Six Key Advantages and Disadvantages of Working from Home in Europe during COVID-19

Ipsen, Christine; van Veldhoven, Marc; Kirchner, Kathrin; Hansen, John Paulin

doi:10.3390/ijerph18041826

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Six Key Advantages and Disadvantages of Working from Home in Europe during COVID-19

Christine Ipsen

Marc van Veldhoven

Kathrin Kirchner

^1,*

and

John Paulin Hansen

DTU Management Department, Technical University of Denmark, 2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark

Department of Human Resource Studies, Tilburg University, 5037 AB Tilburg, The Netherlands

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Academic Editor: Giulio Arcangeli

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(4), 1826; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18041826

Received: 24 January 2021 / Revised: 3 February 2021 / Accepted: 8 February 2021 / Published: 13 February 2021

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Digitalization of Knowledge Work and Its Influence on Occupational Health)

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Abstract

The number of people working from home (WFH) increased radically during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The purpose of this study was therefore to investigate people’s experiences of WFH during the pandemic and to identify the main factors of advantages and disadvantages of WFH. Data from 29 European countries on the experiences of knowledge workers (N = 5748) WFH during the early stages of lockdown (11 March to 8 May 2020) were collected. A factor analysis showed the overall distribution of people’s experiences and how the advantages and disadvantages of WFH during the early weeks of the pandemic can be grouped into six key factors. The results indicated that most people had a more positive rather than negative experience of WFH during lockdown. Three factors represent the main advantages of WFH: (i) work–life balance, (ii) improved work efficiency and (iii) greater work control. The main disadvantages were (iv) home office constraints, (v) work uncertainties and (vi) inadequate tools. Comparing gender, number of children at home, age and managers versus employees in relation to these factors provided insights into the differential impact of WFH on people’s lives. The factors help organisations understand where action is most needed to safeguard both performance and well-being. As the data were collected amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, we recommend further studies to validate the six factors and investigate their importance for well-being and performance in knowledge work. View Full-Text

Keywords: COVID-19; experiences; working from home; survey; advantages; disadvantages; knowledge work

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Ipsen, C.; van Veldhoven, M.; Kirchner, K.; Hansen, J.P. Six Key Advantages and Disadvantages of Working from Home in Europe during COVID-19. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18, 1826. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18041826

AMA Style

Ipsen C, van Veldhoven M, Kirchner K, Hansen JP. Six Key Advantages and Disadvantages of Working from Home in Europe during COVID-19. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2021; 18(4):1826. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18041826

Chicago/Turabian Style

Ipsen, Christine, Marc van Veldhoven, Kathrin Kirchner, and John P. Hansen. 2021. "Six Key Advantages and Disadvantages of Working from Home in Europe during COVID-19" International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 18, no. 4: 1826. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18041826

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Author Biographies

Christine Ipsen

Associate Professor Christine Ipsen, PhD, is head of the Implementation and Performance Management group at DTU MAN at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and has an affiliation with University of Massachusetts- Lowell, US. From 2012-2016 she was head of the departments’ PhD School. From 2020-2025 she is a visiting senior fellow at Nottingham Trent University, UK. During her PhD at DTU, she studied prevention of work-related stress in knowledge intensive work. She has led a number of research projects focusing on developing participatory intervention programs supporting implementation of preventive changes and her research is published in a number of books and papers. Her present research focus is on distance management, working from home and in particular the role of new digital technologies and how to manage organizational performance and employee-well-being in tandem.

Marc van Veldhoven

Marc van Veldhoven is Professor of Work, Health and Well-being in and chairman of the Department of Human Resources Studies at Tilburg University, the Netherlands. His research focuses on HRM, industrial and organisational psychology, as well as occupational health. He was a practitioner in occupational health care for 15 years before coming to academia in 2002. His main interest is in building bridges between work psychology and strategic HRM. He has numerous publications on applied psychology, HRM and occupational health.

Kathrin Kirchner

Kathrin Kirchner, PhD, is Associate Professor at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) in the Implementation and Performance Management Group. Her research focuses on knowledge work, virtual collaboration, enterprise social media and psychosocial wellbeing. Her work has appeared, for example, in the Journal of Knowledge Management, Online Information Review and the Academy of Management Learning and Education. She is currently involved in a research project studying the working from home situation of knowledge workers. She was previously working in projects researching the support of medical treatment and diagnosis processes.

John Paulin Hansen

John Paulin Hansen is a Bevica professor in the Technology and Innovation Management group at DTU. He got his PhD in 1992 from Institute of Psychology at The University of Aarhus. For eight years John worked at as part of the Systems Analysis Department, at Risø National Laboratory and for 15 years was associated professor at the IT University of Copenhagen, heading education programmes and research groups. His research areas are human factors and human computer interaction with a special focus on innovation, e-health and usability of new technology. Much of the research and development work has focused on the use of eye-tracking technology for disabled people, initiating the EU Network of excellence “Communication by Gaze Interaction” (COGAIN), with approximately 100 researchers participating.

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Six Key Advantages and Disadvantages of Working from Home in Europe during COVID-19

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