Introduction
Materials and methods
Study design
Data collection
Data analysis
Results
Participants
Characteristics | n | % |
---|---|---|
Gender | ||
Female | 18 | 53 |
Male | 16 | 47 |
Age group (years) | ||
18-25 | 2 | 6 |
26-35 | 15 | 44 |
36-45 | 7 | 21 |
46-55 | 6 | 18 |
56-65 | 4 | 12 |
Education | ||
Middle school or completed vocational training | 13 | 38 |
High school | 4 | 12 |
University (of applied sciences) degree | 17 | 50 |
Industry | ||
Information Technology (IT) | 15 | 44 |
Manufacturing | 2 | 6 |
Trade | 3 | 9 |
Service | 14 | 41 |
Employment | ||
Full-time | 32 | 94 |
Part-time | 2 | 6 |
Managerial responsibility | ||
Yes | 15 | 44 |
No | 19 | 56 |
Previous experience with remote work | ||
Sporadic | 21 | 62 |
None | 13 | 38 |
Demands
Work content
"Exactly, my customer, for example, is based in the UK. So, I was used to at least having video calls with them, so nothing has changed at all. And otherwise, so what I just miss is seeing my colleagues at work and we just used to have team events and I was also at the customer's a couple of times a year and stuff like that is of course missing, but how the company is supposed to improve that now, yeah, that's difficult." (employee #7, female)
Work organization
"So, we sit here [in the office] in one room on purpose. The communication is extremely high. And, if one person is on the phone, the rest of the people hear that and then we're just like, ‘Where was that now?’ ‘Yeah, that was there and there.’ ‘Ah, all right.’ And then you're informed. That’s all eliminated now." (manager #2, male)
Social relationships
"So, the will to turn on a camera, an order is doubtful from my point of view. Is not necessarily purposeful. I have felt a clear deterioration of the team structure, clearly. So, the team cohesion was very strong before. Due to the organizational change, the team has of course been reorganized, some have joined, some have left, that was of course an aspect. But overall, the team structure has deteriorated considerably. And we were able to hide a little further away.” (manager #8, male)
Work environment
"That's why in this case and by the fact that I still had the influence children on site here, it was a very unpleasant experience for me. On the one hand, that has to do with concentration, focused work, and on the other hand, that actually has to do with the leadership activity, because I felt uncomfortable and not good with leadership at a distance." (manager #8, female)
New forms of work
"[…] you watch yourself and say, 'Gee, now I've been chatting with him for so long again,' and in the home office you also feel a certain obligation not to go overboard, so that you don't make a bad impression working from home. […] But if you transfer it to your work, what was it like in the past? Then you sometimes talked just as long, but then the boss probably even joined in and chatted for a while and then you didn't have this, you didn't have this bad feeling about it, you have to say quite clearly." (employee #12, male)
Further demands
"But even now I have to say that I was only in the office last week and when I compare that, I get a lot less done. Simply because you're excited to see your colleagues again, you're chatting away again. So, I think this focus has simply shifted. What was perhaps normal in the past, standing by the coffee machine and having a chat here and there, is simply no longer something you're used to. At home, you just work all the time, you might not have that exchange either, and now you perceive that as being unproductive when you're in the office, actually." (employee #2, female)
Resources
Work content
"So, I even have a different view than just: I've been transitioned, and I've been working from home. I was also involved in making it possible for all people in our company to work from home. Because our IT department made sure that within a week, and we received a lot of praise for this, all of our employees were able to work from home. And the changeover was surprisingly relatively harmless for me […]" (employee #4, male)
Work organization
"On the other hand, the fact that I am responsible for two regions means that I am, and I don't mind admitting it, sometimes in conference calls or phone calls at the same time. That's an advantage of home office, of corona, because when I'm present somewhere, I don't go to another conference call, well then you leave sometimes. But then I can use that a bit more in these corona times. Of course, that's not always so ideal, but well, I weigh it up and the chances outweigh now and then to be somewhere at the same time. Because I don't have to move spatially, I can do everything from my desk." (manager #7, male)
Social relationships
"[…] now, when we have a big team meeting across the markets - before it was just the German team sitting in an office and the rest of the teams somehow joined in via [Microsoft] Teams - suddenly everyone was the same. So, no one was close to the boss, I would say, because everyone worked virtually, and that led to a bit of a convergence, at least between the teams in Austria, Poland and Switzerland. To me and to the whole team structure." (manager #3, male)
Work environment
"[…] we have these setup times, this desk sharing. That means we have to set up our laptop every day at the workstation, connect it to the monitors there, with a separate keyboard and so on. For hygienic reasons. And that also takes up a bit of time. In the worst case, you have to get a small trolley out of a small safe, where your laptop and everything you need is in it, then you look for the workstation, which you have to book in advance, then you work there, of course you have to set everything up beforehand, wire everything, connect the monitors to the docking station, the mouse, keyboard, webcam if necessary, the headset and you haven't seen it. And then you work and then it's the same thing backwards again. That's just such a little thing, of course, but that's an incredibly noticeable process because that just sucks. It's really just a total little thing and there are really worse things, but it's one thing that really gets on a lot of colleagues' nerves because it's also so ineffective." (employee #12, male)
New forms of work
"[...] But I realize that this way I find a good mode between: Hey, I'll take a break for an hour at lunchtime and then check in again in the evening or answer quickly. Or, if I have a creative phase on a Sunday afternoon, because it's just quiet and I come up with a few ideas for the concept, then I somehow briefly do that again on a Sunday evening. And then I take Thursday afternoon off for that. So that's super flexible." (employee #8, female)
Further resources
"Well, I make sure that as far as tasks can be completed, they are completed. And I also finish them on time. But I also have some personal obligations because of my dog, who shoos me out and says: 'I'd like to finish now, please.' ((laughs))" (manager #12, female)
Personal resources
"Well, maybe what I did a little better is that I dealt with myself a little better, because I just spent so much time with myself. Even though you work at the same time, of course, but it's always something else when you work unobserved than when you always have people around you. So, I think you just reflect on yourself a bit more, which I actually think is quite good." (employee #10, female)
Coping strategies
Problem-focused coping strategies
"[…] I have a foldaway bed and my table is also so relatively foldable. That means that on most days I really fold everything up after work, put my laptop and keyboard in my work backpack, sometimes fold up the table and then unfold my bed again, so that my room, so to speak, even if it's the same room, looks different during the day than in the evening, which I find to be quite an advantage all the time, because I somehow never have the feeling: 'Wow, I'm living here in my office or the work is coming home with me.' But rather, through such a few moves, the room is restructured after work in such a way that it's no longer an office, but my room." (employee #18, female)
"So, you sit straight for the first 30 seconds and then you slump and depending on how concentrated you are working or what kind of activities, so I don't know working with an excel sheet on a small screen is of course deadly for your back ((laughs)). When I'm on the phone, it's okay. I also make sure that I stand up. Provisionally. I simply turned a laundry basket upside down and put it on my kitchen counter and put the laptop on it. So, it all kind of works." (manager #14, female)
"At the moment, we have what I would call an interpersonal problem in one team. And that's very difficult to sort out over the phone or by e-mail. And I have just now, before you called, set a personal appointment for us to sit down together next week and sort out this problem." (manager #11, female)
Emotion-focused coping strategies
"[…] when I want to go to the office, I first have to walk 15 minutes from my home to the station and I just did that every day there and back again every day, simply because I walked this way. And that's when I noticed that I was missing the exercise, because even if you don't actively do sports or anything, you move a lot more, simply because of the journey to the office. And I noticed that I was somehow missing that, which is why I decided to simply integrate this sport into my everyday life.” (employee #10, female)
"Well, I'm outdoors a lot, but I still try to free up the appropriate time for specific sports, as far as possible due to corona. I'm in the garden and do things that are good for me." (manager #12, female)
Role of leadership
Employees’ Perspective
“[My supervisor] just calls in between to find out how I am, how things are going. [...] But this active calling [after online meetings] and asking, ‘Can I give you feedback on this? Maybe you can take that into account next time.’ I found that very appreciative [...]” (employee #11, female)
“From my point of view, my supervisor rested on that because he refused to work from home all the time. And at times I felt that was a bit unfair. Especially during the time when invoices were due, we realized that my colleague and I both had to go to the office, because otherwise there would have been far too many mistakes. Because of this coordination problem [that the three of us share the office]. And even then, our boss was there instead of saying for two days, ‘Well, then I’ll just go home.’” (employee #1, female)
“I somehow also said that I am struggling with calling people because of small things or so. And I have been quickly told [by my manager] that it shouldn’t be that way, and I should simply call, it’s no problem.” (employee #10, female)
“So, my supervisor has taken care of a lot of things that otherwise would have arisen somehow implicitly. Yes, because on the other hand, of course, being the contact person, not only for technical questions, but also, if something goes wrong, but ultimately also for technical things, my monitor doesn’t want to connect today.” (employee #17, female)
“Well, my manager regularly asked us whether we could balance, but also separate our work and private lives at home, and how we were doing.” (employee #6, female)
“I am pretty satisfied [working at home]. Especially because I was also given feedback by my manager in my feedback meeting that I was doing my tasks well and so on. And that’s why I rather had the feeling that this also has a lot to do with a lot of trust in me and yes.” (employee #18, female)
Managers’ perspective
"Some people you just have to make them follow the work rules. ‘Yeah, I know, you're on something right now. You still can't work ten hours a day without justification.’ Or in plain language, ‘F*** off, please.’ ((laughs)) ‘Now is the excellent time to clock you out.’ That's when you have to protect people from themselves a little bit, too." (manager #2, male)
"Because we were always present before and a lot, I'm a manager, I think, who communicates more via symbols or motivation. You can't convey motivation verbally, so you can't do it very well via a Webex or an online meeting, I think. And, since not everyone is always equipped with a camera or has used one, direct contact is missing. So, the facial expressions and gestures of employees are missing, and you don't get that back and have a very bad feeling. You can't really assess where you stand and where the team stands." (manager #8, male)
"[…] when I communicate with the team, I always turn on my video. The fact that I'm also a manager means that people can see me, that they can see that I'm not sitting there with curlers in my hair ((laughs)) and, I don't know, in a dressing gown. And I also think it's very important for employees to see a face, regardless of whether it's a personnel issue or a management issue. For me, that's trust on the one hand, and the other is just, okay, creating understanding." (manager #1, female)
"Otherwise, I don't really like the word, but my leadership style is actually more that you have a lot of trust in each other and that everyone sets it up for themselves the way it works and that, I always like to say, as soon as I don't hear anything, I assume that all is well, but please talk to me if you have a stomachache or if you see an issue somewhere." (manager #14, female)
"[…] I still see some legal problems there when I get this [teleworkplace contractually] signed. So, on the one hand, things have been neglected in the draft [of telework regulations], on the other hand, the employees are made worse off and now have certain supervisory duties. And I simply don't want them to perform them at all. Because then, if you really take it literally, there's a paper tiger behind it. And I just said, ‘You know what, you're going to get a chair, if you ever stop working here, please bring it back.’" (manager #2, male)