Working during the pandemic: from resistance to revolution?

The 2020 pandemic compelled people to work from home, transforming the world of work. We considered it essential to understand how this form of working was undertaken on a large scale. We aimed to identify the experiences of a key group of employees - those working in the Australian Public Service (APS) - during the [Coronavirus Disease 2019] COVID-19 pandemic restrictions. Around 6,000 APS employees responded to our survey, including nearly 1,400 managers. The key message was the overwhelmingly positive experience of managers and employees, realising the benefits of working from home and dispelling some long-held concerns. Key findings in terms of the future were that: (1) over two-thirds wanted to continue working from home on a regular basis for some of their hours; (2) the key reasons for wanting to continue working at home included the ability to manage work and caring responsibilities, and time for themselves and family; (3) nearly two-thirds of managers indicated they would be more supportive of working from home in the future; and (4) while managers are supportive, organisational culture may be lagging.

Key lessons emerging from this research are that: (1) while the focus in recent decades has been on flexibility of hours, our findings suggest that flexibility of location of work is at least as important; greater flexibility in the place of work reduces the need for flexibilities such as reduced hours through part-time work and seemed to be a key piece in the puzzle of reconciling work and caring responsibilities; (2) the findings suggest a major shift in the mindset of managers, from previous resistance or scepticism about the benefits of working from home to a new understanding of the potential productivity and other benefits; the findings confirmed employee enthusiasm for working from home on some workdays and identified improved management receptiveness towards it in the future; and policy may be lagging behind practice, and there is scope for innovations in policy and work design and understandings of performance; and (3) there are some remaining hurdles to overcome: (a) findings suggest some employees are a little surer of manager support for working from home in the future, but are lukewarm about whether they will get organisational support; and (b) ICT also remains a challenge; and (4) there are also some areas where the working from home experience could be improved, postpandemic; many employees reported working longer hours than pre-pandemic, and there is scope for employers to address health and wellbeing aspects; and there is also scope to focus on relationships and professional networks, with some employees reporting decreased ability to undertake some of the less tangible, relational aspects of work.

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