Restricted measures for social isolation taken as precautions in the fight against pandemic due to the COVID-19 virus, have changed dramatically the normal business and professional life. Companies in all sectors have to be adaptive and flexible in order to survive in this complex and hardly unpredictable business environment. At first glance ICT sector is not so severely and visibly affected by the COVID-19 economic crisis. Due to numerous reasons companies from the sector have so far shown an enviable level of flexibility and adaptability to the rapid changes in business environment conditions. As a response to the anti-epidemiological requirements, most often used tool from ICT companies is to transform working processes from office to home, following the line of social isolation. In this regard the major objective of the current article is to reveal the specifics of home office work in ICT companies and its impact on the employees' motivation in terms of their perceptions and level of commitment to the achievement of companies` goals. For this purpose we used questionnaire survey among employees working in different job positions in ICT companies in Bulgaria (n=158). Our findings reveal that majority of employees (almost 80% of responders) have positive attitude to the home office as a working measure in social isolation conditions. On the other hand, home office does not significantly impact on the level of employees` motivation and their engagement to the achievement of the company's goals. Based on analysis of collected data, we propose divers measures for improving the employees satisfaction and motivation in specific context of home office work during stress crisis situation, such the pandemic is.
The motivation of professionals is not based solely on good monetary remuneration. Nowadays, every experienced IT professional is interested first and foremost in a healthy work environment in a company and then on the pay level. The employer's assessment takes into account the level of stress, work-life balance, career development prerequisites, as well as the offered social benefitssupplementary health insurance, sports cards, food vouchers, drinks and fruit at work, events with colleagues outside the office, places for creative relaxation at work. Anything that helps the creative workflow because IT professionals, are creators in the field who work and need special conditions to grow their potential and deliver good results. The article explores and analyzes the motivation factors leading to the employees' commitment of the IT companies in Bulgaria. Basic theoretical points of view are presented and the work of leading researchers in this field is being commented. A methodology has been developed and the summarized results are presented, on the two hypotheses that the authors set, namely: There is a link between Employee Compensation, working conditions, personal development opportunities and the psychological climate, and employee engagement and that Employee Compensation has exhausted the possibilities to be the only factor to guarantee the commitment of the employees in the IT industry. The results show that companies can not ignore any of the identified key motivational factors without losing employees and/or productivity/efficiency.
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