[论文解读] Work-From-Home is Here to Stay: Call for Flexibility in Post-Pandemic Work Policies

Darja Šmite, Nils Brede Moe+3 more|arXiv (Cornell University)|Mar 21, 2022

COVID-19 Pandemic Impacts被引用 16

一句话总结

本文分析了12个国家17家科技公司在疫情后的工作政策，发现所有公司均已正式确立了更大的工作地点和时间灵活性，心理契约发生了显著转变：远程工作已从管理者的优待转变为员工的权利。该研究基于员工偏好和不断演变的组织反馈回路，主张持续推行混合办公和远程办公模式。

ABSTRACT

In early 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic forced employees in tech companies worldwide to abruptly transition from working in offices to working from their homes. During two years of predominantly working from home, employees and managers alike formed expectations about what post-pandemic working life should look like. Many companies are currently experimenting with new work policies that balance both employee- and manager expectations to where, when and how work should be done in the future. In this article, we gather experiences from 17 companies and their sites, covering 12 countries. We share the results of corporate surveys of employee preferences for working from home and analyse new work policies. Our results are threefold. First, through the new work policies all companies are formally giving more flexibility to the employees with regards to working time and work location. Second, there is a great variation in how much flexibility the companies are willing to yield to the employees. The variation is related both to industry type, size of the companies, and company culture. Third, we document a change in the psychological contract between employees and managers, where the option of working from home is converted from an exclusive perk that managers could choose to give to the few, to a core privilege that all employees feel they are entitled to. Finally, there are indications that as the companies learn and solicit feedback regarding the efficiency of the chosen strategies, we might see further developments and changes of the work policies with respect to how much flexibility to work whenever and from anywhere they grant. Through these findings, the paper contributes to a growing literature about the new trends emerging from the pandemic in tech companies and spells out practical implications onwards.

研究动机与目标

• 理解科技公司在疫情后如何根据员工和管理者的期望重塑工作政策。
• 考察公司在工作地点、时间及政策结构方面灵活性的差异。
• 记录远程工作心理契约的转变：从可选福利转变为员工核心权利。
• 识别科技行业可持续灵活工作模式的实际影响。
• 探讨反馈和绩效数据如何进一步推动未来工作政策的演变。

提出的方法

• 对12个国家的17家科技公司开展企业调查，评估员工对远程和混合办公的偏好。
• 收集并分析参与公司的新工作政策，评估其在工作时间与地点上的正式灵活性。
• 绘制员工与管理者之间关于远程工作资格的心理契约演变过程。
• 基于公司规模、行业类型和组织文化，识别政策采纳的模式。
• 追踪公司用于优化其远程工作策略的反馈回路和绩效指标。
• 将研究发现整合为后疫情时代科技环境中可持续灵活工作政策的框架。

实验结果

研究问题

• RQ1 科技公司在疫情期间如何响应远程工作而演变其工作政策？
• RQ2 公司在疫情后正式提供的工作地点和时间灵活性达到何种水平？
• RQ3 远程工作从管理者的特权转变为员工权利的认知发生了怎样的变化？
• RQ4 哪些因素影响公司愿意给予员工的灵活性程度？
• RQ5 反馈和绩效数据将如何进一步塑造未来的工作政策？

主要发现

• 所有17家公司均已正式采纳更灵活的工作政策，使员工在工作地点和时间上拥有更大选择权。
• 所提供的灵活性程度存在显著差异，受公司规模、行业类型和组织文化的影响。
• 远程工作已从可选福利转变为员工的核心权利，反映出心理契约的根本性转变。
• 公司正在积极收集反馈并监控效率，以随时间推移优化并可能进一步演变其工作政策。
• 趋势表明，灵活、远程和混合办公模式很可能将继续在科技行业的未来工作设计中占据核心地位。
• 研究结果表明，员工偏好和绩效结果将持续塑造后疫情时代政策的演变。