The massive, abrupt, and mandatory (for many employees) switch to work from home (WFH) has required employees to adapt while employers have become more open to adopting the practice post-pandemic.With reference to and application of OB theories and concepts:

Explain how WFH policies are likely to affect employee attitudes and behaviours to their employers as well as their co-workers.(15 marks)

Topic 1: Work from Home (WFH).

A Gartner (2020) survey of 229 Human Resources (HR) departments showed that approximately one-half of the companies had more than 80% of their employees working from home during early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic - and estimated substantial long-term increases for remote work after the pandemic. The need for millions of workers to WFH in response to COVID-19 has accelerated recent remote work trends facilitated by the rise of connectivity and communication technologies. While "remote work" is a broader category since it can include Work From Anywhere (i.e., not necessarily home), we do know that some

- such as professionals who need to perform complex tasks that require little interaction with peers - actually prefer and are more productive if they WFH (Allen, Cho, & Meier, 2014). Yet as large numbers of workers are forced to work from home, many face challenges due to such fundamental issues as not having space in one's home to attend to work. Employees who live with others also face a larger set of challenges than those who live alone since they need to navigate others' space as well.

Employees often find it challenging to maintain boundaries between work and non-work (Ramarajan & Reid, 2013). The forced confinement of workers during the COVID 19-pandemic has further complicated this issue. While WFH might sound appealing if it offers a safe harbour, the absence of separation between one's work and home - and the lack of commutes to provide a transition between the two domains - can become a burden too.

Given the likelihood that COVID-19 will accelerate trends towards WFH past the immediate impacts of the pandemic (Gartner, 2020), it is clear that the variable ways in which people work outside of traditional workplace settings will warrant growing amounts of attention for both research and practice. Future research should examine whether and how the COVID-19 quarantines that required millions to work from home affected work productivity, creativity, and innovation. Given that the quarantine period entailed a literal window into the homes of co-workers as well as subordinates and superiors, research is also needed to examine the implications of WFH for topics such as motivation and authenticity at work, particularly when it becomes normal again to work in co-located workplace settings.

Independent from challenges that individuals can face when WFH, it is also notable that: (a) the reluctance of many employers to adopt WFH before COVID-19 stemmed from a perceived lack of control that employers would have over employees who were out-of-sight and -reach and (b) there is ample reason to expect that new modes of surveillance will accompany various WFH arrangements. Indeed, even before COVID-19, employers were adopting and developing technologies to monitor employees' whereabouts (e.g., with sociometric sensors) (Bhave, TeoDalal, 2020). Although managing-by-walking-around is not feasible when people are working remotely, the rapidly expanded usage of videoconferencing has allowed for virtual sight-lines. Yet these virtual sight-lines are fraught with a risk: they can increase perceived stress through continuous monitoring and feelings of privacy invasion. There is also evidence that such remote and automated monitoring can increase the centralization of management and(in the absence of countervailing action) likely contribute to an adverse dampening of creativity among employees working in lower organizational levels (Nell et al., 2020).