Activity-Based Working and Working from home are two ways of working that have been implemented by many organizations during the past years. However, the strike of the COVID-19 pandemic has caused firms to work from home until restriction of the ongoing pandemic have alleviated. Previous research has investigated the impact on employees when working activity-based respectively working from home during the pandemic with both positive and negative outcomes regarding communication and effectivity among other aspects. The purpose of the thesis is to investigate how the COVID-19 experience have impacted employee’s attitudes toward activity-based workspace post-pandemic. The study was following a qualitative research approach by conducting a case study. Data was gathered through semi-structured interviews and analysed to identify themes to gain a more in-depth knowledge of the findings. The findings confirms that the post-pandemic way of working is a mixture of activity-based working and increased desire of working from home. This depends on the matter of task and individual’s needs, much like the activity-based theory. What has changed is the perception of working from home that has showed employees benefits of increased focus and effectivity. The activity-based office will also provide effectivity, but with the link to socializing and physical communication advantages that working from home cannot offer. Organisations can use these findings to be better prepared when implementing activity-based workplaces and/or adapting to the challenges that the “new” working way may cause in the post-pandemic era.

During the past two years, the pandemic of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has impacted where a big share of the world’s employees conducts their work. Governments around the world have encouraged people to stay at home as much as possible, in the hope of slowing down the infection rate of the virus. Companies around the world have therefore encouraged their employees to work from home. The change has been rapid and unusual for a lot of people. The purpose of this thesis is to examine what the effects of working from home has had on employees and what parameters may make it sustainable long-term. When investigating this matter further, a set of sub-questions has been identified in hope to obtain a deeper understanding of the topic and to answer the question of How can working from home be sustainable long-term? This paper is a qualitative research that follows an inductive approach. The literature review provides relevant theoretical background, which has then been the foundation for the analysis and conclusion. The theories provided covers leadership, motivation, efficiency, gender equality, government support, and internationalization. The conceptual framework then provides a deeper understanding of how each of these theories relates to the main question and its sub-questions. The authors have then examined secondary data such as articles from trusted journals as well as government records in a systematic literature review. An analysis of the findings in the systematic literature review in correlation to the theories has then been made to each sub-question. The concluding chapter then ties the thesis by answering the main question of this subject.

The coronavirus was declared a health emergency in 2020, which led to many employers let their employees work from home to decrease the virus. After the restrictions regarding working from home were removed, some people continued to work from home for a few days a week and spent the other days at the office, which is today called the hybrid solution. As the hybridly way of working is relatively new, there is a lack of research on how the employees perceive the mix of working from the office and home. In order to recruit and retain employees, it can be essential to know if the hybrid solution is perceived as an advantage or disadvantage. Therefore, this thesis explains how the employees perceive the hybrid solution, with the perspective of how it affects their motivation, well-being, and group dynamics. The study is going to answer the research question: If offering a hybrid solution to work is attractive to prospective employees, how does the opportunity to work hybridly affect their motivation, well-being and group dynamics and consequently organizational retention? Based on that, the theoretical framework has come into existence that connects the different themes: of motivation, social identity theory, and talent management into the research. It is a qualitative study with ten semi-structured interviews. The respondents have answered how they perceive the hybrid solution and its effects from their perspective. After the execution of the interviews, we analyzed the material and connected it to previous studies and the theoretical framework. In the analysis, we focus on the outcome of our interviews connected to concepts such as social identity theory, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, Herzberg’s two-factor theory, the equity model, extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, and talent management strategy.The findings are that the employees find the hybrid solution as an advantage but that it is not required for them in order to be motivated and feel satisfied with their employers. Employees working remotely today would feel dissatisfied if the opportunity were taken away. Moreover, from the social perspective, work groups must often meet to have great work dynamics.

Once automatic vehicles are available, working from self-driving car (WFC) in the AV's mobile office will be a real option. It allows firms to socialize land costs for office space from the office lot to road infrastructure used by AV. Employees, in turn, can switch wasted commuting time into working hours and reduce daily time tied to working. We develop a microeconomic model of employer's offer and employees choice of WFC contracts and hours. Using data for Germany and the U.S., we perform Monte Carlo studies to assess whether WFC may become reality. Eventually, we study the impact of transport pricing on these choices. Our findings is, that WFC contracts are likely to be a standard feature of large cities given current wages, office, and current and expected travel costs. There is a clear decline of hours spent working in office. On average, WFC hours and distance traveled slightly exceed commuting figures.

In this study, the main topic which we tried to study and understand is the qualitative study balance between employees’ productivity and loyalty in case of working from home during the period of Covid-19 pandemic in which both companies and employees are facing many restrictions and lockdown situations to follow only to keep themselves safe and others as well along with keeping their work going as well. As employees are integral part of any of the organization which are also the back bone of any of the company for its process, development and achieving its goal but at the same time when they are providing their efforts into work, they also consider themselves to be treated as rear commodity and they want their work to be appreciated well in the form of promotion, benefits (both financial and non-financial) and provide professional development opportunities for them. During this current pandemic environment in which all the organizations are fighting the battle of their survival have to be more concerned about them to keep themselves alive and running one way or the other, the same is true for the employees where they are only concerned about themselves and are not having the same motivation towards the organization and its goal, because of many factors which are the results of their such behavior. This thesis deal with these factors, we look at the synergy between employees and organizations, which is the integral part of any business organization, which is being affected by this pandemic, how much and to what extent is the basis of this thesis. The tools, which we are using to conduct this study, are questionnaire and face-to-face interview and personal observation. During the face-to-face interview which are done with the participants, the study sample which is selected for this study are very much diversified, and the basis of this diversification is in the form of different types and forms of organization from food industry, study institutions, non-profit organization to national and multinational organizations. The same is true for the employees that are the participants for the questionnaire and face-to-face interview. Our study samples consist of from managerial staff to low level of production line employees. Their responses are presented in the form of graphs and the discussion done is based on the results of their responses and later conclusion is based on this discussion. The conclusion is the presentation of the correlation between variables, which are used for the development of this questionnaire, and how they represent the main topic of this thesis. The conclusion which came out from our study is very much a combination which depend on may factor such as type of the organizational field of work, type of employees, organizational business field, restrictions imposed by the country in which these organization are doing their business. Keeps in mind these factors the conclusion which came to be is combination as in some scenarios manages managers of organizations said covid-19 has not affected their business at all and it is running at it was before Covid-19, some organizations see an increase in their business, businesses as IT industry, in which employees are not bound with the location of work. But organizations which are production based for example home appliances production organization are being affected very much and their employees are effect same as. Our hypothesis, “Pandemic has effect on production and loyalty of employees in a firm/organization in case of working from home” is accepted as Covid-19 has weakened the production of the firm/organization and loyalty of the employees towards their job and firm/organization.

This study explores Working from Home (WFH) as a model of work in a public organisation in London, which operates in the clinical-trials sector. It argues that WFH is used as a strategy that offers benefits both to the organisation and its employees. WFH is offered to all Clinical Research Associates (CRAs) who work as monitors of the whole process of a clinical trial. Based on a qualitative approach, using semi-structured interviews of 29 CRAs, managers and administrative staff and secondary data, this single-case study focuses on five topics that are part of the CRAs’ everyday life. These are work-life balance (WLB), cost reduction, the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) factor, the performance of the CRAs and the management of remote workers. In particular, the study identified that WFH had a positive effect on CRAs’ WLB. Moreover, it argues that WFH may offer significant assistance to organisational budgets and may reduce personal expenses. It found that existing ICT could cover all employees’ technological needs and reduce the requirement of managers to keep them physically present at a centralised workplace. Additionally, this thesis also identified that WFH improved CRAs’ performance, whilst it also highlighted that results-oriented management was the main managerial approach towards employees who work from a distance. The key contribution of the thesis is the examination of the CRA occupation through a contemporary perspective on the WFH phenomenon.

Spontaneous interactions and chance encounters are important for establishing a sense of connection and shared identity for colleagues since they are a natural possibility for informal conversations, but when work is moved from the physical shared offices to digital workplaces it is no longer as easy to run into a colleague by the coffee machine and just chat for a couple of minutes. This thesis examines what factors are needed in order to create a structure where digital spontaneous interactions could happen. To do this, ten interviews were conducted with people who had been working from home during the pandemic of Covid19, examining what structures for communication and socialisation already existed and that were used. The study showed that the social aspects of work had been missing when the work was done from home and not from the office. It also showed that organized social activities was common among the interviewees, but not always successful nor popular. The study found few workplaces that had created structures that could be the start of establishing possibilities for spontaneous interactions and chance encounters. By taking inspiration from those cases, and looking at previous research, the study found three main factors for creating spontaneous interactions. Creating passive awareness of colleagues; finding ways to present availability; and establishing digital communal areas were all important factors for creating spontaneous interactions. / Spontana interaktioner är viktiga för att skapa en sammanhållning och delad identitet mellan kollegor eftersom de ger en naturlig möjlighet för informella konversationer, men när arbetet flyttas från de fysiska kontoren till digitala arbetsplatser är det inte längre lika enkelt att träffa på en kollega i fikarummet och prata en liten stund. Den här uppsatsen undersöker vilka faktorer som krävs för att skapa kommunikationsstrukturer där spontana interaktioner skulle kunna ske. Tio intervjuer genomfördes med personer som hade arbetat hemifrån under Covid19 pandemin, för att undersöka vilka strukturer för kommunikation och socialisering som redan existerade och utnyttjades. Studien visade att de sociala aspekterna av arbetet hade saknats under hemarbetsperioden, samt att organiserade sociala aktiviteter var vanliga men inte nödvändigtvis lyckade eller populära att delta i. Ett tydligt gap mellan behov och tillgång, där några arbetsplatser gjort försök att minska klyfta. Med inspiration från de fallen, i kombination med resultat från tidigare forskning, lyckades studien hitta tre huvudfaktorer som behöver tas i åtanke för att kunna skapa digitala spontana interaktioner. Att skapa passiv medvetenhet för kollegor; hur man presenterar om en kollega är tillgänglig för kommunikation; och att skapa gemensamma utrymmen är viktigt för att ge möjlighet till spontana interaktioner.

The Covid-19 pandemic has created sudden changes in society and in the organisational landscape where working from home practices have been applied on a large scale to reduce the spread of the virus. The restrictions from governments and changing working environments have affected people's lifestyles. Furthermore, certain countries have also initiated formal lockdowns which has not been the case in Sweden where recommendations have been given to work from home. This research aims to find out how managers are adopting to and dealing with changing organisational practices that are impacted by different institutional pressures such as values, regulations and change. This study focuses on managers to find out how they have adjusted to working from home practices and managed challenges from it but also to understand their arguments and considerations about future work constellations. By this material we aspire to provide managers with information in terms of organising working practices when society is going back to normal which highlights risks and opportunities with working from home and future hybrid working arrangements.

Hemarbete har blivit vardag för många med ett administrativt yrke. Det har funnits olika syn på huruvida hemarbete bidrar till högre produktivitet eller inte. Flera organisationer har börjat fundera på om de ska implementera hemarbete som en beständig förändring efter Corona-pandemins slut. Det finns tidigare forskning på hur produktivt det är att arbeta hemifrån men forskning som är inriktad på upplevd produktivitet vid hemarbete identifierades inte. Med bakgrunden av egen erfarenhet av hemarbete och en nyfikenhet kring konsekvenserna av hemarbetet växte syftet med studien fram. Syftet med denna studie är att utforska anställdas upplevda produktivitet vid förändringen till hemarbete i en verksamhet och vilka faktorer som påverkar den. Uppsatsen är en kvalitativ fallstudie med en induktiv ansats. Datainsamlingen baseras på kvalitativa semistrukturerade intervjuer med tjänstemän som arbetat hemifrån under Corona-pandemin. Genom den insamlade data som intervjuerna bidrog med, identifierades centrala teman genom sortering och kodning av materialet. Av analysen genererades det totalt 13 teman där fem av dessa valdes ut som mest återkommande och som sedan genererade i sig sju underkategorier. Underkategorierna var kontorsspring, familjemedlemmar, missar att ta pauser, vågar inte ta pauser, anpassat efter individen, organisationskultur och balans. Dessa teman kopplades till teori för att skapa mening. Analysen bidrog till en diskussion kring vikten av individens och organisationens samspel. Att en strategi går åt samma riktning, vilken både individen och organisationen är en del av, skapar en samstämmighet. Respondenterna ville fortsätta arbeta hemifrån efter Corona-pandemin i en balans med kontorsarbete. Anställdas upplevda produktivitet vid hemarbete konstaterades vara högre än vid kontorsarbete i fallstudien, de faktorer som påverkar är de teman som ovan presenterats. / Working from home has become commonplace for many with an administrative profession. There have been various findings as to whether homework contributes to higher productivity or not. Several organizations have begun to consider whether to implement remote working as a strategy after the Corona pandemic's end. There is previous research on how productive it is to work from home, but research that focuses on perceived productivity when working at home was not identified. With the background of our own experience of working from home and a curiosity about the consequences of it, the purpose of the study emerged. The purpose of the study is to explore employees perceived productivity when changing to working from home in an organization and what factors that affect it. The thesis is a qualitative case study with an inductive approach. The data collection is based on a qualitative semi-structured interview with white-collar workers who worked from home during the Corona pandemic. Through the collected data that the interviews contributed, key themes were identified through sorting and coding of the material. The analysis generated atotal of 13 themes, five of which were selected as the most recurring and which then generated seven subcategories. The subcategories were office running, family members, failing to take breaks, not daring to take breaks, adapted to the individual, organizational culture, and balance. These themes were linked to theory to create meaning. Analyze contributed to a discussion about the importance of the individual and the organization's interaction. That a strategy goes in the same direction, of which both the individual and the organization are a part, creates a coherence. The respondents wanted to continue working from home after the Corona pandemic in a balance of office work. Employees' perceived productivity in working from home was found to be higher than in office work in the case study, the factors that affect are the themes presented above.

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.