Kingdom of Saudi ‫المملكة العربية السعودية‬

Arabia ‫وزارة التعليم‬

Ministry of Education ‫جامعة الفيصل – جدة‬
Al-Faisal University ‫كلية األمير سلطان لإلدارة‬
Prince Sultan College for ‫الدراسات العليا‬
Business – Jeddah
Graduate Studies

The Effect of Remote Work on Employees Performance in KSA

Done By:
Mahmoud Said Zakot

SUBMETTED TO:
Dr. Khaled Aouda

MASTER REPORT

2021 - 2022

i
 Kingdom of Saudi ‫المملكة العربية السعودية‬
Arabia ‫وزارة التعليم‬
Ministry of Education ‫جامعة الفيصل – جدة‬
Al-Faisal University ‫كلية األمير سلطان لإلدارة‬
Prince Sultan College for ‫الدراسات العليا‬
Business – Jeddah
Graduate Studies

The Effect of Remote Work on Employees Performance in KSA

Done By:
Mahmoud Said Zakot

Supervised by:
Dr. Khaled Aouda

MASTER REPORT
2021-2022

ii
 Acknowledgment
I would like to express my deep gratitude to Dr. Khaled Aouda, my research supervisor, for his
patient guidance enthusiastic encouragement and useful critiques of this research work, finally I
wish to thank my parents for their support and encouragement throughout my study.

iiiiii
 Abstract

The advancement of technology and the speed of the Internet these days has become a great
helper in transforming the traditional way of working to remote work through communication
programs, when the Corona pandemic occurred in the year 2020, most companies tended to
convert their employees to work remotely from their homes to prevent the spread of the virus,
this study aims To measure the level of employee satisfaction with remote working and
measure their job performance compared to working in the office, and whether we can continue
to work remotely even after the pandemic, and how effective is this on employees life balance
and their productivity at the same time .

Keywords: Remote working, Work from home, Employees satisfaction, Employees

productivity, COVID-19,

iv
iv
 Table of Content Page

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 3
1.1 Background of Research
1.2 Problem Statement
1.3 Research Questions
1.3 Research Objectives
CHAPTER 2: Literature Review 7
2.1 COVID- 19 and Work Setting 8
2.2 COVID-19 and Remote Working: 8
2.3 Remote Working and Employee’s Efficiency. 9
2.4 Remote Working and Employee satisfaction. 9
2.5 Conceptual framework 11

CHAPTER 3: EMPIRICAL STUDY 12

3.1 Research Design 13
3.2 Population and Sample: 13
3.3 Data collection 13
3.4 results 14
3.5 Demographic Characteristics of The Sample 15
CHAPTER 4 Summary of Findings and Recommendations 27
4.1 Summary of Findings 27
4.2 Recommendations: 28
Reference 31
Appendix 33

vv
 List of tables and figures
page
2.5 Conceptual framework: 12
4.3.1 Age 15
2.4.2 Experiences 16
2.4.3 Firm Size 16
2.4.4 Job Level 17
4.4 Employee Perception on Remote Working and performance 17

vi
vi
7
CHAPTER ONE:
INTRODUCTION

1
 1.1 Background of the Research

Remote working is a system or practice in which an employee works from home or from a
remote location, outside of corporate office. This system is operated by some businesses and
organizations in various countries; it helps to reduce operational cost. It does not require an
office space which necessarily needs to be rented or purchased with additional expenses such as
electricity, office facilities and so on; along with this, remote working may make it easier for
employees to balance their work with personal life. This working arrangement became much
more conventional during the COVID-19 pandemic, when millions of workers were forced to
start working remotely. Globally, about 16% of companies are fully remote; also 62% of workers
aged 22 to 65 claim to work remotely occasionally.

Remote working gives employees a certain autonomy which provides work satisfaction due to
flexibility in scheduling work. It allows employees the liberty to choose how they want to work,
when they work, where they work and even more: what they choose to wear for comfort while
working, to allow their best performance.
Morethan20percentoftheworkforcecouldworkremotelythreetofivedaysaweekas effectively as they
could if working from an office. If remote work took hold at that level, that would mean three to
four times as many people working from home than before the pandemic and would have a
profound impact on urban economies, transportation, and consumer spending, among other
things.

More than half the workforce, however, has little or no opportunity for remote work. Some of
their jobs require collaborating with others or using specialized machinery; other jobs, such as
conducting CT scans (Computerized tomography scan), must be done on location; and some,
such as making deliveries, are performed while out and about. Many of such jobs are low wage
and more at risk from broad trends such as automation and digitization. On the other hand, some
jobs and tasks can be done remotely and from distance. Following from the above discussion,
this research aims to investigate the impact of remote working on employee performance in
KSA.

2
 1.2 Problem Statement

Nowadays, during the COVID-19 pandemic, workers operate with a new working style that
they are not used to; they are used to operate in a familiar office atmosphere, integrating
with their team, attending meetings, and calling customers. But now, with the new working
norm (working from home policy), lines between personal and work life will blur even for
professionals that are used to working from home as an increasing number of schools close,
meaning children will be at home and working parents might struggle to separate
responsibilities, which might affect the worker's overall wellbeing (Staglin, 2020).

Organizations should understand the main factors that lead to high effectiveness of using
remote working. In remote working employees should be comfort and have a good
environment to achieve their goals , they should have a good communication with each
other’s and have a clear tasks to do them , also should have a good place to do their work
remotely , they should get support when they need it also they have to get clear polices to
perform their work .The main challenges of remote working is to understand how remote
working can influence employee’s performance and satisfaction in KSA. This research
problem can be formulated in the following main questions:

What is the impact of remote-working on employee performance in KSA?

What is the impact of remote-working on employee satisfaction in KSA?

3
 1.3 Research Objectives
1. To understand the nature of remote working in KSA.
2. To investigate the impact of remote working on employees performance in KSA
3. To investigate the impact or remote working on employees satisfaction in KSA

4
 CHAPTER TWO:
LITRATURE REVIEW

5
 2.1 COVID- 19 and Work Setting

COVID-19 is affecting all spheres of life. As of 8 September 2020, there have been 321,595
confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 4,107 deaths in Saudi Arabia. The concerns regarding
work from offices and contacting others is a global concern during this pandemic. Most of
workers are mainly concerns about getting infected and spread it to their families. Therefore,
to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic, architects, urban planners, and designers have already
switched their attention to visualizing the post-pandemic era; however, there are inadequate
studies on how the antivirus-built environment will look. Accordingly, this study aims to
reflect on perceptions of the work environment during the COVID-19 pandemic in Saudi
Arabia.

2.2 COVID-19 and Remote Working:

Research to date has revealed that remote working is gaining attention worldwide, where the
number of remote workers expected to increase more (Gómez et al., 2020; Raišienė et al., 2020).
Remote work is a working practice that encourages professionals to work beyond the traditional
office setting; anywhere they are productive in and that makes work-life balance perfect, and this
is based on the idea that there is no need for work to be performed in a particular location
(Prasad et al., 2020). Employees have reasonable control to plan their days to see that their
professional and personal lives can be integrated into their fullest potential and satisfaction
(Prasad et al., 2020). Thus, the current study will focus on working from home as a remote work
strategy to offset the pandemic situation using technology to access work like Team viewer,
Zoom, and Microsoft teams.

6
 2.3 Remote Working and Employee’s Efficiency.

Remote working has various benefits such as a better work-life balance, providing more
flexibility to work, increase in job satisfaction, and employee engagement (Grant et al., 2013),
employees have time to pursue their hobbies, professional and personal advancements that
cannot be fulfilled due to lack of time and freedom at the workplace to pursue them; moreover,
workers are less stressed than those working in-office, better protection for health, and wellness
(Prasad et al., 2020).

But other studies indicated that remote work could be challenging for many employees compared
to working at the office, as stated by Grant et al. (2013) in addition to Barber and Santuzzi
(2015), who claimed that remote working could lead to poor wellbeing, communication
overload, work overload and workplace pressure (Charalampous, Grant, Tramontano &
Michailidis, 2019; Molino et al., 2020), which is justified by exchanging emails during non-
working hours, a practice that has been linked to stress (Chesley, 2014) and blurred home-work
boundaries (Tietze & Musson, 2005), which could subsequently affect job effectiveness and
performance (Grant et al., 2019). Consequently, remote working may become unfavorable in
some cases when individuals intensify their work activity (Charalampous et al., 2019) adding the
feelings of being isolated and not connected with coworkers and the need for new and different
skills and mindset to succeed as a remote worker (Raišienė et al. 2020; Rysavy & Michalak
2020).

2.4 Remote Working and Employee satisfaction.

Nowadays, during the COVID-19 pandemic, workers operate with a new working style that they
are not used to; they are used to operate in a familiar office atmosphere, integrating with their
team, attending meetings, and calling customers. But now, with the new working norm (working
from home policy), lines between personal and work life will blur even for professionals that are
used to working from home as an increasing number of schools close, meaning children will be
at home and working parents might struggle to separate responsibilities, which might affect the

7
 worker's overall satisfaction (Staglin, 2020). Hence, Pradhan and Hati (2019).
Job satisfaction has strong effect to increase the productivity level of employees so if we want
more productivity we should be careful that our employees are satisfied in their jobs , In remote
working the tasks are more flexible than traditional office tasks , the employees can do it at any
time they want , can connect with resources at any time also they can end it faster than traditional
method , these advantages should increase job satisfaction and increase productivity of
employees .

The productivity of employees depending on their technological skills, most of young employees
are more flexible than old employees because they are learning faster and using their phones
more than old people because they will take more time to learn new technology methods and
they have another responsibilities in home and family so it will effect on their satisfaction.
Also women’s who has children in home they will need more time to organize their working
tasks and balance between their families and working life , they will need more time and more
effort , if they succussed in their remote working skills they will be more satisfied because there
is no need to go to the office every day , most of tasks will be in home so the time of working
will decreased also the cost of going to the work will decreased ,this should increase their
satisfaction .

8
 2.5 Conceptual framework:

EMPLYEES
PERFORMANCE

REMOTE
WORKING

EMPLOYEES
SATISFACION

9
CHAPTER THREE:
EMPIRICAL STUDY

10
 3.1 Research Design

This research aims to provide more insight understanding of the effectiveness of remote work
and its impact on employees' performance and consequently on profitability. Therefore, a
quantitative research design was used in this research.

3.2 Population and Sample:

Population will include different employees in private section those who have previously dealt
with remote work during the pandemic period. The sample will include employees in education
sector, telecommunication , health , etc.

3.2 Measurement (Questionnaire):

A five Likert scale questionnaire was developed to understand the impact of remote working
on employee performance in KSA. The questionnaire has two sections. The first section has
number of questions in order to collect demographic data for the sample. The second section
has 21 questions to measure employees’ perception regarding remote working and its impact
on their performance. (Please see Appendix number 1)

3.3 Data collection:

In this research, online survey was used to collect the data from a sample of employees
working in a private sector in KSA.

11
 3.4 Results:
This section presents the results of the research.

3.5 Demographic Characteristics of The Sample

The sample size was 48 responses from different sectors and the result are showed below:

4.3.1 Age

For the age, majority of respondent age were from 25-35, followed by age 36- 45 years and
finally by 46 – 60 years

12
 2.4.2 Experiences

66.7% of our survey employees have 5 years’ experience and 16.7% have 6 - 10 years’ experience. Also
10.4% are more than 16 years’ experience and finally 6.3% have 11 - 15 years’ experience.

2.4.3 Firm Size

66% of voters working in firms have (1- 50) employees and 25% of them are working in firms that have
more than 250 employees, also 8.5% of voters working in firms have (51 - 250) employees.

13
 2.4.4 Job Level

About 72% of voters work as employees, 8.5% are supervisors and 19.1% are managers.

4.4 Employee Perception on Remote Working and performance

Most employees are very satisfied with remote work experience.

14
About 20.8% of employees are getting good support when they are working from home, also 20.8% are in
good situation with their firm's support , 37.5% are in the middle which means that they are getting
support sometimes , and about 12.5% +8.3% are not satisfied with the support of their firms .

The level of communication between employees in general is high, the results indicated that

15
 around 39 of the respondents perceived that there interaction with their colleagues are very
affective.

Most employees perceived that they are aware of the policies of remote work , and few of them
have problems with their firm's policies .

The results above indicated that their adjectives are clear for them, which indicate that the remote
working experience is appropriate to them and they do not face challenges to perform their tasks .

16
 Most employees are satisfied with communication between them and their leaders; more than 34%
reported that they very satisfied in their interactions with their leaders in remote working environment.

17
The respondents in general are satisfied with the quality and frequency of communication between them
and their leaders.

18
Most employees are satisfied with the support from the company, most employees perceived that
there is a supporting infrastructure to perfume their tasks remotely.

19
The above results illustrated that most employees cannot find their teammates when they need
them, because there is no specific time that makes them available together at the same time .

Most employees feel that they are supported and trusted by their team leaders which indicates
that they feel good with their jobs and can do their tasks easily.

20
 Majority of the sample believe that they can find their leaders when they need them.

Regarding the impact of remote working on employee work-life balance, 31.3% have good
work-life balance, 16.7% are satisfied with their life and remote working , 25% are in between
and 20.8% + 3% are not satisfied with life balance .

21
Regarding the availability of remote working infrastructure, most employees believe that they
have all needed equipment and remote tools to complete their tasks.

61.7% have separate and suitable space in their home for work but the other 38.3% don't have.

22
From the above figure, the results indicated that 27.1% cannot go to turn off mode at the end of
the day, also 16.7% cannot make it easy, 20.8% are in between , 16.7% can do it and another
18.8% can't turn off the work mode easily . It depends on the work pressure they face and the
nature of their tasks.

68.8% are taking regular breaks but the other 31.3% are not.

23
The majority of the sample around 35.4% are thinking that productivity in remote working is the
same as in office, 20.8% also feeling they are at the same productivity, 20.8% are in between,
other 12.5% and 10.4% don't think they are at the same productivity.

The majority of the sample around 29.2% are looking forward to returning to the office , also
8.3% are feeling that , 33.3% are in between and 24.2% + 25% prefer keeping with remote
working experience .

24
 Chapter Four

Summary of Findings and Recommendations

25
 4.1 Summary of Findings

1. Most of employees are comfortable with remote working experience and getting support
they need ant not facing a lot of technical problems with internet network connection.

2. Most of employees are feeling good in remote working.

3. Remote working increase employees’ productivity.

4. Employees can connect to their leaders and teammates as they want and getting the
support they need every time, they know what they should do in their jobs.

5. Some of employees are facing a little problem in their life balance because some of them
are women and they have children’s and more responsibilities in their homes also some
of them don't have separate place for work in their homes, so they are facing problems in
their working.

6. The brake times are important for all of employees, the firms should focus with this point
and develop it to keep remote working experience good and insure that employees’
productivity is the same as office.

7. Some of employees are looking forward to returning to the offices and like the groups
they are in these offices, but some are prefer keeping with remote working, it depends on
work environment they are on their firms.
8. Remote working experience will be successful if firms take it seriously and are forced to
fix the problems that employees are not satisfied with.

26
 4.2 Recommendations:

1. Know the Ground Rules:

employees should know what they are required to do ( fixed time schedule, or is there flexibility
in work time ) Are they allowed to work on public Wi-Fi or not , Which tech tools might they
need, such as Zoom for video conferencing, Slack or Microsoft Teams or WhatsApp for group
chats, it’s important that employees spells out the ground rules and ensures that they have the
appropriate equipment, such as a laptop, as well as network access, passcodes, and instructions
for remote login, the organization should be sure to do trial runs and work out any problems to
ensure that there are no problems hindering their work.

2. Set Up a Functional Workspace

Not everyone has a designated home office, but it’s critical to have a private, quiet space for
employees to work. They should separate work areas from personal spaces and use it just for
work, not for other activities, this will help to minimize distractions and help them to be focused
on their tasks.

3. Socialize with Colleagues

Loneliness, disconnect, and isolation are common problems in remote work life, especially for
extroverts. Companies with a remote work culture usually offer ways to socialize. For example,
they might have channels in a team messaging app, like Slack, for talking about common
interests or organizing meetups for people in the same region.

4. Computers and Information Technology (IT) support

This is very important for remote working; one or two technical support employees should be
available when any technical problem happens.

27
 4. Translators
International companies need translators all the time. They may translate files and documents or
transcribe and translate conversations and conference calls. People who speak uncommon
languages are even more in demand, and these home-based jobs are plentiful.

5. Regular breaking times

Employees should take regular breaking times to rest ant do their home responsibilities, these
break times should be clear and regular to increase their productivity.

6. Encourage employees

Organizations should take care that their employees are not on their eyes, so they have to get the
encourage from their leaders to let them feel that the company is taking care of their employee’s
even if they are not in the offices.

28
 Reference

Bailey, D. & Kurland, N. (2002). A review of telework research: Findings, new

directions, and lessons for the study of modern work. Journal of Organizational
Behavior, 23(4), 383– 400. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.144

Boin, A., Kofman, C., Kuilman, J., Kuipers, S., & van Witteloostuijn, A. (2015). Does
organizational adaptation really matter? How mission change affects the survival of
U.S. federal independent agencies, 1933–2011. Governance (Oxford), 30(4), 663–686.
https://doi.org/10.1111/gove.12249

Chang, Y., Chien, C., & Shen, L. (2021). Telecommuting during the coronavirus
pandemic: Future time orientation as a mediator between proactive coping and
perceived work productivity in two cultural samples. Personality and Individual
Differences, 171, 110508-110508. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.110508

Jenkins, R. (2018, January 8). This is why Millennials care so much about work-life
balance. Inc. https://www.inc.com/ryan-jenkins/this-is-what-millennials-value-most-in-
a-job-why.html

Kaduk, A., Genadek, K., Kelly, E. L., & Moen, P. (2019). Involuntary vs. voluntary
flexible work: Insights for scholars and stakeholders. Community, Work & Family,
22(4), 412– 442. https://doi.org/10.1080/13668803.2019.1616532

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Moderating role of industry 4.0 base technologies. International Journal of Production
Economics, 234, 108075–. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpe.2021.108075

Smith, S., Patmos, A., & Pitts, M. (2018). Communication and teleworking: A study of
communication channel satisfaction, personality, and job satisfaction for teleworking
employees. International Journal of Business Communication, 55(1), 44– 68.
https://doi-org.wsuproxy.mnpals.net/10.1177/2329488415589101

Torten, R., Reaiche, C., & Caraballo, E. (2016). Teleworking in the new milleneum.
The Journal of Developing Areas, 50(5), 317–326.
https://doi.org/10.1353/jda.2016.0060 Winona State University. (2021, June 5). Winona
State University Overview. https://www.winona.edu/aboutwsu.asp

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 Appendix

Employee's Remote working Survey

As much of companies in Saudi Arabia moved to a remote work model in 2020, because of
COVID -19 effect, leaders scrambled to ensure their teams had everything they needed to
be successful. Now, with some companies pledging to never return to the office, the focus is
on optimizing the work from home experience and look to the results of employees’
opinions about this experience.

1. Age
25 – 35 36 – 45 46 – 60

2. Experience years

5 years | 6 to 10 years | 11 to 15 years | 16 to 20 years

3. Firm size
(1 - 50) employees (51 - 250) employees (250 and more)

4. Your job level

employee | supervisor | manager

5. How do you feel about working from home?

dissatisfied 1 2 3 4 5 very satisfied

6.Do you feel the company supports remote staff effectively?

limited support 1 2 3 4 5 full support

31
7.whats the level of connection between you and your teammates through remote working?

not enough 1 2 3 4 5 enough

8.Are the REMOTE WORKING policies clear?

not clear 1 2 3 4 5 very clear

9.Are your weekly and yearly objectives are very clear to you Mark only one oval.

not clear 1 2 3 4 5 very clear

10. Do you feel there is adequate communication from your teammates and team leaders

Low level 1 2 3 4 5 High level

11.How satisfied are you with the frequency of communication from leadership?
Mark only one oval.
Dissatisfied 1 2 3 4 5 very satisfied

12.How satisfied are you with the quality of communication from leadership?

Dissatisfied 1 2 3 4 5 very satisfied

13.What communication channels work best for you?

google meet | microsoft teams | whatsapp chat | direct call | Other:…..

32
 14.Is it easy to reach your teammates and team leaders when you need them?

Very easy 1 2 3 4 5 very difficult

15.Do you feel supported and trusted by your team leader? By the organization?

never 1 2 3 4 5 always

16. Do you have all the equipment and remote tools you need to complete your work to your
usual ability?

I don’t have 1 2 3 4 5 I have them all

17.do you find your leaders to support you while you work from home?

They are not available 1 2 3 4 5 They are available

18.I feel that i have a good work-life balance .

Strongly agree 1 2 3 4 5 strongly disagree

19.Do you have a separate and suitable space in your home for work?
Yes | No

20.Is it easy to “turn off work mode” at the end of the day?

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 21.Do you take regular breaks?
Yes | No

22.Do you feel as productive at home as you are at the office?

low productivity | high productivity

23.whats the things that holding you back from completing your work?

24.Do you look forward to returning to the office?

NO 1 2 3 4 5 YES

25. What is your biggest remote working struggle?

34