The world has been affected by the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic and many companies and organizations have adopted different type of strategies in terms of the workplace in all sectors around the world. Working from home practice has gained prominence as a part of quarantine measures to curb the spread of the disease since the beginning of the outbreak. This abrupt change has a dramatic influence on the business life and employees have been struggling to adapt to their new way of working. Therefore their productivity has changed, too depending on various factors at their new workplace: home. Working from home is only possible with the use of information technology. Information technology makes it possible for the business life to continue owing to its solutions. Owing to the solutions of information technology, employees can communicate with each other and organizations and complete their tasks by sending and receiving written, audio and visual information. It is crucial for everyone’s sake that the employees working in information technology work efficiently, particularly in pandemic times. The key role of their success is played by their managers and coordinators. Therefore, this thesis focuses on IT project managers and coordinators’ productivity. The purpose of this study is to list the factors, as benefits and challenges, influencing the productivity of IT project managers and project coordinators working from home during COVID-19 pandemic and provide recommendations to the project managers and project coordinators and also public and private organizations and companies which prefer to continue working from home to increase their productivity. In this study, qualitative research method and descriptive statistics concerning the selected benefits and challenges are used via a self- administered digital survey responded by 46 project managers/coordinators. It is concluded that working from home due to COVID-19 pandemic has both positive and negative influences on productivity of the IT project managers/project coordinators. Many benefits, such as sleeping longer hours and being able to focus at home without open-office distractions and many challenges, such as being distracted by house chores and being disturbed by family members have been identified as a result of the survey. Respondents contributed to the study further by their valuable recommendations to public and private organizations and also to other IT project managers/coordinators who work from home during the pandemic to increase their productivity. The recommendations to other PM/PC are concerned with routine and discipline, work-life balance, breaks and doing other things, workspace, people around and communication. The recommendations to organizations, on the other hand, are concerned with various types of support, respecting time, flexibility about time, trust, communication and acceptance as family. Both the findings and recommendations may help IT project managers/coordinators and their employers to develop a more comprehensive vision in terms of increasing their productivity while working from home during the pandemic.

Work from Home (WFH) gained momentum as a result of the pandemic. When large portions of the world were under government mandated lockdowns, and forced to institute WFH, companies began to slowly realize that the WFH model come with significant benefits such as the possibility to reduce office space or obtaining access to talent globally. Employees too are incentivized to WFH as it allows them more freedom in where to live, reduce commuting costs, and allow employees to space out work during the day and better manage energy levels. The thesis investigated cybersecurity and information security risks connected to the WFH model through collecting qualitative data by conducting a systematic literature review to gain background knowledge on the topic which was then used to create the interview guide that was used to carry out semi-structured interviews with four heterogeneous Swedish companies of various sizes, working in different fields. The SLR identified social engineering attacks in general, and phishing attacks in particular, to be the greatest threat to employees working in a WFH model suggesting employee security awareness training to be the key security measure in protecting the WFH model. The semi-structured interviews revealed that companies working in a WFH model have also drawn the same conclusion and have made significant efforts to raise security awareness through employee training programs.

<p dir="ltr">Work from home (WFH) moves work into home life, reshaping the residential, workplace, and commuting activities, which further impacts greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Although existing work has explored individual time-use patterns under WFH, there is a lack of complete consideration of diverse activities, their durations and timelines, as well as the comparisons with traditional life at home and Work in Office (WIO). Also, existing studies have examined GHG emissions under WFH, while individual-level estimation using activity-specific data covering all major activities is lacking. In particular, limited studies explored individual time-use patterns and quantified activity-based emissions for the construction workforce. Therefore, this dissertation aims to (1) develop an activity-based individual-level model to estimate GHG emissions under WFH, (2) compare individual time-use patterns and activity-based GHG emissions between traditional life at home, WFH, and WIO to understand how WFH affects work, life, and the environment, especially for the construction workforce, and (3) propose activity-based decarbonization strategies to reduce GHG emissions. By employing the proposed model, high-resolution calculations of individual time-use patterns and activity-based emissions were achieved, revealing major activities’ durations and timing and highlighting major contributing activities to emissions under WFH. When shifting from traditional life at home to WFH, individuals reduced sleeping and leisure hours to incorporate work activity, resulting in an 11.34% reduction in GHG emissions. When comparing WFH to WIO, individuals reduced work and commuting time to include more cooking and leisure activities at home, mitigating GHG emissions by 29.11%. Demographic groups and climate regions showed different results mainly because of the varied work and household duties and the characteristics of regions. In addition, the construction workforce reduced GHG emissions by 13% and 46% under WFH compared to traditional life at home and WIO, respectively. Compared to the general public, the construction workforce had more reduction in work and commuting hours and associated emissions when shifting from WIO to WFH. The findings could help envision how WFH influences work, life, and the environment as well as assist both individuals and policymakers in achieving decarbonization and adopting low-carbon living during the work arrangement transition, which could contribute to sustainable development.</p>