Post-Pandemic Office Work: Perceived Challenges and Opportunities for a Sustainable Work Environment
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Region Västra Götaland, The Institute of Stress Medicine, SE-413 19 Gothenburg, Sweden
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Division Design & Human Factors, Chalmers University of Technology, SE-413 19 Gothenburg, Sweden
3
Division Digital Systems, RISE-Research Institutes of Sweden, SE-722 12 Västerås, Sweden
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Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Academic Editors: Horacio Molina-Sánchez, Gabriele Giorgi, Dante Castillo Guajardo and Antonio Ariza-Montes
Sustainability 2022, 14(1), 294; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14010294
Received: 30 November 2021
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Revised: 17 December 2021
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Accepted: 23 December 2021
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Published: 28 December 2021
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Rethinking the Subjective Wellbeing for a New Workplace Scenario)
The widespread adoption of remote and hybrid work due to COVID-19 calls for studies that explore the ramifications of these scenarios for office workers from an occupational health and wellbeing perspective. This paper aims to identify the needs and challenges in remote and hybrid work and the potential for a sustainable future work environment. Data collection involved two qualitative studies with a total of 53 participants, who represented employees, staff managers, and service/facility providers at three Swedish public service organisations (primarily healthcare and infrastructure administration). The results describe opportunities and challenges with the adoption of remote and hybrid work from individual, group, and leadership perspectives. The main benefits of remote work were increased flexibility, autonomy, work-life balance and individual performance, while major challenges were social aspects such as lost comradery and isolation. Hybrid work was perceived to provide the best of both worlds of remote and office work, given that employees and managers develop new skills and competencies to adjust to new ways of working. To achieve the expected individual and organisational benefits of hybrid work, employers are expected to provide support and flexibility and re-design the physical and digital workplaces to fit the new and diverse needs of employees.
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Keywords:
office work; flexible work; new ways of working (NWoW); remote work; hybrid work; work-from-home; COVID-19; work environment; occupational health and safety (OHS); sustainable future work
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MDPI and ACS Style
Babapour Chafi, M.; Hultberg, A.; Bozic Yams, N. Post-Pandemic Office Work: Perceived Challenges and Opportunities for a Sustainable Work Environment. Sustainability 2022, 14, 294. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14010294
AMA Style
Babapour Chafi M, Hultberg A, Bozic Yams N. Post-Pandemic Office Work: Perceived Challenges and Opportunities for a Sustainable Work Environment. Sustainability. 2022; 14(1):294. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14010294
Chicago/Turabian StyleBabapour Chafi, Maral, Annemarie Hultberg, and Nina Bozic Yams. 2022. "Post-Pandemic Office Work: Perceived Challenges and Opportunities for a Sustainable Work Environment" Sustainability 14, no. 1: 294. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14010294
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