Impacts of COVID-19 on Future Preferences Toward Telework

Abstract

This paper presents a study in capturing the impacts of the mandatory pandemic-induced telework practice on workers’ perceptions of the benefits, challenges, and difficulties associated with telecommuting and how those might influence their preference for telework in the future. Data was collected through an online survey conducted in South Florida in May 2020. Survey data showed that telework indices (either measured through actual behavior or stated preference) before, during, and after the pandemic were heterogeneous across socio-economic, demographic, and attitudinal segments. Before the outbreak, males, full-time students, those with PhD degrees, and high-income people showed higher percentages of involvement in jobs with a telework option. They also had higher pro-technology, pro-online education, workaholic, and pro-telework attitudes. During the pandemic, professional/managerial/technical jobs as well as jobs with lower physical-proximity measures showed the highest telework frequency. In view of future telework preferences, our analysis showed that those who were more pro-telework, pro-technology, and showed less dislike of telework dislike preferred higher telework frequency. A structural equation model was developed to assess the impacts of different predictors on telework behavior before the pandemic and preferences after the pandemic. While telework frequency before the pandemic was highly affected by the pro-telework attitude, the after-pandemic preferences were influenced by several other attitudes such as dislike telework, enjoy interaction, workaholic, as well as productivity factors. This might confirm the assumption that the mandatory practice through the pandemic has provided employees more experiences with work-from-home arrangements, which could reshape decisions and expectations around telework adoption in the future.

Perception of home teleworking during COVID-19 crisis in Spain: significant factors and assymetrical influence on acceptance and resistance

“…We must point out that the negative relationship between being female and HTW perception, despite being contradictory to H1.1 and H1.2, is supported by Asgari et al (2022). Likewise, the negative relationship between having a child and the sign of the opinion on HTW arrangements is in accordance with Elld er (2019) but contradicts mainstream literature and H7.1 and H7.2.…”

“…We must point out that the negative relationship between being female and HTW perception, despite being contradictory to H1.1 and H1.2, is supported by Asgari et al. (2022).…”

“…Being more likely to use ICTs has been found to be significant because it enables the perception of usefulness of ICTs for workers and firms and increases the ease expectation of HTW (Donati et al, 2021;Fischer et al, 2021;Asgari et al, 2022). Thus, we propose the following hypotheses:…”

“…Several papers have outlined a positive correlation between high social status and favorable perceptions of HTW. Members of higher social status develop jobs that are well suited to ICTs (Elld er, 2019;Asgari et al, 2022). Therefore, it is logical to suppose that they perceive with greater intensity the potential benefits of HTW for employers and employees.…”

“…Another key variable tied to family is the number of children in households (L opez-Igual and Rodr ıguez-Modroño, 2020;Ollo-L opez et al, 2021;Asgari et al, 2022). HTW is commonly used by workers with dependent children, since theoretically, their presence increases family Home teleworking during in Spain duties, and thus, the balance between work and home obligations becomes more necessary (Beauregard et al, 2019).…”