Employees’ perception on their self-productivity in work from home during lockdown period

Abstract

Governments across the world have enacted various social distancing policies in response to the global pandemic of COVID-19. Employers in different sectors have taken challenging decisions to minimize the congregation of people by taking an abrupt shift to work from home (WFH). In 1972, Jack Nilles introduced "Work from Home” as an employment arrangement where employees work outside the office, usually home or a location close to home. The current literature revealed that the feasibility of WFH for all occupations around the world. This paper further examined how these employees’ socioeconomic characteristics influenced their perception on self-productivity during WFH. The survey data was collected using a google form from 150 employees using the Snow Ball Sampling method. The perception on self-productivity was evaluated using Five Point Likert Scale in view of workload completed and the time spent on completing a task during WFH. The comparative analysis conducted using descriptive statistic methods and the Chi-square test. The sample consists of 59% of females and 41% of males. Furthermore, the sample represents 21% of Government, 17% of Semi-government, and 62% of Private Sector employees. There is a significant difference between marital status and perception on self-productivity (p = 0.003, α<0.05). Married employees manifested lower productivity due to matters related to home caregiving. Besides, this lower productivity is disproportionately affected by the presence of children. There is a significant difference between the presence of children with the time spent on completing a task (p=0.031, α<0.05) and also with their perception on self-productivity (p = 0 .003(α<0.05). Thereby, employees having children demonstrated lower productivity than singles. The comprehended review suggested that lack of interaction with peers, absence of essential resources like computer devices, software, speed network connection, and absence of motivation have limited their capacity leading towards lower productivity during WFH. Moreover, 59% of employees prefer to continue WFH, and 27% have responded as indifferent, while 14% have stated their disfavor towards continuity of WFH even after the pandemic. This study in turn helps inform policy makers to understand that working from home it-self has largely been beneficial if the main issues are being addressed accordingly.