For economies, enterprises and workers across Africa, the [Coronavirus Disease 2019] COVID-19 pandemic has brought about unprecedented changes to the workplace. Some of these changes have been immediate, such as disruptions to supply chains or lockdowns that forced enterprises to close. Other changes - and perhaps the more significant ones - are long-term, with the COVID-19 pandemic reshaping and accelerating existing trends in workplace change. At its core, the pandemic has fundamentally altered where and how people work, upending many long-standing norms and practices. Enterprises and worker
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For economies, enterprises and workers across Africa, the [Coronavirus Disease 2019] COVID-19 pandemic has brought about unprecedented changes to the workplace. Some of these changes have been immediate, such as disruptions to supply chains or lockdowns that forced enterprises to close. Other changes - and perhaps the more significant ones - are long-term, with the COVID-19 pandemic reshaping and accelerating existing trends in workplace change. At its core, the pandemic has fundamentally altered where and how people work, upending many long-standing norms and practices. Enterprises and workers have made many changes, often out of necessity, though they have regularly brought unexpected improvements in productivity or working conditions.
This report documents these changes and examines how enterprises from across Africa view and respond to them. It has been developed with support from the Bureau for Employers Activities of the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the ILO Regional Office for Africa, in partnership with employer and business membership organizations (EBMOs) from across Africa. The research covers fifteen countries in Africa, and takes a mixed-methods approach. One component is a survey conducted from June to November 2021 covering 1,017 formal sector enterprises, most of whom are members of EBMOs. Collectively, they employ some 750,000 workers. This is complemented by a broad-based literature review and 126 key informant interviews, mostly with top management and human resources professionals from the private sector. In addition, we conducted five in-depth case studies with multinational enterprises, each having operations in at least five African countries. While these various sources of information do not cover all parts of every economy in Africa, they provide deep and broad insights about how workplaces at urban, formal enterprises in Africa are changing.
Excerpt from publication.
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