Covid-Pandemin i början av 2020 har på ett eller annat sätt påverkat och begränsat hur anställda arbetar. Flera förändringar har skett som att företag med förutsättningarna förlagt arbetet till de anställdas hem. Detta har bidragit till att spontana interaktioner minskat, nya arbetsmetoder har formats och nya verktyg lanserats. Denna nya situation har medfört en rad utmaningar och möjligheter kring hur anställda samarbetar och delar kunskap kring kundbehov. Syftet med uppsatsen har varit att undersöka hur mjukvaruföretag har anpassat metoder, aktiviteter och arbetsprocesser vid utvecklingsarbetet av mjukvara. Syftet besvaras genom att utreda processerna vid krav och behovsanalys samt till att kartlägga samarbetsverktyg, arbetssituationen hemifrån, interaktioner inom projektgruppen samt vilka möjligheter och hinder som finns vid kontakt med kunder. En kvalitativ intervjustudie genomfördes på två mjukvaruföretag med sex informanter inom olika roller i en projektgrupp med tre krav: att de arbetat på distans under pandemin, att de har kundkontakt samt är involverade i utveckling av mjukvara.  Resultatet visar att distansen leder till möjligheter i kombinationen arbets- och privatliv exempelvis ingen restid, lättare att planera in aktiviteter som barnlämning och hämtning. Vidare pekar resultatet på utmaningar och svårigheter i digitala interaktioner mellan arbetskollegor och kunder som att det exempelvis är svårt att tolka kroppsspråk, ansiktsuttryck och tystnad samt att spontana interaktioner minskat. Utmaningarna leder till att det kan bli svårt att uppfatta tyst kunskap vilket kan påverka arbetet med kravanalys och i sin tur slutprodukten.  Resultatet analyserades genom att betrakta hur kunskap kring kundbehov skapas exempelvis vilka metoder som används samt vilka förutsättningar som projektgruppen lever upp till för framgångsrik kunskapsdelning på distans. Analysen visar att den ökade användningen av digitala verktyg har skapat en social acceptans för digitala möten vilket resulterat i frekvent kontakt med kund samt skapande av mer underlag som exempelvis inspelade möten. När arbetet sker uteslutande via digitala verktyg kan fler roller involveras tidigare i utvecklingsprocessen. Då kommunikationen sker digitalt kan en minskning i förståelse för kundens behov upplevas då exempelvis informella möten inte längre sker samt att metoder som observationer inte längre används. Projektgrupper bör anpassa sig för att möta utmaningarna som distansen medför genom att exempelvis minst en gång om dagen träffa kollegorna i digitala träffar i syfte att ingen ska känna sig ensam och för att stärka samhörigheten. Digitala intervjuer och återkoppling med kund sker oftare och leder till ökad mängd lagrad data som exempelvis inspelningar och mötesanteckningar. Ökningen behöver hanteras i syfte att den blir lättillgänglig för projektmedlemmar. Vidare försöker projektgrupper anpassa sig till minskningen av fysiska interaktioner genom att aktiviteter som observationer och workshops inte längre används. / The Covid-Pandemic at the beginning of 2020 has in one way or another affected and limited how employees work. Changes such as companies with the possibility relocating the work to the employees' homes, changes in spontaneous interactions, new working methods have been formed and new tools have been launched. This new situation has led to several challenges and opportunities regarding how employees collaborate and share knowledge about customer needs. The purpose of the thesis has been to investigate how software companies have adapted methods, activities and work processes. The purpose is answered by investigating the processes for requirements and needs analysis and for mapping collaboration tools, the work situation from home, interactions within the project group and the opportunities and obstacles that exist in contact with customers. A qualitative interview study was conducted at two software companies with six informants in different roles with three requirements: that they worked remotely during the pandemic, that they have customer contact and are involved in software development. The results show that distance work leads to opportunities in the combination of work and private life, for example no travel time and easier planning of picking up children from school. Furthermore, the results point to challenges and difficulties in digital interactions between work colleagues and customers in that, for example, it is difficult to interpret body language, facial expressions and silence and that spontaneous interactions have decreased. The challenges lead to becoming difficult to perceive tacit knowledge, which can affect the work with requirements analysis and in turn the product.  The results were analysed by considering how knowledge about customer needs is created, for example which methods are used and which conditions the project group lives up to for successful knowledge sharing at a distance. The analysis shows that the increased use of digital tools has created a social acceptance for digital meetings, which has resulted in frequent contact with customers and the creation of more data in the form of, for example, recorded meetings. When the work is done exclusively with digital tools, more roles can be involved earlier in the development process. When communication takes place digitally, a reduction in understanding of the customer's needs can be experienced when, for example, informal meetings no longer take place and methods such as observations are no longer used. Project groups should adapt to meet the challenges posed by the distance by, for example, meeting colleagues in digital meetings at least once a day for no one to feel alone and to strengthen cohesion. Digital interviews and customer feedback take place more often and lead to an increased amount of stored data in the form of, for example, recordings and meeting notes. The increase in data needs to be managed for it to be easily accessible to project members. Furthermore, project groups try to adapt to the reduction in understanding and perception of tacit knowledge by no longer using activities such as observations and workshops.

Det har skett en stor ökning av distansarbetet i samband med Covid-19 pandemin. Ekonomyrket är ett av de yrken som har haft möjlighet till denna omställning från kontorsarbete till distansarbete. Att arbeta på distans ställer prov på den anställde och dennes motivation.  Syftet med studien är att bidra till förståelsen för hur redovisningsekonomer upplevt omställningen från traditionellt kontorsjobb till distansarbete och hur det har påverkat arbetsmotivationen.  För att uppnå studiens syfte har en kvalitativ metod använts där tio redovisningsekonomer i södra Sverige intervjuades. Empirin analyserades sedan med koppling till Self-determination theory och Herzbergs tvåfaktorsteori för att besvara frågeställningarna.  Studiens visar att det har varit en stor omställning av arbetsmiljön för redovisningsekonomer vid distansarbete. Det har visat en stor påverkan på arbetsmiljön och således på motivationen, där inre motivationsfaktorer var av större vikt vid arbete på distans. / There has been a large increase in telework due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The economist is one of the professions that has had the opportunity for this transition from office work to telework. Teleworking presents challenges to the employee and his motivation. The purpose of this study is to contribute to the understanding of how economists have experienced the transition from traditional office work to telework and how it has affected their work motivation. To achieve the purpose of the study, a qualitative method was used where ten accounting economists in southern Sweden were interviewed. The empiric was then analyzed in connection with Self-determination theory and Herzberg's two-factor theory to answer the questions. The study shows that there has been a major change in the work environment for accounting economists in teleworking. It has shown a great impact on the work environment and thus on motivation, where internal motivational factors were of greater importance when working at a distance.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had major impacts on public and private life. As organizations are forced to transition to remote work to reduce the spread of the virus, there is a need for researching how employees are affected. This study explores how municipal workers have experienced the transition, by conducting a survey involving five different Swedish municipalities. This study shows that, while overall productivity has generally either increased or remained at pre-transition levels, some aspects have suffered as a result of working from home. Social interactions among co-workers, information sharing, and community building are examples of where the employees felt that something has been lost. This study contributes to research being done on this phenomenon, and gives suggestions for practitioners.

Background: Destructive leadership seeks to explain how leaders create harmful outcomes in an organizational setting – and why do they choose to do so. However, as with most leadership theories, process models are designed with a traditional office setting in mind which has its own distinct characteristics. Remote working has surged in prevalence in the last two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic and features multiple key differences, including increased social isolation and a decrease in communication quality. The combination of this novel and different context with a high likelihood of employees experiencing destructive leadership during their career, it is of high relevance to critically examine destructive leadership processes in a remote setting. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to adapt the proposed framework of destructive leadership by Krasikova et al. (2013) in a remote working environment, and to provide a greater understanding of destructive leadership processes in a less familiar context. Through exploring a new working context, this research aims to expand the understanding of destructive leadership, its situational factors, processes, and possible destructive outcomes in the ‘modern’ workplace. Method: Our methods were built on the choices of inductive qualitative research. Ten semi-structured interviews with leaders and followers were conducted by utilizing the casemethod, and more precisely, the case-oriented research design. The use of case-oriented research design and thematic analysis allowed us to engage in within- and cross-case comparisons and enabled us to generate new insights and to further develop remote working specific factors in the destructive leadership processes. Conclusion: The results of the study demonstrate that remote working environment influences three main areas of destructive leadership: the organizational context behind the process of choosing to engage in destructive leadership, the process of discovery and organizational response, and by establishing feedback loops from existing destructive leadership that leads to further resource shortages.

Följande studie är skriven på svenska och behandlar fenomenet distansledarskap samt hur det skiljer sig mot ett ledarskap utan fysiskt avstånd. Studien tar reda på hur de arbetar med tillit och kommunikation samt hur förhållandet mellan kontroll och autonomi ser ut, när arbetet sker på distans. Studiens empiriska material består av 12st semistrukturerade intervjuer. Samtliga respondenter är svenska chefer som kommer från tre olika branscher, socialtjänsten, energi- samt rekryterings/bemanningsbranschen. Studiens resultat visar att chefers förutsättningar för att bedriva distansarbete skiljer sig åt inom olika organisationer. Det går att utläsa hur autonomi ses som viktigare än kontroll när arbetet sker på distans. Vidare presenteras en god tillit och kommunikation som viktiga aspekter i ett distansledarskap. Hur chefer går tillväga för att skapa denna tillit och hur de arbetar med kommunikationen på distans skiljer sig åt, och det är svårt att presentera en lösning som fungerar i alla organisationer. En enhetlig bild som skapas är att majoriteten av respondenterna föredrar en frekvent kommunikation när arbetet sker på distans. / The following study is written in Swedish and deals with the phenomenon of distance leadership and how it differs from leadership in the proximal environment. The study explores how managers work with trust and communication and how the relationship between control and autonomy looks like, when work is managed remotely. The empirical material of the study consists of 12 semi-structured interviews. All respondents were Swedish managers who came from three different industries, these industries consisted of social services, energy and recruitment / staffing industries. The study's findings show that managers' conditions for conducting telework differ between organizations. It is possible to extract how autonomy is seen as a more important tool than control when the work is done at a distance. Furthermore, good trust and communication are presented as important aspects in the remote work environment. How managers go about creating trust and how they work with communication at a distance differs, and it is difficult to present a solution that works in all organizations. A unified image that we can present however, is that a majority of the respondents prefer frequent communication when remote work is present.

It has become more common these days for organizations to give employees the opportunity to work remotely. This trend was accelerated during the Covid-19 pandemic, which forced many organizations to allow remote work in order to comply with the recommendations set by authorities. Even after everyday life returned to normal, many companies chose to adopt a model that allows employees to work fully or partially away from the office. However, the attitude towards remote work is not entirely positive. It has brought about changes for organizations, especially for their leaders. There has been a debate about which leadership style is the best fit for the remote work model, and this thesis aims to investigate how leaders within the big banks in Sweden have been affected in their perceived ability to motivate employees during remote work. To accomplish this, the authors have applied a qualitative methodology, conducting interviews with two different groups: leaders and employees. The interview results have been analyzed and connected to the theoretical framework derived from research on remote leadership and employee motivation. The results show that an active and motivating leadership style, without being overly monitoring or passive, is preferred in a remote work setting for leaders' ability to motivate their followers in these companies. The thesis also reveals that respondents express a desire for the opportunity for remote work, even though they are somewhat negative towards working remotely.

Information sharing is a critical success factor in supply chains and involves how information is made accessible, archived and shared. Remote work has significantly increased in recent years, which has affected information sharing within organizations as it primarily occurs through the use of digital tools. Therefore, this study aims to investigate how information sharing is perceived by employees in an IT-oriented organization during remote work. For this purpose a qualitative approach was applied in the form of semi-structured interviews followed by a thematic analysis. The results indicate that remote work has had no significant impact on information sharing, but there is a lack of informal information. Furthermore, the use of digital tools has contributed to more frequent documentation, which in turn has increased the amount of stored information. / Informationsdelning är en kritisk framgångsfaktor i försörjningskedjor och handlar om hur information görs tillgänglig, arkiveras och delas. Distansarbete har under de senaste åren ökat markant, vilket har påverkat informationsdelning i organisationer då det huvudsakligen sker med digitala verktyg. Denna studie syftar därmed till att undersöka hur informationsdelning upplevs av medarbetare i en IT-orienterad organisation vid distansarbete. För detta har en kvalitativ metodansats tillämpats i form av semistrukturerade intervjuer följt av en tematisk analys. Resultaten visar på att distansarbete inte haft någon signifikant påverkan på informationsdelning men att det finns en avsaknad av informell information. Vidare har användandet av digitala verktyg bidragit till mer frekvent dokumentation vilket i sin tur har ökat mängden lagrad information.

La modalidad de trabajo remoto permitió continuar con la actividad empresarial en un momento en el que las restricciones impidieron el desarrollo presencial de labores; sin embargo, generó una serie de cambios importantes en aspectos importante de las organizaciones. Por ello, se realizó un estudio cuantitativo y descriptivo correlacional que buscó determinar la relación entre la percepción del trabajo remoto y el desempeño laboral de 33 asesores de negocios de una agencia bancaria, en quienes se administró cuestionarios adaptados al contexto peruano, con sólidos niveles de validez y confiabilidad. Los resultados evidenciaron que el nivel Positivo predominó en relación con la percepción del trabajo remoto; asimismo, el nivel Alto fue el de mayor frecuencia en la medición del desempeño laboral. Por otro lado, se identificó que no existen correlaciones significativas entre las variables de estudio (p>0,05). Se concluyó que el nivel de percepción del trabajo remoto predominante en asesores de negocios facilita el desarrollo de su jornada laboral, así como el nivel de desempeño laboral que refleja el cumplimiento de sus funciones, sin embargo, estas variables no evidencian una relación significativa en su totalidad ni dimensiones. / The remote work modality made it possible to continue with the business activity at a time when the restrictions prevented the face-to-face development of work; however, it highlights several important changes in important aspects of organizations. For this reason, a quantitative and descriptive correlational study was carried out that sought to determine the relationship between the perception of remote work and the job performance of 33 business advisors from a banking agency, in whom questionnaires adapted to the Peruvian context were administered, with solid levels of validity and reliability. The results showed that the Positive level predominated in relation to the perception of remote work; Similarly, the High level was the most frequent in the measurement of job performance. On the other hand, it was identified that there are no significant correlations between the study variables (p>0.05). It was concluded that the level of perception of remote work predominant in business advisors facilitates the development of their workday, as well as the level of work performance that reflects the fulfillment of their functions, however, these variables do not show a significant relationship in their totality or dimensions.

Flexible work and remote work are new ways of working whose usage has increased during and after the Covid-19 pandemic. This Challenges the traditional ways of working on-site, by offering a new social reality in workplaces and organizations. HR-personnel have a significant responsibility to ensure the well-being of employees and the organization, with HR-managers having the ultimate responsibility. The purpose of this study is to understand how HR-managers view flexible work and remote work and how they think it will evolve. The study is based on a qualitative method with an abductive data analysis. The results of the study is based on semi-structured interviews with HR-managers in companies primarily engaged in administrative operations. The theoretical framework of the study is based on Anthony Giddens’ theory of modernity, incorporating concepts like the separation of time and space, disembedding, expert systems and ontological security. The study’s results suggest that HR-managers see the use of flexible work and remote work as advantageous for organizations. The study’s result further suggests that HR-managers believe flexible work and remote work are here to stay, but require further development to function optimally. The study also reveals a possibility for organizations to become even more boundary-crossing with the potential to recruit and collaborate across time and space. / Flexibelt arbete och distansarbete är nya arbetssätt vars användning har ökat under och efter Covid-19 pandemin. Detta utmanar de traditionella arbetssätten som sker på plats, genom att erbjuda en ny social verklighet på arbetsplatser och organisationer. HR-personal har här ett stort ansvar i att se till arbetstagares och organisationens bästa, där HR-chefer har det yttersta ansvaret. Syftet med denna studie är att förstå hur HR-chefer ser på flexibelt arbete och distansarbete och hur de tror det kommer att utvecklas. Studien utgår från en kvalitativ metod, med en abduktiv dataanalys. Resultatet av studien baseras på semistrukturerade intervjuer med HR-chefer inom företag vars verksamhet är främst administrativ. Studiens teoretiska ramverk baseras på Anthony Giddens modernitetsteori, med begreppen åtskiljandet av tid och rum, urbäddning, expertsystem och ontologisk trygghet. Studiens resultat tyder på att HR-chefer ser användningen av flexibelt arbete och distansarbete som fördelaktigt för organisationer. Studiens resultat tyder vidare på att HR-chefer anser att flexibelt arbete och distansarbete är här för att stanna, men att det krävs ytterligare utveckling för att fungera optimalt. Studien visar även att det finns en möjlighet för organisationer att bli ännu mer gränsöverskridande med möjlighet att rekrytera och samarbeta över tid och rum.

Inledning: Till följd av Covid-19-pandemin har arbetsformen för statligt anställda tjänstemän i Sverige skiftat från arbete i en kontorsmiljö till det mer flexibla arbetssättet hybridarbete. Hybridarbete är definitionen av en blandning av både distansarbete och arbete på den ordinarie arbetsplatsen. Studier har visat varierande effekter på medarbetarnas välbefinnande samt motivation och produktivitet på grund av detta nya arbetssätt.Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka de effekter som uppkommer genom denna arbetsform kopplat till självupplevd motivation och produktivitet samt att komma fram till vilka för- och nackdelar hybridarbete kan leda till för både medarbetaren och organisationen. Metod: I studien undersökte vi den självupplevda uppfattningen hos statligt anställda i Sverige. Totalt genomfördes fem semistrukturerade intervjuer med hänsyn till att skapa förståelse för hur hybridarbete tillämpas samt vilka effekter denna arbetsmodell har med avseende på motivation och självupplevd produktivitet. Teori: I uppsatsen används flera teorier som författarna anser relevanta för studiens innehåll. Äldre motivationsmodeller vävs samman med nyare forskning för att skapa ett bra underlag för analys av empiri.  Resultat: Resultaten vi hittade var mycket likvärdiga när det gäller att förstå vilken typ av gynnsamma samt ogynnsamma effekter denna arbetsmodell kan bidra till.Denna arbetsmodell ansågs av samtliga respondenter vara en förmån även om nämnda organisationer verkade ha låg eller ingen förståelse för dess effekter med avseende på välbefinnande, produktivitet och motivation. / Introduction: Due to the Covid-19 pandemic the work environment for government employeesin Sweden has shifted from an office environment to the more flexible arrangement ofhybridwork. Hybridwork is the definition of a mixed work setting of both remote work andwork at the regular workplace. Studies have shown varying effects in employees well-being aswell as motivation and productivity due to this new way of working.The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of this form of work on self-perceivedmotivation and productivity, and to conclude what advantages and disadvantages hybridworkhas for both the employee and the organization. Methods: In the study we examined the self-perceived perception of government employees inSweden. A total of five semi-structured interviews were completed with the regard of creatingan understanding in how hybridwork is applied and what the effects of this work model areregarding motivation and self-perceived productivity. Theory: The essay uses several theories that the authors consider relevant to the content of thestudy. Older motivational models are interwoven with newer research to create a good basis foranalysis of empirical evidence. Results: The results we found were very equal in terms of understanding what type of effectsand side-effects this work model can contribute to. This work model was among all respondentsconsidered as a benefit, although said organizations seemed to have a low to no understandingof its effects with respect to well-being, productivity and motivation.