Impact of Covid-19 pandemic on the workload and home office in some European countries
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37772/2309-9275-2023-1(20)-1Keywords:
economic crisis, home office, human resource management, pandemics, workloadAbstract
The spread of a new and unknown viral infectious disease named the Covid-19 pandemic paralysed world without any preparation time. It has significantly changed approaches to organizational management as well as HR policy. Governments have taken immediate measures to address the challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, including protecting jobs, providing financial support to businesses and households experiencing a sharp drop in income. The present study focuses on a subfield of a previous larger research, on the change in workload due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the increase in the frequency of remote work, as well as their consequences. The increase in telecommuting is one of the innovations that can clearly be attributed to the impact of the pandemic. It has become an accepted form of work in many sectors where even the professionals did not think of using it before. The research has been conducted based on the questionnaire consisted of groups of questions related to the demographic characteristics (age, gender, place of residence, position), development of the workload, and the more complicated working conditions caused by Covid19 pandemic. The respondents from Hungary, Montenegro, Spain and the United Kingdom were selected using a respondent-driven time space sampling procedure. The method of sampling and the size of the target group can be considered as limitations of our research – the statistical conditions for evaluation are nevertheless met, given the for the number of elements and normality of the sample as a whole and its individual groups. As results, authors found that the same epidemic in each country led to different workload increases and affected subordinates and non-subordinates, and women and men to different degrees. Among the effects of the crises caused by the pandemic, the increase in workload is the most significant. That must be taken into consideration in the HRM policy. The most important finding is that the increasing frequency of remote work to a certain extend can be considered as innovation. The nature of the research conducted on basis of four European countries can contribute to the future development of scientific study related the solution of similar problems in HR management and labour organization.
References
Bagó J. (2020). A munka a koronavírus után. (Work after the coronavirus – in Hungarian) Munkaügyi Szemle, 2020b(1), 5.
Baska, M. (2020, August 12). Half of managers fear staff are burning out because of Covid-19, report finds. People Management. https://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/news/articles/half-of-managers-fear-staff-are-burning-out-because-of-covid-19
Cameron, S., & Price, D. (2009). Business Research Methods: A Practical Approach. Kogan Page Publishers.
Cherry, K. (2020, March 4). APA Ethics Code Principles and Standards. Verywell Mind. https://www.verywellmind.com/apa-ethical-code-guidelines-4687465?print
CIPD. (2020). CIPD Good Work Index 2020 Report (p. 60) [UK Working Lives Survey]. Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. https://www.cipd.co.uk/Images/good-work-index-full-report-2020-2_tcm18-79210.pdf
Coldiretti. (2020, November 18). Covid, il Natale senza turismo costa 4,1 mld. Coldiretti. https://www.coldiretti.it/economia/covid-il-natale-senza-turismo-costa-41-mld
Eurostat. (2021). Employment and unemployment (Labour force survey). https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/explore/all/popul?lang=en&subtheme=labour.employ.lfsa.lfsa_emp&display=list&sort=category&extractionId=LFSA_EGAIS
Fogel, R. W. (1994). Economic Growth, Population Theory, and Physiology: The Bearing of Long-Term Processes on the Making of Economic Policy. The American Economic Review, 84(3), 369–395. https://doi.org/10.3386/w4638
Forbes. (2020, September 2). Kijöttek a számok: Nem kérdés, ki a koronavírus-járvány legnagyobb nyertes Magyarországon (The numbers are out: There is no question who is the biggest winner of the coronavirus epidemic in Hungary – in Hungarian)| Forbes.hu. Forbes, 2020(09). https://forbes.hu/uzlet/kijottek-a-szamok-nem-kerdes-ki-a-koronavirus-jarvany-legnagyobb-nyertes-magyarorszagon/
Gajar, A. H. (1983). The Relevance of Problems Encountered in Attitudinal Research: A Personal Perspective. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 16(10), 586–587. https://doi.org/10.1177/002221948301601003
Grotte J., Pató Gáborné Szűcs B., Hollósy-Vadász G. (2021). HR kihívások a pandémia idején a hazai szállodaiparban és vendéglátásban (II. rész) [HR Challenges During Days of the Pandemic in the Hungarian Hotel and Catering Industry, Part II, in Hungarian], Új Munkaügyi Szemle, 2(3), 81–93
Gunter, B., Nicholas, D., Huntington, P., & Williams, P. (2002). Online versus offline research: Implications for evaluating digital media. Aslib Proceedings, 54(4), 229–239. https://doi.org/10.1108/00012530210443339
Heckathorn, D. D. (1997). Respondent-Driven Sampling: A New Approach to the Study of Hidden Populations. Social Problems, 44(2), 174–199. https://doi.org/10.2307/3096941
IJAS. (2020, June 22). Uniformity of media is a warning for Montenegro. Safejournalists. https://safejournalists.net/16763-2/
Ilieva, J., Baron, S., & Healey, N. M. (2002). Online Surveys in Marketing Research. International Journal of Market Research, 44(3), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1177/147078530204400303
Koh, D. (2020). Occupational risks for COVID-19 infection. Occupational Medicine, 70(1), 3–5. https://doi.org/10.1093/occmed/kqaa036
Laborde, D., Martin, W., Swinnen, J., & Vos, R. (2020). COVID-19 risks to global food security. Science, 369(6503), 500–502. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abc4765
Leavy, P. (2020). Introduction to The Oxford Handbook of Qualitative Research, Second Edition. In P. Leavy (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Qualitative Research (pp. xxii–20). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190847388.013.9
Leeuw, E. D. de, Hox, J. J., Dillman, D. A., & European Association of Methodology (Eds.). (2008). International handbook of survey methodology. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Malatyinszki, Sz. (2015). A menedzsment és az értékek [Management and Values, in Hungarian]. Tudásmenedzsment. 16(1), 51–55. https://epa.oszk.hu/02700/02750/00037/pdf/EPA02750_tudasmenedzsment_2015_01_051-055.pdf
Marczell-Szilágyi, E. (2017). The optimal utilisation of employees’ competences. In: Mokrys, M.; Badura, S. (eds.) Proceedings in Human and Social Sciences at the Common Conference: The 5th Human and Social Sciences at the Common Conference. Žilina, Solna, Slovakia : EDIS (2017) Paper
Moran, T. (2020, November 6). COVID-19 pandemic creates new causes of ‘workplace’ stress. University of Birmingham. https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/latest/2020/11/covid-19-pandemic-creates-new-causes-of-'workplace'-stress.aspx
Parsons, J. T., Grov, C., & Kelly, B. C. (2008). Comparing the Effectiveness of Two Forms of Time-Space Sampling to Identify Club Drug-Using Young Adults. Journal of Drug Issues, 38(4), 1061–1081. https://doi.org/10.1177/002204260803800407
Poór J., Balogh G., Dajnoki K., Karoliny M., Kőműves Z., Pató Gáborné Szűcs B., & Szabó S. (2021). COVID-19 – Koronavírus-válság: Harmadik fázis : Kihívások és HR-válaszok (Coronavirus Crisis: Phase Three: Challenges and HR Responses – in Hungarian). Magyar Agrár- és Élettudományi Egyetem. http://kea.ke.hu/52/
Poór J., Dajnoki K., Jarjabka Á., Pató G., Szabó S., & Szabó K. (2021). Koronavírus-válság kihívások és HR válaszok – Első, második és harmadik fázis összehasonlítása. (Coronavirus Crisis Challenges and HR Responses - A Comparison of Phases One, Two and Three – in Hungarian). MATE-MHR.
Poór, Balogh G., Dajnoki K., Karoliny M., Kun A. I., & Szabó S. (2020). COVID-19 – Koronavírus válság második fázisa – kihívások és HR válaszok (COVID-19 – The second phase of the coronavirus crisis – challenges and the role of HR – in Hungarian). Szent István Egyetem Menedzsment és HR Kutató Központ.
Poór, J., Balogh, G., Dajnoki, K., Karoliny, M., & Szabó, S. (2020). Koronavírus-válság kihívások és HR-válaszok Magyarország 2020 (Coronavirus Crisis Challenges and HR Responses Hungary 2020 in Hungarian). Szent István Egyetem Menedzsment és HR Kutató Központ.
Salas-Nicás, S., Moncada, S., Llorens, C., & Navarro, A. (2021). Working conditions and health in Spain during the COVID-19 pandemic: Minding the gap. Safety Science, 134, 105064. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2020.105064
Schultz, T. W. (1961). Investment in human capital. The American Economic Review, 51(1), 1–17. https://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~walker/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/schultz61.pdf
Schultz, T. W. (1980). The Economics of Being Poor. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 36(9), 32–37. https://doi.org/10.1080/00963402.1980.11458781
Stebbins, R. (2001). Exploratory Research in the Social Sciences. SAGE Publications, Inc. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781412984249
Szőke, B., Garamvölgyi, J. (2020). A humán erőforrás gazdálkodás és a stratégiába foglalt tudásmegosztás kapcsolata [Relationship of Human Resource Management and Knowledge Transfer Built into Strategy, in Hungarian]. Humán Innovációs Szemle, 11(2), 30–39.
Thalmeiner G, Gáspár S, Barta Á, Zéman Z. (2021). Application of Fuzzy Logic to Evaluate the Economic Impact of COVID-19: Case Study of a Project-Oriented Travel Agency. Sustainability, 13(17):9602. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13179602
