Home-Based Telework During the Covid-19 Pandemic

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School of Health, Care and Social Welfare

HOME-BASED TELEWORK DURING

THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

HENNING HALLIN

Main Area: Work Life Science Level: Second Cycle

Credits: 15

Programme: Master program in Work Life Science

Course Name: Master’s Thesis in Work Life

Supervisor: Susanna Toivanen Examiner: Ulrica von Thiele Schwarz Seminar date: 2020-june-5

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ABSTRACT

This research was conducted during the Covid-19 pandemic. In an attempt to bridge a knowledge gap, a phenomenological study was carried out to answer the question “What is shared between people’s experiences of doing home-based telework during the Covid-19 pandemic?”. Four people who were currently working from home participated in the study of which three were women. A method of empirical psychological phenomenology or EPP was used in both research process and analysis. The results were that a digital adjustment had been made and digital communication was used in place of regular social interactions. These interactions were not as satisfactory as regular social interactions. The work was more flexible which lead to blurred boundaries and a greater ability to structure the workday after personal needs. A reduced work motivation and personal impact of Covid-19 was found. Also, there were new insights on the viability of telework and digital solutions going forward. This study contributed to a gap in research by providing insight into what the experience of teleworking during the Covid-19 pandemic may look like, which was an unexplored field.

Keywords: Home-based telework, Covid-19 pandemic, Phenomenology, Experience

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1 INTRODUCTION

On December 31, 2019, the WHO was informed of several pneumonia cases of unknown cause in the Chinese city of Wuhan. This was discovered to caused be a new strain of corona virus, known first as novel coronavirus (2019 – nCoV) which began slowly spreading outside of China throughout January 2020. The virus proved to be very contagious and on January 30, 2020 the WHO declared it a public health emergency of international concern. The virus continued to spread to most countries over the course of February and was rebranded to Covid-19, or simply referred to in everyday language as the Coronavirus, in this study this both versions of the name will be used. On March 11, 2020, the WHO characterized Covid-19 as a pandemic, something they say is not a word they use lightly, implicating the severity of the situation. (World Health Organization, 2020).

At the point of the writing of this study, the Coronavirus has hit societies around the world hard, and countries are recommending their citizens to stay at home as much as possible. Countries have also mandated restrictions on social activity with the severity of the restrictions varying between countries. In Sweden, where the current study is conducted, the restrictions have been relatively loose compared to other countries where travel, business and social gatherings have been heavily regulated. In Sweden individuals have opportunity to still visit restaurants and bars, as well as partake in other social activities, provided that regulation surrounding social distance and sanitation is followed (Larsson, 2020, March 25). Despite this, many companies in Sweden have seen a steep decline in business as a result of recommendations of social distancing, the loss of business has in turn lead to a wave of layoffs (Rundkvist, 2020, March 19).

Companies in Sweden have also taken measures to protect their employees’ health and limit the spread of the virus. A big part of these measures is the recommendation or mandating of employees to perform their usual work tasks from home. For instance, the Public Health Agency of Sweden on March 16, 2020, announced recommendations for employers to let their employees work from home where possible to limit the spread of the virus (Folkhälsomyndigheten, 2020). As a result, many now find themselves in a situation where they have to work from home, be it from their own will or due to offices closing down.

This trend of home-based work has been followed by many articles containing advice on how to handle working at home. For example, covering aspects such as how to manage breaks, structure communication, and ergonomics (Stockholms Universitet, 2020). But at this point, what is really known about what it means to perform your usual work tasks from home during the Covid-19 pandemic? Even though the articles might be based on research or expert opinion, the current situation is something new, and because of this previous knowledge might be outdated in certain areas making it hard to give tips on issues that might be specific to working from home during a pandemic. A study by Belzunegui-Eraso and Erro-Garcés (2020) showed both that Telework is beings used by companies during the Covid-19 pandemic, but also that

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knowledge and preparation for what telework on such a large scale would mean for workers and employers in practice is lacking.

1.1 Background

The main points outlined in previous research on home-based telework is the blurring of boundaries between work and non-work, the benefits and risks of flexibility when it comes to distribution of work hours as well as the social and personal impact of not having to physically be at work.

But when it comes to telework during Covid-19 the conditions are not the same as for teleworking under normal circumstances. Individual agency is a point of contention during the pandemic, since working from home during Covid-19 is, if not enforced, heavily encouraged by both authorities and employers, and thus might be experienced differently than when it is chosen freely. This is supported by Hammock and Brehm (1966), which showed that a forced choice feels less attractive to an individual than a freely chosen one. It is conceivable that there is a big difference between working from home sporadically when it suits the individual and being forced to work an extended period from home without knowledge of when things will return to normal. Also, under normal conditions, e.g. before the pandemic, telework entails working from home during shorter periods of time (Allen, Golden & Shockley, 2015), whereas telework during the Covid-19 pandemic means being away from the office full time. Another unique condition that applies during the pandemic is that most likely other members of the family will be at home at the same time, which might a cause of distraction. One’s partner may be working from home, or the children may be at home more than usual as it in Sweden is advised to keep your children at home if they show even mild symptoms of sickness (Folkhälsomyndigheten, 2020). This difference means that some advice offered based on previous notions of what constitutes working from home could be off point.

For example, some of the benefits of working from home are described to be a peaceful work environment and increased productivity (Hammarkrantz, 2020, March 17). But does this apply to working at home during the Covid-19 pandemic? If your significant other or kids are home, is it really free of distractions compared to your usual workspace? In a survey of UK workers (Franklin, 2020, April 17), it was reported that 18 percent of workers said that their mental health had been negatively impacted by actions taken by the companies, e.g. having to work from home. The survey also contained suggestion for actions organizations could take to improve mental health, citing clear expectations, access to necessary resources and communication with management as important factors.

With this said, a question arises of what it means to work from home during the Covid-19 pandemic. This type of information is lacking from a lot of the non-scientific articles that are being published on the subject of telework right now, to summarize there is a lot of tips and advice for people working from home during the coronavirus pandemic, but the is a gap in information on what it specifically means to do telework during Covid-19. This leads us to the purpose of this study.

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1.2 Aim and research question

As outlined earlier, there is a knowledge gap when it comes to the specific circumstances that surround doing home-based telework during the Coronavirus pandemic. The aim of this study is to attempt to bridge this gap by looking into what the common factors in different people’s experiences of the phenomenon are. This is turn might be valuable information when trying to understand the phenomenon, the value of such information might be argued by companies stating they need more detailed information to develop support systems for their employees during this crisis (Smith, 2020, May 12). There is arguably also an importance in the documentation of how people experienced the pandemic when. In this regard, there is also an aspect of temporal significance to this study, since it will provide insight into what people’s experience of working from home during the crisis looked like at the time. This might be useful later when looking back on the Coronavirus outbreak, or in the future if a similar situation would arise.

With this said, the research question that this study will be looking to answer is: What is shared between people’s experiences of doing home-based telework during the Covid-19 pandemic?

1.3 Previous research

At the point of writing, the amount of research of the topic of telework during the Covid-19 pandemic is limited. Some research has been done on home-based telework in the wake of natural disasters, where it was shown that individual home-situations and manager involvement were important factors in the success of telework (Donnelly & Proctor‐Thomson, 2015). Because of this limit in previous knowledge, it is difficult to provide an outline of what previous research and theories have to say regarding the subject of Telework during the Covid-19 pandemic. However, there is a lot previous research on the topic of telework that may still be useful in this study. In this segment of the study existing theories and terms will be explored in order to provide a structure for the study from which the effects of the Coronavirus outbreak can be understood. As well as a framework of the subject area of telework to which the results of the study may be compared.

At the beginning of the present study, researcher Camilla Kylin at Karlstad University was contacted. She has conducted research into homebased telework earlier and could give important starting information. Articles on the topic of telework were provided and the importance of boundaries between private- and work-life as well as being aware of how to handle the flexibility of telework was emphasized.

1.3.1 Telework

Telework is a broad term which encompasses many ways of working and is therefore difficult to define (Sullivan, 2003) A definition that can be used is that it refers to the action of working from a location outside of the persons usual workspace and that it involves the use of telecommunication or Information and Communications Technology e.g. ICTs (Bailey & Kurland, 2002; Sullivan, 2003). Previously, telework referred to work from home or a remote

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office, but in later years through the introduction of readily available Wi-Fi, telework can also encompass work carried out at other remote locations such as airports or cafes (Sullivan, 2003). For the purpose of this study telework will refer to the style of telework that is home-based, e.g. the carrying out of one’s usual work-related duties from home through the use of ICTs.

Although telework may be viewed as a more autonomous way of conduction work, there is a reported risk of paid work that occurs at home to spill over into the workers personal time. This is turn can result in a form of multitasking that may lead to workers feeling torn between work-life and family-life during the day (Putnam, Myers & Gailliard, 2014).

One view on the subject brought up in Putnam et al. (2014) is that the use of virtual workspaces can be both liberating and constricting at the same time. This brings into question whether telework results in more control or less control for the employee. On one hand telework allows for the employee to structure their day as they wish and balance their work life needs to their family or home life needs. But on the other hand, the desire to meet company quotas and demands may work as another form of unseen control, causing the employee to work extra hard out of fear of not complying to office routines, or out of fear of being viewed as lazy. As a result, the employee may want to work extra hours outside of official office hours, causing work to spill over into a space where it previously was not present (Putnam et al., 2014).

The view that telework is a nuanced issue with both positives and negatives is furthered in Sullivan and Lewis (2001), a qualitative study examining both the teleworkers as well as their co-residents. A positive report that seems to reoccur throughout different studies which is also brought up here, is that telework provides an opportunity to combine paid work with home duties. This melding together of the two different areas of responsibility reportedly makes the employee feel like they can get more done on both by weaving in work around the house into their workday. Telework is also shown to affect the relationship to the co-residents of the teleworker. The lack of commute to and from work means that it is more likely for things that happen during the work day that affect the worker negatively to be brought into the home in the form of frustration or being in “work-mode”. The reasoning behind this is that during a commute back from work the person has time to think about what happened during the day, let it go and transition out of their work-mode (Sullivan & Lewis, 2001).

Another aspect of telework is that since it takes place in the home there is a resource that may be tapped into in the form of help with work related tasks from the co-residents, for instance printing a paper or responding to an e-mail. However, this requires the co-residents to be at home, and may also lead to home-conflicts since the co-resident might feel that the other person is demanding, or by adding stress onto the co-resident since they are now expected to do their own tasks as well as help the other person with theirs (Sullivan & Lewis, 2001). A reoccurring theme that comes up in relation to telework is that it blurs the boundaries between home and work, a way of explaining what happens to a person’s boundaries during telework can be found in Boundary theory.

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1.3.2 Boundary theory and its relation telework

Boundary theory proposes that people have psychological, physical, and behavioral boundaries that they create and uphold around their different life roles, for instance work roles and home roles (Ashforth, Kreiner & Fugate, 2000). Maintaining boundaries around roles enables the individual to choose the role best suited for a situation, also an individual can go between different roles over the course of a day. For instance, a man who works at an office might make breakfast for his kids in the morning, taking on the father role, go to his office and take on a work role and when he comes home take on a role he has around his house, like father or husband. Although roles are usually bound to a physical and temporal space, such as being at work during work hours, an individual may also take on a role that is separate from the physical domain they are currently in, e.g. taking a phone call from a family member while at work, taking on a family role (Ashforth, et al., 2000).

The likelihood of someone making transitions between different role boundaries is in part determined by the permeability of the boundary, e.g., a worker who is allowed to make personal phone calls has a more permeable boundary than someone who is not, and is therefore more likely able to transition between roles at work (Ashforth, et al., 2000).

Boundary theory also proposes a continuum of segmentation to integration where roles are either kept separate and overlap as little as possible, e.g. segmentation, or cross over into each other and have similar identities, e.g. integration (Ashforth, et al., 2000). Telework blurs the line between work and home by removing the aspect of physical differentiation between the two spaces, making the role boundaries more permeable (Allen, et al., 2015), thus increasing the likelihood of role transitions during the day (Ashforth, et al., 2000).

The blurring of boundaries between work and home is a form of double-edged sword. More integrative boundaries means that conflicts may arise between different roles, as in this case, where the home role might intrude into the work role in the form of home related responsibilities, or the work role may interfere with the home role in the form of working outside of normal hours (Delanoeije, Verbruggen, Germeys, 2019). This argument is also supported in Sullivan and Lewis (2001) stating that employees felt that the proximity of work and home caused them to work in the evening since the work was always close by.

On the positive side, the employee has more personal freedom to structure their day as they please, and having an opportunity to be able to easily respond to home demands, how this is perceived may vary depending on whether or not the person prefers segmented or integrated boundaries (Delanoeije, et al., 2019). For teleworkers, a risk of home responsibilities to interfere with work responsibilities has also been shown, meaning there is a conflict between roles where the transitioning to the home role during the work day is taking resources that were supposed to be spent on work (Delanoeije, et al., 2019).

Further, the lack of different physical spaces for work and home, and thereby the lack of a commute to and from work, may also make the transitioning between work-role and home-role more difficult as this usually takes place during the commute (Sullivan & Lewis, 2001). In summary, boundary theory offers an explanation as to what happens to a person’s boundaries when they work from home, as well as to why teleworkers might feel a conflict between

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different roles throughout the workday. However, another important aspect of the lack of a separate physical workspace in the form of an office that is relevant for teleworkers, especially on the long term, is the lack of workplace relationships.

1.3.3 Personal effects of telework

On a personal level, telework has been shown to have an effect on job satisfaction (Allen, et al., 2015), where it increases during short term telework but plateaus during a long duration of telework to a state where it no longer increases job satisfaction. As to why the relationship between job satisfaction and teleworks looks this way, the initial increase may be attributed to a greater ability to balance work-and personal-life needs as well as a feeling of trust from the side of the employer to be allowed to work from home with less supervision (Allen, et al., 2015). Other factors that may lie behind the increased job satisfaction may be that working from home means that the worker is not exposed to certain aspects of work that may be causing stress. For instance, interruptions by coworkers walking in, overly frequent information exchanges and involvement in office politics (Allen, et al., 2015).

An explanation for the effect on job satisfaction plateauing could lie in that this initial period where the worker feels more satisfied with their job is then offset by the lack of social and physical interaction with the workplace. This aspect may prove to be especially present in telework during the Covid-19 pandemic because of social distancing and overall restrictions to social interaction. This can create feelings of social and professional isolation. Where social isolation refers specially to missing the everyday social aspects of work, such as idle conversations with coworkers during breaks as well as being part of a greater social setting (Allen, et al., 2015). The effect this has on job satisfaction is partially mediated by the quality of coworker relationships, meaning that for a worker who has very good relationships with their coworkers the effect that social isolation has on their job satisfaction may be greater (Allen, et al., 2015).

Professional isolation refers to being physically removed from coworkers resulting in not participating in knowledge sharing and co-learning (Allen, et al., 2015). Concretely meaning that the worker does not have as much access to co-worker support in task-solving as they would if they were physically at work. Feelings of professional isolation has also been shown to have a negative impact on job performance in a study by Golden, Veiga and Dino (2008). This impact increases the more time is spent teleworking, but, decreases with access to communication-enhancing technology and through having more face-to-face interactions such as lunches, impromptu conversations, or regular meetings (Golden, et al., 2008).

Another personal effect that telework has been shown to have on employees is a tendency to want to manage how they are perceived, e.g. wanting to be perceived as hard working and productive even though they are not at work and therefore less supervised (Greer & Payne, 2014). This need could express itself by the employee going out of their way to show that they are accessible via quickly answering mails, phone calls and instant messages from their managers and co-workers, this is done to show that they are in fact working even though they are not at the office (Greer & Payne, 2014). This managing of perceptions somewhat

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contradicts the idea of one of the positive sides of teleworking being freedom from office distractions presented in Allen et al. (2015).

As teleworkers during the Covid-19 pandemic are faced with working from home during an extended period of time, thus being away from their co-workers and the regular social support structures of the work site there might be an impact on their well-being based on the job-control and support model. This model states that social support may act as a buffer from the demands of working life and the impact these demands have on well-being (Van der Doef & Maes, 1999). However, it has also been shown that teleworkers are able to develop social support structures with other teleworkers and that there is a social disconnect between teleworkers and their office-based counterparts where office workers value social support higher (Collins, Hislop & Cartwright, 2016).

To summarize, telework seems to have an impact on job satisfaction where it increases in the short term but then tapers off when the telework last for a longer time (Allen, et al., 2015). It also looks like telework may lead to feelings of isolation both socially and professionally (Allen, et al., 2015) which in turn has a negative impact on job performance (Golden, et al., 2008). There might also be a tendency for teleworkers to want to show that they are as productive as their regular co-workers even though they are working from home (Greer & Payne, 2014). However, these results were produced in circumstances that were normal, whereas the present study has a focus on telework during the Coronavirus pandemic where the circumstances are wildly different.

What is referred to as a long time to telework per week is 15.1 hours (Allen, et al., 2015), where employees in the current situation work full work weeks from home. Ergo, a difficulty, as well as something to keep in mind when thinking about to what degree this research translates to the current situation is that the results of isolation, job satisfaction, job performance and employee behavior is based on people only teleworking part-time.

1.3.4 Previous research and Covid-19

As exemplified above, one of the challenges right now is that there is little research that has been done on the effects that the Coronavirus pandemic has had on teleworkers. Some literature exists, however. An editorial by Rigotti, De Cuyper and Sekiguchi (2020) summarizes a few key challenges and what we can learn from previous research in regard to these, some have already been brought up in the section on telework but it is still a paper worth bringing up.

Specifically, there are three challenges brought up that may be relevant to the teleworkers experience. The first is home offices and virtual teams, which highlights the importance of feeling connected. Things that may help establish a feeling of team connectiveness are common goals that each individual can strive towards (Riggoti et al., 2020).

The second challenge brought up is home offices and the work-family interface. Here issues of blurred boundaries between work and family are brought up, and that these domains compete for limited resources which in turn could lead to an increase in work-family conflicts

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which in turn causes frustration, especially for parents if their children are at home while they are working (Riggoti et al., 2020).

The third challenge is increasing insecurity which refers to the growing concern of the long-term economic damage the pandemic may cause, and the impact that this may have on issues such as unemployment. This concern could lead to feelings of job insecurity which has a negative effect on individuals as well as organizations (Riggoti et al., 2020).

A study by Belzunegui-Eraso and Erro-Garcés (2020) showed that telework is being used by many companies to keep productivity up during the crisis, and that the adaptation of telework in this way contributes to a reduced hit to GDP as a result of the crisis.

It was also mentioned that how well an individual is going to adapt to telework is affected by the nature of the job, personality, organizational culture, and the home situation.

1.4 Theoretical perspective

As stated previously, this study will be conducted using a phenomenological approach since it makes sense given that the subject area of interest is commonalities between different experiences of a phenomenon. But phenomenology contains a lot of varying theory and models that are grounded in its philosophical roots (Baker, Wuest & Stern, 1992). This section will give a short overview of what phenomenology is, its practical application for the research at hand as well as what phenomenological model will be used in this study.

Phenomenology was first developed by Edmund Husserl, active around the turn of the 1900’s. Husserl was critical of how the theoretical landscape for psychological research was shaped at the time, feeling that neither the positivist focus on a solely external reality nor the mentalist view that there was no such things as a material reality were adequate in describing the human condition (Baker et al., 1992). From this critique phenomenology was developed to strike at an intersection of both perspectives, looking to provide a descriptive science of consciousness. Phenomenology thus say that there is an objective reality but it is viewed through the lens of consciousness, it is also viewed within phenomenology that phenomenon have an essence, something that is common and defining for that phenomenon, and the discovery of this essence is the ultimate goal of phenomenological research (Baker et al., 1992; Cohen, 1987).

For this study this practically means that in order to find the essence of the phenomenon, namely telework during Covid-19, one has to view it is through the lens of different people’s experiences, and then look for commonalities in the underlying meanings of those experiences (Baker et al., 1992). Another practical aspect of phenomenology is the role of the researcher, where it is said that the researcher should try to put aside their pre-assumptions about the phenomenon, and try to view the phenomenon with fresh eyes, thus getting a more objective view of the meaning behind the examined experiences (Baker et al., 1992). Some presumptions of the researcher that were kept in mind and put aside during the research process was that telework during Covid-19 would involve negative experiences, feel involuntary and that isolation would play a role.

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Phenomenology has many different strands with varying philosophical views of what phenomenology means and how to go about doing phenomenological research. A strand of particular interest for this study is Empirical Psychological Phenomenology or EPP. This methodological strand entails the analysis of empirical qualitative data through a set of steps, and the results obtained using this method are general structures of the phenomenon being studied. The explanation for this method as well as its practical steps is gathered from Karlsson (1993) and will be further explained in the method section, either explicitly through text or implicitly in the way the method is carried out, all steps of this research will be done with the EPP-method in mind.

2 METHOD

In this section the methodological considerations for this study as well as their practical implementation will be presented followed by how this study relates to scientific ethical standards.

2.1 Choice of method

When choosing a method for this study, the first considered was to ensure that the method would be appropriate in providing an answer to the study question, and in line with its purpose. Since the question is about what is common between different people’s experiences of a phenomenon that is virtually unexplored, namely telework during the Covid-19 pandemic, a phenomenological approach makes sense. This can be backed up by Karlsson (1993) stating that phenomenology aims to explore and provide answers centered around what the common aspects of a phenomenon are, or in other words what the essence of a phenomenon.

The specific phenomenological method used in this study is, as stated earlier, the EPP-method. Which is presented in Karlsson (1993) as a method in which empirical data in the form of a person’s description of thoughts, events or feelings concerning the phenomenon of interest is analyzed. This method yields descriptive results of the relationship between the individual and the experienced phenomenon.

These results may be on different levels of abstraction, it is said that part of the researchers role is to decide what level of abstraction is needed in order to present their results, if the results are too abstract any useful meaning might be lost, and if they are not abstract enough they might be too focused on any individual experience (Karlsson, 1993).

In order to match the aims of this study, a level of abstraction where practical information is still retained makes sense, as the results need to be abstract enough to be applicable to a broad number of people and aptly describe the experience of doing telework during Covid-19. However, not so abstract that no meaningful data is presented in the study. For example, on a

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heavily abstract level the results might look something like this: people feel something, people use digital communication. But this type of results on their own does, in the eyes of this researcher, not provide a meaningful insight into this previously unexplored phenomenon. Therefore, a balance will be attempted between meaningful results and a relevant description of what is common within the phenomenon.

With this said, the results produced by the EPP-method match those that are desired by the aim of the study; therefore, this phenomenological approach is chosen.

2.2 Participants and Selection

This study featured four participants, ranging from 36 to 62 years of age. The gender distribution of the participants were three women and one man. All participants were married and living with their spouse, three of the participants had their children living with them at home while one of the participants was not living with their children as they had moved out. The participants had work assignments that were related to work environment, people and representing their company in a variety of situations. One of the participants worked on a managerial level and all of the participants were now performing their regular work from home instead of their office. The work being carried out revolved around digital meetings, to a large extent. While the number of participants may seem a bit low, it is in line with the recommended number of participants for a study using the EPP-method mentioned in Karlsson (1993), which recommends four-to-six participants. No more people were contacted for interviews once saturation was met.

The selection criteria for participants of the study were that they were currently carrying out their usual work from home as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, this was the only criteria that was considered as the study did not have any interest in any specific working category or examining gender differences. The selection of the participants was done through first contacting two people, of which one was available for interview. After the interview, the person was asked if they knew anyone else that fit the inclusion criteria and would be available for an interview. The next person in line was then contacted and interviewed, who also provided another contact. From there that line of contacts ended and the fourth participants was found through a contact within the work life. The way the sampling was carried out could be referred to as a snowball sampling (Noy, 2008).

2.3 Data collection and materials

In line with the EPP-method described in Karlsson (1993), data was collected through interviews. These interviews were semi structured in nature, where a study guide and interview questions were used to provide an overarching structure, but focus was put on letting the interviewee describe their experience of the phenomenon as much as possible. Each interview started off with the questions about what organization the interview person was working for currently, what their responsibilities were at work and how old they were. After the

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demographical information was established the main interview question was asked: “Could you describe how your experience of working from home during the Coronavirus pandemic looks like?”. Then follow up questions were used to examine the subjects the interviewee brought up. The interviews were carried out and recorded digitally using varying online platforms. The recorded data was later transcribed into text. Each interview lasted between 30 and 45 minutes, and were concluded when both interviewer and interviewee were satisfied and it was felt that the experience had been exhausted, each interviewee was also given an opportunity at the end of the interview to add anything they felt that had not gotten to talk about.

The entirety of the study was carried out digitally because of restrictions surrounding Covid-19 making physical interviews much more difficult. To conduct the interviews the online platforms Zoom and Microsoft Teams were used. The participants of the study were contacted via e-mail and the interviews were transcribed using Microsoft Word. Further materials used were a desktop-computer and a microphone.

2.4 Data analysis

The transcribed data from the interviews was analyzed through the EPP-method. This style of analysis has five practical steps that are described in detail in Karlsson (1993). In this section the process of analysis of this study along with the aforementioned steps of the EPP-method will be presented.

In the first step the protocol was reading through until the researcher felt that they had a good-enough grasp of its contents to start working with the text. This meant reading through the transcribed text once or twice in order to get a feel of the meaning of the text. In the second step the transcribed text was divided into meaning units, here the text is marked in up in areas that depict different meanings, such as a shift in subject or tone. In this step the underlying meaning of the text, as in “what it is about” started to be revealed.

In the third step the divided up meaning units were translated to the researchers own language. This basically means that the personalized language used by the interviewee was reformed to a type of language that makes sense for the researcher as to what it means in a more generalized manner. Doing this style of interpretative analysis allows the emergence of common themes across different experiences of a given phenomenon.

The fourth step of the analysis was to make a “situated structure” for each of the transcriptions. The transformed meaning units were again reshaped or omitted from the study depending on their perceived relevance, although care was taken to ensure that no data was being misrepresented, this was done by looking back at earlier versions of the protocol to make sure that they were included to the abstracted themes. These are then synthesized together, forming emergent themes for each interview. This structure might include both processes, or “how”, and structural components, or “what”, of the phenomenon, or each of these might be dealt with separately. For this study, the situated structure included both process and structural

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components, meaning it includes what the experience looks like for the participants as well as how they are experiencing it, e.g. their feelings.

In the fifth step of analysis, the situated structures from all the protocols were put together to form what is called a general structure (Karlsson, 1993). This means that the situated structures, or in other words the emergent themes from each interview, are put together. This general structure thus contains the condensed meaning from all the interviews abstracted to themes that are common across the protocols. In this study this resulted in nine themes varying between “how’s” and “what’s”. These themes in turn serve as a way of answering the research question of this study, by showing what fact0rs were shared across all of the examined experiences of doing telework during Covid-19.

This covers both the theory behind the analysis and the practical process. To summarize, the analysis was performed in steps, interpreting the text, and condensing it until what remained was an answer to the research question. All the while making sure that the original meaning of the text was kept intact as much as possible.

2.5 Ethical considerations

There were a few topics that were considered when it came to the ethics of this study, first, ensuring an ethical approach when it came to the participants of the study and the information they would provide. Second, to ensure that the research being performing in a way to produce relevant information and being true to the “why” of the study.

The initial contact with each participant via e-mail was accompanied by a letter containing information on the study and their participation in line with the ethical guidelines of the Swedish Research council (Vetenskapsrådet, 2002).

The participants were informed about the purpose of the study and its subject area. They were also informed about how their participation would proceed if they would choose to take part in the study, and how their information would be gathered, handled and what it would be used for later down the line. It was also said they participation was completely voluntary, and that they could chose to seize their participation at any point, even without stating why, should they so desire. Also, they were informed that no information would be published that could be traced back to them, and that their information would not be seen by anyone but the researcher, thus ensuring confidentiality.

Parts of this information was also repeated at the start of the interviews, specifically information about how the data was being recorded, that they were free to not answer any of the questions they were not comfortable with, and that they could stop the interview at any point. This was not exercised by any of the participants.

Another more abstract ethical aspect to consider is the responsibility of the researcher to ensure that their research is useful. This ties back to what was said in the previous section about the level of abstraction in the study’s results. Especially since the topic is related to a current and important issue, it is important that the results are not so abstract as to not provide

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any practical answers to the research question. For this reason, the resulting themes from the analysis will be kept on a level where they still contain a lot of practical information. This might go against some phenomenological ways of thinking, where the goal sometimes is for the results to touch an ontological plane. But for this study the practical usefulness of the results weighed heavier than trying to make new ontological findings on what it might mean to work from home.

It was also considered during the interviews that the topic that was being talked about might give rise to negative emotions or reactions, this was monitored and kept in mind during the interviews, but not explicitly talked about with the interviewees. At no point of the interviews did it feel like there was a negative impact of talking about the issues, but rather describing their experience seemed to be desired from the interviewees as well.

3 RESULTS

The analysis of the gathered data yielded a result of 9 themes. Each theme will be explained in their own following segments and together form an answer to the research question: What is shared between people’s experiences of doing home-based telework during the Covid-19 pandemic? The number at the end of the quotes within the explained themes refers to what interview person is quoted, ranging from 1-4. The quotes were translated from Swedish to English.

3.1 Necessary adjustment to digital work

An aspect that was common across all protocols was that work was now being carried out in a digital way when it previously had been carried out physically, with physically referring to a separate workspace such as an office. Because of the coronavirus, the ordinary workspaces were no longer available, or felt obsolete since everyone was at home. This meant that the workers now had to conduct their usual work obligations using digital platforms and means of communication. Which was an adjustment to how work was usually carried out, and new methods had to be found in order to make the day-to-day tasks solvable.

The perceived effectiveness of this new way of working varied, for some it felt like an effectivization of work while it for others felt like a hurdle that had to be overcome. Factors that affected how this was perceived were the level of comfort with digital solutions, the nature of the work tasks and how dependent the work was on physical interaction. The necessary aspect of the theme comes in because weather telework is perceived well or not, right now the situation makes the transition to a digital way of working some-what mandatory.

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I have to try to find new ways than I usually use. I am trying to re-adjust and do things in a new way but in that area I feel that I might not really have the knowledge that I need in the technical solutions//I feel that everything takes a longer time to do and takes more energy. (1)

3.2 Digital communication has positive and negative sides

Besides a digital adjustment in the carrying out of work tasks, the way of communicating with co-workers has also had a digital transition. All the participants stated that they used digital communication in their work, it ranged from digital meetings to one-on-one communication about work or simply to have someone to talk to during the workday. In this aspect, digital communication provides a solution to not being able to talk to co-workers in person, and it was reported that it kept the feelings of workplace relationships going. Efforts were also taken from the participants or their organizations to use digital communication to replace actual meetings, such as digital after-works or similar constellations. This is the positive side of digital communication that was described.

However, the efforts of using digital communication felt more like a mediocre substitute than as an actual replacement of physically meeting the co-workers. It was described in all cases that digital communication was lacking something, that it did not feel as fulfilling as normal contact. The elements that were lacking in digital meetings were full body language, social nuances, and the ability to have impromptu professional conversations around the meeting. It was also said that digital communication was more draining of energy that regular face-to-face communication since effort had to be made to hear and understand the other person through technological barriers like a bad microphone or bad internet connection. The feeling of “something lacking” constitutes the negative side of digital communication.

I would say that it becomes a different type of meeting when it becomes digital, problem solving does not work as well as usually//it is harder to exchange ideas, it is harder to read the social situation in the same way. It is very draining energy wise since you do not see the persons entire body language. (3)

3.3 Social impact within private and professional life

While the second theme revolves contains how digital communication plays a role as a replacement for physical interaction, this theme is about the impact of social factors and how social factors affect the teleworkers. Strictly working from home and the general situation surrounding the coronavirus was shown to have an impact socially, within both professional and private settings. As stated earlier the participants all used digital communication as a form of social interaction. But overall, the participants were missing the everyday social run-ins with colleagues at work. This was expressed as a lack of spontaneous social contacts that do not have to be thought about. It may be casual conversations at coffee-breaks or joking with co-workers, but these spontaneous social contacts were also said to be missed as a resource within the professional life. Having coworkers readily at hand provides opportunities to ask for input on

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a project or assist in creative work. This form of professional contact was shown to be much harder to achieve in an environment where every social meeting must be orchestrated and scheduled.

On a private level it was seen that social gatherings were much less frequent now compared to before Covid-19. There was also an effect on the private social life from physical social contact with relatives now seeming harder. This was especially the case for older relatives or family members. Overall, from the results of this study it seems that Covid-19 has had a negative impact on amount and quality of social activities for the participants.

The social sphere has also shrunk, besides the fact that I used to meet a lot of people at work and have many interactions I usually have an active social life, I now meet extremely few people compared to usually and I have a lot less dialogues and inputs. (1)

3.4 Flexible work hours and blurred boundaries

One of the aspects that followed doing telework to this extent was a flexibility when it came to work hours, it was the participants all had more flexible workdays where they could, to an extent, choose when to do their work, resulting in irregular breaks and varying hours where the shift ends. This was in most cases reported to be a common occurrence outside of telework as well in the form of working overtime but was more common when working from home. Along with the flexibility came a blurring of boundaries between work life and personal life. Since the participants had some control over when to start and end their workday, the temporal boundary between work and non-work seemed to be diminished. Since there was no physical separation between the two it was harder to leave work behind when the workday was done. Also, it was said that boundaries between weekend and weekdays were more blurred when working from home, as there was no physical separation, and with Covid-19 limiting what activities can be done, less differentiation in activities as well. This theme mainly covers expressions of the fact that boundaries are more fluid and work hours being more flexible.

3.5 Flexibility makes it easier to structure the day to meet personal need

and goals

An aspect of the aforementioned flexibility was that the freedom to structure the day after their own needs made it easier to meet the demands of the participants everyday life as well as gives the ability to better facilitate their own goals for the day. This was expressed as a positive side of doing telework during Covid-19 and was accredited to the flexible nature of telework and the ability to do personal-life related things in between meetings. A contributing factor to this benefit was also the lack of a commuting distance to work since work is being carried out from home.

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The flexibility of being able to structure one’s own workday coupled with the lack of commuting distance to work meant that the participants were able to more freely transition between work and non-work in order to meet demands from both sides. This could be seen in being able to make room for more quality time with loved ones, taking care of family needs or structuring breaks to fit personal needs such as exercise.

I got to go about it in a way like now I have a 15 minute break so lets go run on the street or play football, then we (participant and their children) went out in the evening and did more activities.//it has worked pretty well because I usually have a long commute to work and used to go in early to work out in the morning. Now I can go down and drop of my youngest son and still make it in time to my first meeting. In this way it has worked out pretty well. (4)

3.6 Less variation during the workday

A bit of a contrast to the previous theme, this theme shows that the participants expressed a monotonous tendency of telework that is as drawn out as it is in the current situation. A physical workspace, in the cases of the participants, comes with variation in the form of social interactions with co-workers, such as going for a lunch together or being asked to help with something work related. It also offers variation in the form of more structured breaks and simply more impressions and happenings than one gets at home. It was expressed that the participants many times found themselves just working in the same position for many hours on end, sometimes forgetting to take breaks. This also impacted the physical work environment in the sense that there was less variation in working position and posture, although this was less of a factor in the cases where a participant had an opportunity to vary their workstation. Overall, it can be said that the workdays felt less simulating than they usually do for the participants.

It is very easy to just sit down and work. Before lunch I usually decide where I am going to eat, but now I just sit at the kitchen table working, and then its 12:30 and I feel it is time for lunch and I have just been sitting here all day. That would never happen at work. (2)

3.7 Uncertainty for the future

The uncertain nature when it comes to Covid-19 and the impact it has had on societies, it is hard to tell what the time frame is for topics such as travel restrictions, restrictions of social gatherings and a general need to always keep the virus in mind when interacting with the surrounding world. This was a common theme for all participants, not knowing what activities may be planned and not know what is going to happen was expressed along an overall feeling of uncertainty when it comes to the future. The expressed severity of these feelings varied, in some cases it meant discomfort and negative emotions while in other cases it was referred to as an annoyance in not being able to freely plan activities such as travel.

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I think it is really hard not knowing when everything will return to normal//I think everyone feels that it would be easier if someone could set a date when all of this would be over//This thing where the line is always moved forward for when the country will be reopened I think is really hard. (2)

3.8 Personal effects and negative emotions from Covid-19

A common experience between the participants was that all had in some way been affected personally by Covid-19. The ways they were affected varied, revolving around loved ones being negatively affected, personally having to worry about the virus or the societal situation surrounding it, as well as not being able to see certain relatives. This theme, while perhaps not directly related to telework does provide insight into an issue that teleworkers face in the current situation.

The way that Covid-19 impacted the participants was both in their professional life through the likes of canceled events, difficulties in being able to plan for the future and having to work around the constraints of not being able to physically meet people. For some of the participants this led to frustration, where the nature of the work tasks seems to play a role in how the person is affected by the constrictions surrounding Covid-19. There was also expressed frustration of not being able to plan events in the participants personal life.

It is probably that I do not have the same amount of energy as I usually do. I would usually say that I fundamentally am an optimist//But in the situation that I am in now I feel lower or that I am low in a way that I did not used to be. (2)

3.9 New insight and adaptation

Despite some of the negative sides mentioned earlier, all participants experienced that they had something to take away from their situation, new insights that they could take with them into future situations. The participants expressed that working from home worked better than expected, and that they in the future would like to keep working from home in some way, although not full time. An increased understanding for digital solutions and their viability was also expressed, participants had gained a new appreciation for keeping documents digitally. There was also an expressed feeling from the participants of having realized what really is important in their lives, the Covid-19 situation caused many superficial things to go away, like vacations and similar activities. And an expressed gratitude for the things the participants still had could be observed.

When it comes to the adaptation part of the theme, all participants in some way expressed having to take on new habits and thinking in new ways to handle their everyday life. This could be things like thinking about when to get groceries, actively managing physical activity that normally takes place over a workday, or actively managing boundaries between work and non-work.

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I will probably work more from home after all of this. I will not only do that, but I will do it more than I have done previously in any case. (3)

I hope more people feel as I do, and that society takes away from this that working from home works very well, that there is more trust that you will perform your work tasks and that people hereafter will have even more freedom to work from home if it suits them. (4)

4 DISCUSSION

The aim of the study was to examine a knowledge gap of what was common between people’s experiences of doing home-based telework during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The analysis yielded nine themes that were common in the examined experiences of working from home during the Covid-19 pandemic, the result can be summarized as follows. The work is carried out digitally using tele-communication and physical social interactions have reduced but digital interactions have taken their place. However, the digital interactions do not sufficiently replace physical social interactions. The working conditions are more flexible, resulting in a greater ability to achieve a balance between personal and professional life, but at the same time blurring the boundaries between these and work motivation and joy had gone down. The societal situation surrounding Covid-19 is characterized by uncertainty, this was reflected in the examined experiences where uncertainty was present in different ways. Another common element was personal effect in some way from the societal situation. Finally, it was expressed that new insight had been gained from the situation, especially surrounding the viability of digital and telework solutions going forward.

4.1 Results discussion

In this section, the results will be discussed in relation to the analysis process as well as the previous research used in this study. This will then be followed by the implications that the results of this study may have in practice.

First, it is to be said that the results of this study are all important since there is a clear knowledge gap when it comes to telework and Covid-19, and these result serve to at least start to bridge this gap. However, what might be argued as the most important findings, in the views of the researcher, is the impact that telework during the Covid-19 pandemic has had on the social aspects of the participants lives, especially when it comes to the importance of workplace relations as a resource. Related to this is the issue of digital communication as a replacement on a social level, and the disadvantages that this has.

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4.1.1 The issue of intertwined results

When discerning the themes of this study, it became apparent that it was sometimes hard to separate the themes from each other completely, as they were intertwined and seemed to be related to each other in some cases. For instance, social aspects and digital aspects were linked to each other since most of the social interactions that the participants had were now in the form of digital communication, this meant that when describing a social issue, like how social interactions felt at the time, it also touched on issues of digital communication. Ultimately a divide was made between digital communication and social issue, but it is worth keeping in mind when reading the results that these are not wholly separate issues. The same thing applies to the separation of social aspects and negative emotions, where issues of a social level could be related to how a person feels in relation to the situation surrounding Covid-19. Overall, how the phenomenon is experienced and what areas that constitute the experience is a complex issue, and some of the themes link into each other.

Also, on this note, the two themes related to flexibility were separated on the basis that one touched more on the aspect of how flexibility lead to boundaries being blurred while the other related to the positive consequences of this. In this way the flexibility of teleworking during the Covid-19 pandemic might be viewed both as a resource that can be used to meet personal needs. But, also as a demanding factor given the need to self-regulate the flexibility and deal with colliding demands from personal and work life. This distinction was made in order to provide clarity on the different aspects of flexibility that were described. While combining the two might be a valid argument as they both relate to flexibility, they came up as separate topics during the interviews and combining the two might mean that some important nuance would be lost.

4.1.2 Results in context to previous research

The results of this study did correspond to some of what previous research said about telework in regular situations, an extrapolation on this is that telework during the Covid-19 pandemic in some areas is similar to common telework. The main differences between telework during the Covid-19 pandemic and telework under regular circumstances based on the results of this study are as follows. Teleworking during the Covid-19 pandemic is not an active choice, there is an involuntary aspect as it is recommended by authorities to work from home if possible and since others are working from home there was a perceived futility in going to the work place even if it was allowed. Regularly telework is only done part time, whereas now the teleworkers are at home for the full duration of the work week, which in turn leads to less variation over the course of the week. There is less social interaction based both the extent to which the telework is conducted as well as the societal situation being a limiting factor to social interaction. It could also be seen that working from home during the pandemic was easier in a way, since “everyone” was working from home, it was easier to come in contact with colleagues from home and easier to set up digital meetings that during regular telework the worker might be the only one in the work group teleworking.

This study showed that the flexibility of telework may cause the teleworker to work on hours that normally are outside of office hours, but also that the flexibility allows for better

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integration of personal and work-related goals. This result is similar to previous studies showing that the ability to self-schedule might cause work to spill over into non-work hours (Putnam et al., 2014), as well as results showing that the ability to structure the day as they choose gives the teleworker an improved ability to balance work related and home related responsibilities (Sullivan & Lewis, 2001; Delanoeije et al., 2019).

The present study showed that motivation and work-life joy had gone down for the participants, in a vacuum this result could be attributed solely to telework. However, a more likely explanation is that this reduction is caused by multiple factors, like it was said earlier the themes are intertwined, and this issue can be caused by social factors, societal factors or factors related to the work itself. But this is still in line with the finding that telework had a negative impact on job-satisfaction during long-term telework (Allen et al., 2015), which in that study is attributed to lack of social and physical interaction with the workplace.

The issues of professional isolation when it comes to telework found in the experience of the participants is also in line with previous research (Allen et al., 2015).

This type of isolation was in Golden et al. (2008) shown to reduce job performance, something that was shown in the present study as well, where social interactions with coworkers was described as a missed professional resource when working from home. This also relates to the importance of social support as a buffer to work related demands (Van der Doef & Maes, 1999), where teleworkers during Covid-19 pandemic might be lacking this support as they are distanced from the usual support structures of the workplace.

When it comes to boundary theory (Ashforth el al., 2000), the results of the study show that the participants all had a relationship with boundaries where they transition between work and non-work over the course of the day more often than when working at an office. Also, boundaries were an important topic brought up when it came to adaptation to the current situation, where active work to uphold boundaries was used as a strategy to keep a healthy relationship to work when teleworking. The theory that teleworkers have more permeable boundaries that increase the likelihood of role transitions during the day (Ashforth. Et al., 2000) was thus supported by the results of the present study. Delanoeije, et al., (2019) stated that how the freedom of telework is perceived by a person relates to weather they prefer segmented or integrated boundaries. Evidence for such a difference was not found in the participants of this study, although this might be related to sample size and the possibility that the participants resonated with more integrative boundaries.

4.1.3 Implications for research and practice

As outlined, the results of this study corresponded to some previous findings on the topic of telework. One interpretation that could be made from these results is that telework during the Covid-19 pandemic therefore is similar to telework under normal conditions, since some characteristics can be found in both situations. However, it is important to note that the conditions under which the participants of this study were performing telework are very different to normal conditions. Some of the factors that set telework during the Covid-19 pandemic apart is the long term and involuntary nature of it, where the telework is not chosen

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but rather made mandatory. Other factors are the surrounding societal situation, with limits to activities and a general aura of worry, as well as the social situation, where the exposure to social situations is limited and employees are physically cut off from the usual workspace. A topic for future research could be to look into how each of these factors impact the individual and what can be done to offset the negative sides of telework during the Covid-19 pandemic, or long term telework in general.

Some practical implications of the results of this study would be that, firstly, it was shown in this study that the participants all were affected by the pandemic personally in some way. This is something that employers and managers need to keep in mind, and make sure that they are looking after the needs of their employees to the best of their abilities.

Secondly, it could be seen that there are some social issues that arise, mainly that spontaneous interactions are lacking and that social interactions with co-workers is an important resource. With this in mind, a recommendation could be for allocation of social time within the work schedule, or in some other way facilitate this need for casual professional interactions within the workforce in order to improve the wellbeing of employees.

Third, it was found that doing telework in this situation has opened people’s eyes as to the viability of telework and other digital solutions in the future. An implication of this is that going forward employers could consider ways of integrating telework into the usual work schedule, and also make use of the reported benefits of the flexibility of telework. Practically this could mean allowing an employee to work from home in situations where they have a lot of non-work obligations to take care off, as the flexibility of telework allows for better balance in this regard. In other words there is an opportunity to maximize the benefits that telework provides and to minimize or negate the negative sides.

4.2 Method discussion

4.2.1 Validity and reliability

One methodological consideration that could be made is whether or not there is a congruent line of reasoning between the research question, method, and answers that the study produced. As was argued in the method section, since the question revolves around what is common between different experiences of a phenomenon, a phenomenological method makes sense (Karlsson, 1993). This, along with the fact that the data that was analyzed was the participants descriptions of their experience of telework during the Covid-19 pandemic speaks for this study investigating what it set out to investigate. Also, as outlined with the method section, the EPP-method was thoroughly used and this EPP-method produces a result of common areas within the examined protocols (Karlsson, 1993). This favors the validity of the results of this study. The execution of the EPP-method along with the documentation of the process could be argued also be argued to favor the replicability of this study. There are also similarities in the results of this study to previous research on telework, which can be argued to increase strengths of

Home-Based Telework During the Covid-19 Pandemic