“Ovidius” University Annals, Economic Sciences Series

Volume XX, Issue 1 /2020

Remote Work Revolution:

Veronica Popovici
Alina - Lavinia Popovici
“Ovidius” University of Constanta, Romania
[email protected]
[email protected]

Abstract

Remote work, telework, homeworking or work from home (WFH) and even work from anywhere
(WFA): all these words and expressions describe an increasingly adopted practice by
organizations around the world. Thanks to innovations in information and computer-mediated
communication technologies that support remote work and make it possible, more and more
companies adhere to it to some extent. The growth of this movement – a true revolution in the way
we work and its practicalities – stems from the assumption that remote work can guarantee a win-
win situation for employers and employees.
The general aim of this article is to find evidence for this assumption or arguments to refute it.
To do that, we examine current trends and challenges in organizational approaches to remote work
as portrayed by the literature covering this phenomenon over the past decade. We are thus
discussing the multifaceted motivations and drawbacks to remote work, both from the
organizational and the individual perspective. Our focus addresses the ingredients for a successful
implementation of remote work and the psychological impact of remote work on employees.
Looking ahead to the future of remote work, we propose strategies to mitigate its proven risks
and challenges and to enhance the many benefits it can still foster within organizations.

Key words: remote work, work from home, telework practices, telework management, human
resource management
J.E.L. classification: M54, O33

1. Introduction

Information technology has been enabling for a while now alternative ways to organize work
that are challenging traditional management paradigms. Evolved organizational structures have
started to provide a suite of options to meet the growing demand for greater work flexibility. With
the emergence of the right tools to support telework, this new work mode has been rapidly
expanding over the last several decades. Therefore, members of virtual teams are nowadays
increasingly engaged in remote work from their individual homes or at satellite offices to reduce
commuting (Boselie, 2010).
One of the catalysts of this true movement towards more flexible work arrangements in time
and space has been the hypothesis that they would promote better work-life balance, the highly
sought-after holy grail of employees worldwide (Shin et al., 2009). The equivalent for
organizations would be more productivity at any given level.
Academic research on this organizational phenomenon has managed to shed a lot of light into
these specific issues, namely the importance of remote work on work-life balance or work-life
integration (Beauregard & Basile, 2016). The same goes for the impact of telework on the overall
performance of a company. However, as remote work became more and more common, not only
the benefits but also the dangers it entails for both the organizations and the individuals involved
have been gradually unveiled.

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This paper covers a brief overview of telework research and practice, with the hope of providing
a better understanding of this new modus operandi in terms of work practices. Starting by
explaining its growing popularity, it then reviews some key findings in prior research, touching
upon matters such as work-life balance, job satisfaction and organizational identification.
Factors spurring telework’s growth and those holding it back are very intertwined between the
organizational and the individual levels. These are vastly discussed touching upon some current
issues such as technology acceptance, business performance and continuity, reduced carbon
footprint, employee isolation and managerial skillset.
The overall objective of this paper is to examine the status quo and how we as a society built up
to it, in order to possibly, from here, start paving the way for exploring new crucial issues for the
future of telework as a successful work practice. These would include knowledge sharing,
psychological savviness and enactment of organizational policies and practices, especially in the
newly laid out context of a global pandemic forcing us to privilege telework.
Finally, our concluding remarks dare to include some recommendations for managers at the
heart of this technology-enabled work mode, with the hope of helping practitioners harness its full
potential.

2. Working from home: a ubiquitous practice taken to the next level

The official European statistics portrayed below show an average of 5,4% of employed persons
in the EU working from home on a regular basis in 2019. Throughout the last decade, this number
has remained constant, while the share of those who sometimes engaged in WFH practices has
risen (from 6% in 2009 to around 9% in 2019). Highest rates for remote working were registered in
The Netherlands and Finland (14,1%), while the lowest rates of home-workers were reported in
Bulgaria (0,5%) and Romania (0,8%).

Figure no. 1. Share of employed persons aged 15-64 usually working from home in the EU, 2019

Source: (Eurostat, 2020)

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However, this data will have skyrocketed a year from now. The COVID-19 related health crisis
has practically unleashed the potential for telework across the globe as of 2020. The numbers of
those who have switched to teleworking have allegedly soared within the past few months, marking
a true revolution in the history of remote work. If the adoption of digital flexible working
arrangements has thus far been steady and gradual, we are currently witnessing an acceleration of
this phenomenon on a scale unseen before. This is why they study of remote work has never been
more timely and of greater importance.

3. Benefits and risks of remote work: the managerial perspective

As the literature shows, remote work offers a vast number of benefits from a managerial and HR
perspective. The first one worth highlighting is an increase in employee productivity when allowed
to work from home (WFH) or remotely. For example, Bloom et al. (2015) report on a WFH
experiment undergone at a Chinese company of 16 000 employees and resulting in a 13%
performance increase. This was due to two main factors: firstly, employees were able to work more
minutes per shift on a monthly average, due mainly to fewer breaks and sick days. Secondly, being
able to work in a quieter, more convenient environment, led to them being able to focus better and
thus perform a higher number of similar tasks in the same amount of time.
On the other hand, implementing remote work practices also comes with potential risks and
challenges, as there are “smart” but also “dark” sides of telework. For instance, companies can
find it difficult to build a culture that is accepting and supportive of remote work, which can be
detrimental to their retention efforts since it can go as far as impacting employees’ motivation and
satisfaction. It can also be difficult for an organization to track exactly who is working remotely,
when and how, particularly when remote work is adopted more informally. This also brings up a
unique set of managerial issues specific to telework practice, which can only be addressed when
taking into account the overall organizational context such as culture, values, control practices etc.
(Peters et al., 2016).
Finally yet importantly, the business impact of telework initiatives, both good and bad, can be
hard to measure. This may contribute to organizations shying away from encouraging telework in a
sustained manner if doing so cannot be based on concrete data. Furthermore, it can increase fear
from what literature (Golden & Raghuram, 2010; Taskin & Bridoux, 2010) has categorized as a
potential detrimental effect of remote work: inhibiting organizational socialization and affecting its
cognitive and relational components, considered key facilitators of knowledge transfer between
teleworkers (and non-teleworkers).

4. Telework for teleworkers: blessings and pitfalls

Working from home or teleworking has been proven very beneficial also on a personal level,
with significant spillovers for the companies allowing their employees to engage in such practices.
Home workers reported improved work satisfaction, which leads among others to considerably
reduced attrition levels (Bloom et al., 2015; Fonner & Roloff, 2010).
On the down side, remote workers can also be facing a number of personal and professional
challenges, which in turn can indirectly affect the overall wellbeing of the company. For instance,
they may struggle for exposure and access to professional and training opportunities (Leslie et al.,
2012). Moreover, there is also the risk that those working outside the office can become socially
isolated (Charlampous et al., 2019). This is regarded as a somewhat peripheral aspect when it
comes to telework from a company’s point of view, but it has a strong psychological impact for the
individual and the community at large.
It has also been shown that there are great discrepancies in how employees assess their job
satisfaction and perceived work-family balance levels depending on them being engaged in formal
or informal telework arrangements (Troup & Rose, 2012).
Remote work has indeed been proven to bring clear benefits to employees’ work-life balance,
enabling them to adapt their working time to their private and family-related needs. However,
recent studies (Eurofund, 2020; Beauregard & Basile, 2016; Boell et al., 2016; Allen et al., 2015)

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suggest that the working conditions of workers in telework arrangements might actually affect
their:
• Work-life balance: maybe counterintuitively, these flexible work arrangements can also lead to
an intensification of work, even when it comes to highly autonomous employees (situation
known as the autonomy paradox); additionally, working time patterns can be more irregular and
unpredictable for remote workers, thus accentuating precisely the opposite of work-life balance.
• Health: due to the intense use of information and communication technologies, remote workers
are even more vulnerable to health risks such as high stress and anxiety levels, fatigue, burnout,
headaches and eyestrain.
• Performance: virtual presenteeism is an increasing phenomenon among the digitally-enabled
work force; while it may allow remote workers to carry out tasks while sick, it can also be even
more detrimental to their health and reduce performance.
All of these aspects are strongly connected between them and can affect remote workers to
different extents. More than ever before, now is the time to pay extra attention to all these negative
aspects that teleworkers are facing. As the remote work phenomenon as a whole increases, their
potential harmful impact is also prone to increase. Organizations and communities have a moral
duty to fight against lack of awareness and indifference towards these issues that have become
increasingly but also invisibly threatening to modern virtual workspaces.

5. Conclusions

Remote work, work from home or telework, however one might call it, this practice is here to
stay. More and more companies have seen the numbers of their remote workers increase during the
past years and they will only continue to grow due to the uncertain context induced by the COVID-
19 pandemic. Under these premises, we embarked on a journey of discovering and gathering all the
valuable insight already existent in the literature, hoping to contribute to the better understanding of
a ubiquitous phenomenon and its development for the better in the months and years to come
Working outside of the traditional office setting brings new opportunities and challenges for
organizations and individuals alike. Every aspect is linked to the other, in a very dynamic system of
seamless correlations, motivations and impacts. The issues underlined in this article suggest that
companies need to be both vigilant and thoughtful in how they approach, design, implement and
fine-tune their remote work programs. The role of managers seems to be of paramount importance
when it comes to building cultural support and acceptance for remote working initiatives, as well as
for alleviating most well-being related risks for teleworkers. Leading by example, setting clear
expectations, communicating frequently, monitoring and modeling appropriate work behaviors,
being purposeful in creating opportunities for remote workers – here are just a few crucial ways in
which the managerial component can truly make a difference and set a company’s telework
practices up for success.
Even though practice is significantly outpacing research in the area of remote work at the
moment, it is precisely the reason why this field of study should flourish more than ever. Seldom if
ever have there been more opportunities to explore so many different avenues and go more in depth
with uncovering knowledge on a particular subject. The academic literature has still little to say on
topics such as how to best manage training, development and advancement opportunities for
remote workers or how to effectively take into account practical, psychological and managerial
aspects in leading remote teams. The current context not only turns virtually any organization into a
potential case study but it also offers the opportunity of examining remote work trends at a global
level, potentially providing all the needed evidence to adapt remote work initiatives to different
countries/cultures.
As companies relentlessly seek for new ways to both leverage the benefits and diminish the
hazards associated with remote work, there is an increasing need for policy makers to address
remote work and its implications more actively and concretely. New regulations should be
implemented to prevent these practices from having a negative impact on the comfort, health and
security of teleworkers and incentivize companies in this positive direction.

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