An Examination of the Changes in the Workforce due to the Rise of Remote Working

Abstract

This project is focused on examining what changes and challenges Covid brought upon the workforce. It offers valuable insights for anybody who is struggling to settle into remote work, them being either employers or employees. There were many challenges to overcome after moving to remote work. Companies had to accelerate, develop and buy technologies that were ahead of the time. Employees did not have suitable space to work at home, had to familiarize themselves with new software and get used to the different ways organizations were running. Considering that there are still many aspects of remote working that have not been mentioned in this paper due to the large arsenal of challenges and changes that Covid brought upon the workforce and to make it easier for readers to pinpoint specific aspects of remote work this research will focus on the following themes: how the lack of employees’ physical presence in the office affects their career progression; How communication has changed after moving to the remote working environment; How remote working has affected employees’ individual performance; Work-life balance and its effects on stress related diseases in the remote working environment; Analyses of whether remote working, hybrid mode or fully back to the office are preferable between employees and managers in the future after Covid has passed. Given the complexity of the chosen subject the themes had different outcomes where either primary and secondary research disagrees, or one of the samples disagree with the other and themes that have been proven. It has been concluded that there were changes that were slowly being implemented before the pandemic happened and the pandemic has only “accelerated” those processes. Hence, remote work was more of an “immediate adjustment before the industry had intended to move towards the online environment” than an “active change to accommodate my workforce into the online environment”.