Defining a Remote Work Policy: Aligning Actions and Intentions
2024 (English)In: Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming - Workshops / [ed] Philippe Kruchten, Peggy Gregory, Springer Science+Business Media B.V., 2024, Vol. 489, p. 149-158Conference paper, Published paper (Refereed)
Abstract [en]
After the long period of forced work from home, many knowledge workers have not only developed a strong habit of remote work, but also consider flexibility as their personal right and no longer as a privilege. Existing research suggest that the majority prefers to work two or three days per week from home and are likely to quit or search for a new job if forced to return to full time office work. Given these changes, companies are challenged to alter their work policies and satisfy the employee demands to retain talents. The subsequent decrease in office presence, also calls for transformations in the offices, as the free space opens up opportunities for cutting the rental costs, as well as the other expenses related to office maintenance, amenities, and perks. In this paper, we report our findings from comparing work policies in three Nordic tech and fintech companies and identify the discrepancies in the way the corporate intentions are communicated to the employees. We discuss the need for a more systematic approach to setting the goals behind a revised work policy and aligning the intensions with the company’s actions. Further, we discuss the need to resolve the inherent conflicts of interest between the individual employees (flexibility, individual productivity, and well-being) and the companies (profitability, quality of products and services, employee retention, attractiveness in the job market). © 2024, The Author(s).
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Springer Science+Business Media B.V., 2024. Vol. 489, p. 149-158
Series
Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, ISSN 18651348
Keywords [en]
Flexibility, Flexible work policy, Hybrid work, Management, Remote work, Teams, WFH, Work from home, Action and intention, Knowledge workers, Office works, Team, Human resource management
National Category
Work Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:bth-25927DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-48550-3_15ISI: 001290448500016Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85181977930ISBN: 9783031485497 (print)OAI: oai:DiVA.org:bth-25927DiVA, id: diva2:1832184
Conference
23rd International Conferences on Agile Software Development, XP 2022, 13-17 June 2022, Copenhagen, and 24th International Conferences on Agile Software Development, XP 2023, 13-16 June 2023, Amsterdam.
Part of project
WorkFlex, Knowledge Foundation
Funder
The Research Council of Norway, 309344Knowledge Foundation, 202200472024-01-292024-01-292024-10-03Bibliographically approved