Introduction
The spread of coronavirus infection around the world has significantly influenced all areas of human life. It can be explicitly seen in present-day businesses which emphasize the need to transform their daily operations in all aspects accordingly. One of such necessities is the establishment of the practice of telecommuting since people cannot leave their homes to go to the office. The challenge here is related to the fact that most companies did not have any similar options for their employees before COVID-19, and now the general success of their intentions in this direction is ambiguous (Dwivedi et al. 2020). Therefore, this paper aims to review the latest studies regarding the increased tendency of telecommuting resulting from the pandemic and evaluate its effectiveness and overall organizational impacts.
Literature Review
The emergence of such an essential contextual factor as COVID-19 significantly influences common business practices and cannot be neglected by scholars studying this field. Their interest in the area is connected to the fact that organizations need to use technology more than ever, and some of them are not accustomed to it (Dwivedi et al. 2020). From this perspective, setting up the home environment for their employees is a priority (Dwivedi et al. 2020). The researchers claim that IS technology is an optimal solution for them, and organizational transformation in the specified conditions is possible only in case of its successful adoption (Dwivedi et al. 2020). In this way, the practical implementation of this solution positively correlates with the capability of companies to survive.
The expected long-lasting effects of COVID-19 also condition the emergence of new requirements for the workforce. They are related to the need to educate employees regarding the use of new technology since most of them are unfamiliar with it (Kaushik and Guleria 2020). According to the researchers, technological solutions allow to establish a connection with workers but should be properly managed by employers and HR (Kaushik and Guleria 2020). This initiative requires effective time management, the creation of new schedules, and the promotion of employees’ skills (Kaushik and Guleria 2020). This work mode implies specific benefits, mostly connected to the opportunity for companies to save money through lower overhead (Kaushik and Guleria 2020). However, the efficiency of their actions seems to be dubious due to the lack of research on this topic.
However, the mentioned trends, the adoption of technology, and employee training are not the processes that started with the beginning of the pandemic. They have been known long before the spread of COVID-19 as digital transformation, and this factor only accelerated its progress (Savic 2020). The change was inevitable regardless of the virus, but such a pace of development in this field implies the absence of information on the efficiency of adopted measures. This business model, based on the maximization of the use of information technology, is relatively new. Therefore, the theoretical approach demonstrated by researchers of this phenomenon does not provide a clear picture of its progress. This fact allows concluding on the necessity to reveal the organizational impacts of the increasing trend of telecommuting resulting from the pandemic and assess its overall effectiveness.
Continued Research Plan
The study of telecommuting at the time of COVID-19 implies the consideration of both companies and their employers since the success of such initiatives is conditional upon their productive cooperation. From this point of view, the general aim of the research is to analyze the situation from both perspectives to reveal the benefits and drawbacks of the trend. This task indicates the need to establish goals for it, and they should cover the vital aspects of remote business activity.
In this way, the first goal is to assess the financial impact of telecommuting on companies. The second goal is to reveal the effects of this work mode on employee retention, which is essential for a business’s stability. The third goal is to evaluate the practical implementation of technology and its overall success. Their combination will allow answering the research questions, which are: What are the organizational impacts of increased telecommuting resulting from the pandemic?
In the current study, the proposed research method is conducting a series of interviews among the companies, which adopted telecommuting only with the beginning of the pandemic, and their employees. The former will provide extensive information regarding the change in financial indicators, statistics on workers’ retention, and the implemented initiatives in terms of employee training in technology. The latter, in turn, will answer the questions about the shift in their perceptions of the organizations and the difficulties in adopting new technological solutions. Hence, the research will be of both qualitative and quantitative nature.
The plan of data collection and processing will be divided into several stages. First, the necessary information will be received with the help of interviews with organizations and their employees. Second, it will be compared based on specific categories. They include the attitude of both types of participants, business owners and their workers, to the practice of telecommuting, their perception of suggested technological solutions as well as the alleged success or failure of new practices. In this way, the analysis of gathered data will be the evidence of either positive or negative organizational impacts of telecommuting in the conditions of the spread of coronavirus infection.
Conclusion
To summarize, the proposed study addresses all of the essential aspects of work from home and its influence on present-day companies. This necessity is defined by the fact that, despite the emergence of the trend before the pandemic, its efficiency is not revealed yet. Therefore, the perspectives of both organizations and their employees will help demonstrate the progress of the adoption of technology contributing to the establishment of productive telecommuting and problems which should be eliminated in the future. Thus, the study will allow the development of the specified work mode for the benefit of businesses. From my point of view, this initiative is vital not only for companies but also for their workers since the increase in profits when telecommuting is the result of their combined efforts.
References
Dwivedi, Y., Hughes, D., Coombs, C., Constantiou, I., Duan, Y., Edwards, J., Gupta, B., Lal, B., Misra, S., Prashant, P., Raman, R., Rana, N., Sharma, S., and Upadhyay, N. 2020. “Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Information Management Research and Practice: Transforming Education, Work and Life,” International Journal of Information Management (55). (doi:10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2020.102211).
Kaushik, M., and Guleria, N. 2020. “The Impact of Pandemic COVID-19 in Workplace,” European Journal of Business and Management (12:15), pp.9-18. (doi:10.7176/EJBM/12-15-02).
Savic, D. 2020. “Impact of Covid-19 on Digital Transformation of the Workforce,” The Impacts of Digital Transformation, pp. 27-34. Web.
IS 8005: Informatics (Research Paper).