Chapter 2

Review of Related Literature

This chapter the researcher wants to discuss some related article about work from home,
onsite type of work and factors that affect to mental health of the employees in private
companies during the adjustment period from lockdown to new normal type of work.

WHAT IS WORK FROM HOME?

Work from Home (WFH)/(telecommuting) is often used interchangeably with remote or

telework (Garrett and Employee Productivity Traditional terminology of productivity in the
20th century firms that mainly focus on manual worker efficiency can be referred to as a
ratio of goods and services that a worker produces to an amount of time needed
(Fernandez, 2013; OECD, 2001). This definition is inherently different from knowledge
worker productivity which is referred to as a productivity measure for non-routine output
and abstract input of modern workers in knowledge-intensive organizations (Palvalin,
2017; Reinhardt et al., 2011) There’s a big shift in the 21st century era from production-
oriented to more knowledge-intensive organizations (Hussain et al., 2018; Palvalin,
2017). Knowledge workers emphasize non-routine problem solving, which requires a
combination of convergent and divergent thinking (Reinhardt et al., Danziger, 2007).
However, there is terminology differentiation between WFH (telecommuting) and remote
work (teleworking). Remote work is a process in which employees work in locations
other than the traditional setting, which usually involves telecommuting and virtual
working where physical presence isn’t necessary (Hatch, 2006). WFH is using the same
concept as remote working. Physical presence in the work setting isn’t required, but
naturally, employees live within commuting distance of the office and do their work in a
home setting (Choudhury et al., 2020; Garrett and Danziger, 2007). Remote work acts
as a broader concept consisting of four dimensions: work location that can be anywhere,
diversity of employment relationship, time distribution, and usage of information and
communication technology. This paper will use a narrower concept approach by using
WFH or telecommuting as a working definition (Garrett and Danziger 2007).

Employee Productivity
Traditional terminology of productivity in the 20th century firms that mainly focus on
manual worker efficiency can be referred to as a ratio of goods and services that a
worker produces to an amount of time needed (Fernandez, 2013; OECD, 2001). This
definition is inherently different from knowledge worker productivity which is referred to
as a productivity measure for non-routine output and abstract input of modern workers in
knowledge-intensive organizations (Palvalin, 2017; Reinhardt et al., 2011) There’s a big
shift in the 21st century era from production-oriented to more knowledge-intensive
organizations (Hussain et al., 2018; Palvalin, 2017). Knowledge workers emphasize
non-routine problem solving, which requires a combination of convergent and divergent
thinking (Reinhardt et al., Danziger, 2007). However, there is terminology differentiation
between WFH (telecommuting) and remote work (teleworking). Remote work is a
process in which employees work in locations other than the traditional setting, which
usually involves telecommuting and virtual working where physical presence isn’t
necessary (Hatch, 2006). WFH is using the same concept as remote working. Physical
presence in the work setting isn’t required, but naturally, employees live within
commuting distance of the office and do their work in a home setting (Choudhury et al.,
2020; Garrett and Danziger, 2007). Remote work acts as a broader concept consisting
of four dimensions: work location that can be anywhere, diversity of employment
relationship, time distribution, and usage of information and communication technology.
This paper will use a narrower concept approach by using WFH or telecommuting as a
working definition (Garrett and Danziger, 2007). 510 JOURNAL OF APPLIED
MANAGEMENT VOLUME 19 NUMBER 3 SEPTEMBER 2021 Sekar Wulan
Prasetyaningtyas,Clivensen Heryanto, Nadia Fasha Nurfauzi,Sugiharto Bangsawan
Tanjung 2011). Traditional productivity definition and measurement cannot be applied to
knowledge workers in the 20th century which worker’s output is more abstract
(Antikainen and Lönnqvist, 2006). However, the productivity of knowledge workers can
still be measured accurately through subjective productivity measurement (SPM), which
collects information about productivity through a questionnaire or an interview targeted
to an interest group (Antikainen and Lönnqvist, 2006). For this study, we’re going to refer
to employee productivity as knowledge worker productivity. Not only is it more relevant
to the 21st century, but the work characteristic of knowledge workers is more known to
work in remote sites that are inherently suitable with the WFH concept (Martinez-
Amador, 2016).
Work-Life Balance (WLB).
Clark (2000) Work Life balance can be defined as satisfaction and good functioning at
work and home with the minimum role of conflict. Greenblatt (2002) described WLB as
an acceptable level of conflict between work and nonwork demands, usually involving
managing competing demands for resources. Those are definitions from the situational
perspective that are often deemed more relevant rather than formulating one size fit all
model and definition as terminology of WLB is very diverse among scholars depending
on their idealism about the term ‘balance’ in the WLB (Reiter, 2007; Voydanoff, 2005).
The situational perspective focuses more on evaluating individual actions within the
situational context in defining WLB (Fletcher, 1998; Reiter, 2007). WLB becomes more
crucial as the arrival of new generations of workers into the workforce demands a
greater priority seeking a balance of work and the rest of life (Tulgan, 1996). There’s
also a growing concern in the community as the conflict between demands of work and
central life increase resulted in reduced quality of life (Guest, 2002).
Job Satisfaction
Despite being a very popular construct in the management field, there’s no general
agreement regarding the definition of job satisfaction (Aziri, 2011; Zhu, 2013). Early
definition by Locke (1969) defines job satisfaction as a pleasurable or positive emotional
state of employees towards their job experience when they evaluate the expectations.
While earlier scholars focus on the affective reflection of work, the latter scholars view
job satisfaction as an attitude (Zhu, 2013). Armstrong (2008) defined job satisfaction as
an attitude and feelings towards their job. While a positive attitude towards the job
indicates job satisfaction, negative attitudes indicate dissatisfaction (Aziri, 2011). Still, on
the attitude perspective towards job satisfaction, Maheskhumar and Jayaraman (2013)
defined job satisfaction as an employee attitude towards their work, organizational
rewards, and the social, organizational, and physical environment in which work is
performed. From this definition, we can see how extrinsic factors such as organizational
rewards start to consider job satisfaction construct.

IT sector and work from home

Google was the first company to start the culture of work from home in 2005, gradually
most of the IT and ITES based companies adopted this culture. In India this concept was
initiated after 2010 and that too in crucial conditions like ill health of employees,
pregnancy of female employees, double shift, etc. this scenario was successful in IT
sector because in most of the cases the main of task of employees is to cater the
national and international customers in the form of technical support or the development
of desired software and this can be done from the ease of one’s home as well. Then on
the other hand it was also found that employees are more comfortable in the social
setting of their homes and even the productivity is heightened. Journal of Xi'an
University of Architecture & Technology Volume XII, Issue IX, 2020 ISSN No : 1006-
7930 Page No: 820 It is not so that all the IT employees are working from home or they
are having the experience of same. In the duration of pandemic IT sector was one of the
most affected avenue and many of the employees have lost their jobs in the process.
Initially it was not easy for them to revive but gradually they were compelled to stay at
home and also to work from home. As stated above this is general human nature that a
given individual can do a particular work at his free will but if there is a condition of
compulsion then he or she tries to avoid it and a mental stigma prevents the person from
giving 100% to the job. This present study will try to evaluate the situation in detail and
also throw some light on the job related pressure on IT employees in the process of
work from home. The researcher has conducted this study in Hyderabad and tried to
contact more than 200 respondents to collect data. This study is based on random
sampling and results are analyzed using SPSS Ver. 22.0.
Chung et al (2020) this is a well-known fact that initially the outbreak of COVID-19
started from China and after this everyone was cursing China for the same, but the
researchers have conducted a number of studies in China itself and commented on the
social and mental condition of people in the process. This study was based on this
theme only and the outcomes of study stated that as of now whole world is against
China and people are having anti-China sentiments. But then again findings of the study
stated that the first hit of COVID-19 was on China and it took longest time to recover as
well. In this process most of the people were working from their homes and it exerted a
lot of effect on the mental health of people, even at the time of survey the researchers
can feel the depression and stated of being felt deprived.
Malta et al (2020) this study was conducted in the second most affected continent i.e.
Europe, the main focus of the study was on the analysis of mental stated of people who
were working from home. The researchers discovered that specially in IT sector most of
the employees are working from home and till May and June, 2020 they were not
allowed to go to their offices and perform work. In the process there was a drastic
change in the behavior of people. In words of the respective family members they have
shown a lot of change in their routine behavior in the form of depression, fatigue,
irritation, etc. as a matter of fact this was not their normal behavior before the hit of
pandemic. Tsai et al (2020) this study was conducted to study the decreasing health
potential of people in the pandemic time of COVID-19. Main focus of the study was on
the people who are not Journal of Xi'an University of Architecture & Technology Volume
XII, Issue IX, 2020 ISSN No : 1006-7930 Page No: 821 the American residents and due
to threat of COVID-19 they were expelled from their rental homes. The findings of the
study stated that such employees are basically homeless and they are not even able to
go back to their respective countries, apart from this they have to work for earning their
living hood. This was a difficult situation for them and in this process they lost their
routine behavior and start to react absurdly on situations normal issues of life. It was
also evident that due to this changed behavior there is a hike in crime rate as well.
Snoswell (2020) this study has evaluate the role of media on mental health of people in
the times of pandemic. The findings of the study stated that the people who are working
from home are dependent on different types of media for information and even
entertainment. As a matter of fact they are working from home and staying inside for all
the time, then on the other hand they are also watching television and accessing internet
for news and entertainment. As a matter of fact, most of the times media was showing
negative views for the outbreak of COVID-19 and gradually it became difficult for the
people to stay in their sound mental health. In the process of coping with the scenario
they started to show a negative change in their behavior.

Possibility of the Work from Home (WFH) initiative being part of the workforce
strategies of companies in the post COVID-19 lockdown period.
While WFH is not a feasible option for hospitality, manufacturing, performing arts and
heavy industries, it is a new thing for those companies who never had it as part of their
culture. WFH has been savior for many companies who otherwise would have shut
down. Even government and PSUs embraced the idea of WFH (Deorah, 2020). People
have differing wishes which need to be balanced. On one side they want to save time
and work more flexibility and on the other hand they also desire face-to-face contact too.
The overall study suggests that the best way to balance these wishes is by having a
system which helps some amount of commuting and increased possibility of WFH as per
the desire and the possibility (Rubin et al., 2020). A study conducted by Dubey, A.,
Tripathi, S., (2020) revealed that 73% had positive approach towards WFH whereas
23% had negative approach. Also, while 60% people showed emotions of trust, joy and
anticipation for WFH, some showed emotions of anger, disgust, fear and sadness. The
study overall concluded that WFH activities had a positive perception worldwide (Dubey
& Tripathi, 2020).
On WFH, Jennifer Christie, HR Head at Twitter said in a message to the staff that “We
understand this is an unprecedented step, but these are unprecedented times”. Christie
added that WFH doesn’t change the day-to-day work. It’s just that the person is doing
the same work from a different environment. Chief Executive of WordPress and Tumblr
owner Automatic also mentions that the work distribution is already in place in his
company and he predicts that these changes will offer an opportunity for many
companies to create a kind of culture that promotes work flexibility which has been long
overdue (Hern, 2020). A global research conducted by Lenovo shows that 74% of the
respondents from India agreed that they are more willing to work from home post
pandemic than they were before it. They are more connected to their devices than ever:
91% have increased the usage of laptops, 95% agreed that they have become their own
IT person, and 43% believe that companies should invest more in tech training for
further enhancing WFH opportunities (BW Online Bureau, 2020).
In a study by Dingel and Neiman (2020) it has been concluded that 37% of jobs in US
Could be entirely in the form of work from home (Gottlieb et al., 2020). This is also
mentioned in the study conducted by Su (2020) that 39% of the jobs can be done from
home (Alon et al., 2020). In his article Nicholas Bloom mentions that through WFH 33%
of increase in efficiency is expected due to calmer climate, which makes it simpler to
handle calls. At home, individuals don't experience what we call the "cake in the
lunchroom" impact. Workplaces are really unimaginably diverting spots. The other 66%
can be ascribed to the way that the individuals at home worked more hours — they
began prior, took more limited breaks and worked until the day's end. They had no drive
and didn't get things done at lunch. There is also decrease in sick leave from employees
working from home (Bloom, 2014). Organizations keep on wrestling with the continuous
business disturbances from COVID-19. Perpetual WFH could supplement cost-cutting
estimates that CFOs have just taken or plan to take. In Gartner's latest review, 20% of
respondents demonstrated they have conceded on-premise technology spend, with an
extra 12% wanting to do as such. An extra 13% of respondents noted they had just
made expense decreases in real estate costs, with another 9% intending to make similar
moves in the coming months (Lavelle, 2020). However, another study found that poor
countries will have significantly lower share of employment that can be done from home
(Dingel & Neiman 2020).

FACTORS THAT AFFECT THE MENTAL HEALTH OF EMPLOYEE IN IRELAND

Factors contributing to adverse mental health impacts on employees during COVID-19

were summarized by a review study from several aspects. Specifically, heightened
perception of COVID-19 contagion risk has been identified as a predictor of poor mental
health. The perceived risk of being infected at work which varies depending on
demographics is positively associated with emotional exhaustion. Also, individuals may
fear for their family members’ health and safety. Info emic versus the unknown
contributes to pandemic fatigue as individuals are constantly exposed to an overload of
rapidly changing COVID-19 information. Quarantine and confinement slow the spread of
infectious disease while potentially increasing risk of anxiety and depressive symptoms.
Lack of social interactions between colleagues can increase employee stress levels.
Stigma and social exclusion are frequently observed among healthcare workers leading
to psychological distress and depression. Additionally, individuals experiencing loss of
income are reportedly more distressed and in poorer health. (National Library Medicine
2022).