The Work-at-Home Transition During COVID-19: Employee Attitudes and Lessons for Employers

By Jim Farnsworth Last updated Jun 9, 2020

This spring, SYKES surveyed 3,000 working adults in the U.S., Canada and the U.K. to uncover how prepared they felt their company was to transition to remote work. The goal of the survey was to measure how companies were responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, and more specifically, to learn how employees felt about the transition. Implementing work-at-home (WAH) programs has proven effective for many organizations, including SYKES, but perceptions of readiness and productivity following the pandemic-induced transition vary. How should companies learn from this massive undertaking as they prepare for the future? In what follows, I’ll explore some of these questions.

To start with, of respondents who said their employer has asked employees to work at home, more than 86% claimed that their company was able to transfer within a week. That’s incredibly quick. Based on our collected data, companies appear to be rapidly mobilizing, using WAH as a means to protect core business functions during distancing. Furthermore, of those 86% asked, 42% claimed they were able to make the switch within 24 hours of announcement. The physical transition was lightning fast, but what are the implications of such a necessary rushed transition?

Likely, businesses are leveraging emergent technology, preparation and increased connectivity to keep their workforces going. A surprising number of respondents (more than 55%) felt that their WAH conversion was seamless, or close to it, meaning they experienced very few speed bumps on the path toward working at home.

The internet and mobile technology have made the transition far easier and faster than it would have been even a few years ago. Per our survey, of those who said they’ve been asked to work at home, most (73%) say their employer implemented new technologies or tools to make working at home more effective or efficient. Using mobile collaboration and communication tools is a must for any organization to stay connected. Additionally, there are ample WAH resources out there, meaning fewer companies are forced to pioneer technologically. It’s encouraging to see that technology is offering increased collaborative ability during distancing.

Unfortunately, despite taking advantage of technology, it is the easiest part of the WAH equation. There is ample room for process expansion — only half of our respondents have received work-at-home on-boarding or training of some sort. Considering how fast the WAH transition occurred, the on-boarding statistic points toward a lack of company preparation — many companies did not, or do not, have thorough business continuity plans in-place.

Our report showed many companies are rapidly making the transition to work-at-home, and taking advantage of evolving technology to do so. But, what about those not asked to work at home? How do they feel? And what can companies learn from them? We found that 81% believed, at the time of the survey, that their jobs could not be performed as effectively from home. This statistic is not surprising, as work-at-home is wonderful but not universal. Some possible reasons employees felt that way include: the lack of a secure workspace, limited technological capability or the lack of company-wide communication tools.

Furthermore, industry-specific capability requirements can impose a significant barrier. More than 80% of respondents in the hotel, food, retail, transportation or warehouse industries believe, quite reasonably, that they wouldn’t be as capable from home. Either way, optimism toward WAH efficacy was expectably low, but not altogether surprising. There is a large cultural, or mental, barrier to virtual work — especially in physical-production industries, as leaders and employees remain skeptical of how feasible off-site work would be.

As with most experiences, however, you never know until you try. Perhaps one of the most interesting takeaways from the survey is the dramatic shift in workforce perceptions toward WAH. Of all of our respondents, nearly 38% say they now see some value to companies offering remote work options — representing a significant shift from long held biases against it. Likely, this statistic reflects employee perceptions changing once they’ve successfully made the conversion.

Looking ahead, and with these lessons we’ve learned from our survey in mind, there is a great deal that organizations can do to mitigate potential future service disruptions:

Offer, and source, collaborative communication technology
Constantly work to remove technological barriers or process obstacles
Create robust business continuity plans
Offer WAH-specific onboarding, training and communications
Continue to ensure that employees feel that their wellbeing is valued, following all distancing recommendations and guidelines

Virtual collaboration is key. Offering increased training tools and adopting platforms like Zoom and Skype are a good start, but tools aren’t everything. Maintain lines of communication, take advantage of technology and constantly look for ways to improve or learn. Perhaps most important, companies must be conscious and proactive in their efforts to enable core business functions during unforeseen circumstances.