fathers’ time increased to 5.3 hours in 2020 and then moved to an average of 4.8 hours in 2021. On average, moms spent 6.5 hours per day on secondary care in 2019, 7.9 hours in 2020 and 7.0 hours in 2021. 

Overall, full-time working parents spent less time on secondary child care than parents who do not work full time. For full-time working fathers, the amount of time spent providing this type of care stayed relatively stable from 2019 to 2020 and again from 2020 to 2021. Full-time working mothers, on the other hand, saw an increase during the first year of the pandemic (from an average of 5.0 to 7.1 hours per day) and then a trend back down in 2021 (an average 6.2 hours).

For many employed parents, the shift to remote work – along with interruptions in day care and schooling – likely contributed to the increased time they spent during the pandemic on secondary child care.

Other research has shown an increase in the amount of time mothers spent working while supervising their children in the first year of the pandemic, and the gender gap between mothers and fathers in this type of time use became considerably wider. These overlapping demands may help account for the added burden mothers have experienced over the past few years.

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Carolina Aragão is a research associate focusing on social and demographic trends at Pew Research Center

How Americans View the Coronavirus, COVID-19 Vaccines Amid Declining Levels of Concern

Online religious services appeal to many americans, but going in person remains more popular, about a third of u.s. workers who can work from home now do so all the time, how the pandemic has affected attendance at u.s. religious services, mental health and the pandemic: what u.s. surveys have found, most popular.

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Apple poaches ai experts from google, creates secretive european ai lab, at least 36 former googlers now work on ai for apple..

Michael Acton, Financial Times - Apr 30, 2024 2:16 pm UTC

Apple has poached dozens of artificial intelligence experts from Google and has created a secretive European laboratory in Zurich, as the tech giant builds a team to battle rivals in developing new AI models and products.

According to a Financial Times analysis of hundreds of LinkedIn profiles as well as public job postings and research papers, the $2.7 trillion company has undertaken a hiring spree over recent years to expand its global AI and machine learning team.

The iPhone maker has particularly targeted workers from Google, attracting at least 36 specialists from its rival since it poached John Giannandrea to be its top AI executive in 2018.

While the majority of Apple’s AI team work from offices in California and Seattle, the tech group has also expanded a significant outpost in Zurich.

Professor Luc Van Gool from Swiss university ETH Zurich said Apple’s acquisitions of two local AI startups—virtual reality group FaceShift and image recognition company Fashwell—led Apple to build a research laboratory, known as its “Vision Lab,” in the city.

Zurich-based employees have been involved in Apple’s research into the underlying technology that powers products such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot. Their papers have focused on ever more advanced AI models that incorporate text and visual inputs to produce responses to queries.

The company has been advertising jobs in generative AI across two locations in Zurich, one of which has a particularly low profile. A neighbor told the FT they were not even aware of the office’s existence. Apple did not respond to requests to comment.

Apple has been typically tight-lipped about its AI plans even as big tech rivals Microsoft, Google, and Amazon tout multibillion-dollar investments in cutting-edge technology.

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Why is the School of Nursing focused on evidence-based practice research?

Student to present evidence-based projects.

Students from across the School of Nursing will present their evidence-based practice projects at the Treasure Valley Nursing Research Conference on May 15.

Five undergraduate students were invited to present. Another four projects – representing the work of 12 of Boise State’s nurse practitioner students – were also accepted to the conference.

“I’m so proud of the work these students accomplished, and am especially impressed that each student group was offered the opportunity to present,” said Clinical Associate Professor Jennifer Stock, the graduate students’ project advisor and an instructor in the Adult Gerontology Nurse Practitioner program.

“This confirms that our nurse practitioner students are committed to their education and evidence-based practice. Most importantly, it signifies our nurse practitioner students have the ability and dedication to improve patient outcomes.”

What is Evidence-Based Practice?

Healthcare today is based on years of science from the past. Over time, common practices evolve as new discoveries are made about the most effective methods of care.

Adapting clinical decisions based on evidence of positive patient outcomes is known as evidence-based practice , or EBP.

EBP research is one way to prioritize patient wellbeing. Instead of creating brand new studies to solve a healthcare problem, scholars evaluate and translate existing studies into actual practice.

Students in Boise State’s School of Nursing excel at this type of scholarship.

Nurse practitioner students dig into the evidence

Boise State’s nurse practitioner coursework requires students to work together in small groups on EBP projects. They bring real-world solutions to real time problems, investigating an issue that they’ve witnessed in their practice as registered nurses.

Noticing trends and digging deeper

Jessica Cruz, Jamie Hutt and Katie Tribley are all critical care nurses studying to become acute care nurse practitioners. For their EBP project, they looked at the benefit of using a specific anti-fibrinolytic medication (known as TXA) in response to bleeding in the brain.

The team had noticed a trend in healthcare providers ordering TXA for intracranial hemorrhage cases. But at the time they selected their topic, the protocols of Tribley’s current employer were to avoid giving TXA to patients with isolated head trauma.

“I thought it was intriguing,” Tribley said, wondering if the research around TXA and head trauma cases had changed. The group decided to find out.

TXA helps blood clot, so “it made sense to me that TXA would have a reduction on hemorrhage size when given to any patient with hemorrhage,” said Tribley. “Having said that, I was surprised the numbers were not as drastic as I had expected.”

Their research suggested that although none of the patients’ hemorrhages increased in size, they didn’t always have a significant decrease, either.

Tribley is grateful “for the opportunity to deep dive into evidence-based research” as part of her nurse practitioner education at Boise State. Over her decade in the field, she has noticed nursing practices “change drastically” because of EBP, from new medications to improved protocols and procedures.

“I find it fascinating to witness these changes and I am enthused to be a part of guiding the future of nursing as an advanced practice provider,” she said.

Evidence-based at every level of education

Evidence-based practice projects aren’t limited to nurse practitioner students or the pre-license program. Boise State students in the Online RN-BS Completion program and those earning their Doctor of Nursing Practice degree also rely on EBP.

Not just for graduate students

Alissa Godinez is a student in the Online RN-BS Completion program who worked as a licensed practical nurse while enrolled in classes. Thanks to the required research assignments in her program, she has a “better understanding” of EBP, she said.

“The National Library of Medicine is your best friend in this program,” Godinez said . “You have to cite everything under the sun, and the NLM and I have become best friends. But it’s really nice, because now I use that in my practice, even when patients ask me a question.”

Godinez recalls a time when she pointed a patient toward scholarly databases for answers instead of relying on general online search engines. She also taught them how to find relevant information within academic research articles.

Learning about EBP helped Godinez “understand the why” behind her work as a nurse. “For me, it’s been really nice to actually see ‘Okay, this is the actual research that was done for [practitioners] to get to this point,’” she said.

Scholarship for patient-centered care

Students in the Doctor of Nursing Practice program present their scholarly projects – which are also evidence-based – at the end of their program.

Similar to a dissertation, their EBP projects represent the culmination of their doctoral studies. This year, graduating students held a public poster presentation event in Albertsons Library and participated in the virtual graduate student showcase .

Two students, Nikki Graham and Rheza Agtarap, won the College of Health Sciences awards for their work, and Sara Weelborg received a Presidential Scholar Award. This honor distinguishes her for her project entitled, “Promoting Awareness and Knowledge of Nutrition as an Adjunctive Treatment Option for Chronic Insomnia.”

“The most rewarding parts of my scholarly project were forming and working with the multidisciplinary committee and observing the effects of its work,” Weelborg said. “The education module we produced was very well received, led to robust discussions, and directly impacted provider knowledge.”

Weelborg is an adult psychiatric nurse practitioner who implements EBP for patients with mental health challenges. By keeping up with recent research findings and practice guidelines, she’s been able to offer her patients more treatment options.

“Incorporating evidence-based practice into my work instills hopefulness in my patients that I have their best interest in mind and have partnered with them to navigate the complex world of psychiatric treatment,” she said.

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Class of 2024: BA in Law Grad Inspired by Employee to Become Legal Advocate

After graduating from the University of Redlands in 2002 Matt Niccum built his career as a construction company owner and started a family in Tucson. It was not until one of his employees, who was doing masonry work for his company, asked him to be a character witness in a hearing to adjust his immigration status that inspired Niccum to pursue a legal education.  

“The hearing did not go well, and I felt compelled to work towards representing others like him. This motivation has evolved to include immigrants and other underrepresented communities,” said Niccum.  

Now in his 40s, Niccum will receive two undergraduate degrees, BA in Law and Political Science, at this spring’s commencement.   

“If I were to give my younger self any advice, it would be to have the courage and confidence to succeed in higher education. In some ways, I wish my younger self dared to start a law education earlier in life. However, I feel the life experiences I have gained since I received my first bachelor’s at age 22 have been invaluable in making me a successful student,” said Niccum.   

During his time as a student at University of Arizona, Niccum dove into the online programs, and maintained a 4.0 GPA while completing two degrees, owning and running his successful construction company, and being an attentive father and husband. He now plans to continue studying law by pursuing a JD.  

“My journey and original motivation to go to law school was to work in immigration law. However, as I continued my education, I have decided not to restrict myself to a particular specialization yet,” said Niccum. “I want to explore several aspects of the law that are relevant and related to immigration, including civil rights, criminal law, and poverty law. I have even considered using my construction background to work on affordable housing.”  

Niccum says all graduates should remember the privilege of receiving a college education and hopes to be able to use his to serve the Tucson community by providing legal representation to underrepresented communities.   

“Whether that means working in immigration law, as a public defender, or helping a single mother from being evicted. Even though I only have another 20 years until I hit “retirement age,” I have plenty of time to work actually representing people in court and helping to write and pass legislation that will have long-lasting effects,” said Niccum. “I have learned over the years that having a goal and a dream is good, but you have to be open to where the journey leads you.”