Employees working from home (WFH) during the COVID-19 pandemic turned to an array of information and communications technologies (ICT) to support at-home job performance. This study documents the role of ICT in enabling these workers and managers to abruptly transition to WFH and explores the barriers and challenges they faced in working remotely. The goal of the study is to address the research question: How did ICT availability affect the relationship between personal work environment factors (i.e., job role, stress, and family-work conflict) and job performance while WFH due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic? We also report on how workers adjusted their ICT usage (hardware, software and Internet access) when moving to remote work. We then compare workers’ ICT usage, job performance, and personal stressors across manager and non-manager roles. Our findings from survey responses from 545 workers in 36 countries record a range of personal and professional challenges employees faced when forced to WFH, including whether employer ICT support has successfully met their needs. Our findings will inform employer efforts to establish new WFH policies.

Conference Title

IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology

Conference Country

Ireland

Conference Date

July 10, 2022 - July 13, 2022

Conference Sponsor

IFIP WG 5.1