ACADEMIC PAPER SAMPLE 1

TITLE: WORKING FROM HOME IS A PRODUCTIVE NEW NORMAL

COVID-19 pandemic has an adverse effect and overwhelms every part of the world
wholly that consequently, all sorts of sectors and premises are prohibited from being operated.
The implementation of the new working system, working from home (WFH) for an alternative
of adapting a new normal in the importance of business continuity in providing goods and
services to the community. Our studies have found benefits and dilemmas perceived by
employees and employers during WFH. As such, this paper will discuss the benefits
encountered by employees and the dilemmas that derive from WFH.

Our studies on several articles have acknowledged that cost saving is the most
prominent result obtained by employees by working from home during this pandemic. The
employees are capable of saving a big portion of their costs that are spent on car fuels, meals,
vehicle maintenance and clothing by not commuting to the workplace (Raiborn & Butler,
2009). Consequently, employees could prioritize their money to other uses such as for the
increase of household expenses during the pandemic and they also manage to save cost and
time from commuting to work by travelling from a long distance through heavy traffic jams
(Quoquab et al., 2013). Therefore, working from home has given employees some extra
advantage by obtaining the increments of 50% from annual salary because of the cutback cost
on their travelling expenses. In fact, the initiative of the government of this new work style not
only gives benefits to employees on not getting infected by COVID-19 virus but they are also
enjoying financial benefits which is cutting larger costs from their salary by experiencing
telework. Employees are not only saving their cost by not commuting to the workplace but they
also provide a productive work outcome by working from home. Seemingly, employees are
not only deriving the positive consequences but they are also serving the organization with
productive work outcomes.

Undoubtedly, employees are not the only ones who derive benefits from practicing
teleworking, it is quite surprising that employers do enjoy the positive outcome of
implementing teleworking in their organization too. Implementing WFH in their organization

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is beneficial from an employer's viewpoint on cost saving too. The employers could possibly
reduce overhead cost and maintenance cost of the organization as there are fewer employees
attending the workplace (Baruch & Yehuda, 2000). Besides that, employers can rent the freed-
up space to others to generate periodic income as only a small portion of the workplace is
needed when the majority of their employees are working from home (Raiborn & Butler, 2009).
Nonetheless, with a smaller number of employees working physically in the office, employers
can cut costs on utility expenses such as electric bills as only few employees will be in the
office and lesser usage of electricity and employers could save substantial parking costs for
employees if their parking costs are borne by the organization. Hence, employers are subjected
to plenty of pros by adopting teleworking work style in their organization. In this challenging
economic and health crisis era, teleworking work style will be one of the best alternatives that
should be adopted by all the organizations to control their flow of money from their
organization and reduce the transmission of viruses. Our studies concluded that employees and
employers are not experiencing the cost effectiveness of the organization only but better health
care too during this health crisis era.

Besides the cost effectiveness in doing work, we cannot deny the fact that WFH can
create an environment of flexibility in doing work for employees. Employees contribute extra
time derived from WFH to meet family necessaries and personal needs (Kłopotek, 2017).
Employees managed to fulfil house chores, spend more fun time with family and have some
breathing space for personal care (Quoquab, et al., 2013). Undoubtedly, working under a less
stressful environment would possibly enhance an employee's creativity and enjoyment in
performing tasks. To summarise, WFH increases employee's contentment and becomes more
effective and efficient when completing their tasks. Employees are aware of the advantages
from WFH which obviously provides them with a better quality of life. This is because the
author Magdalena KŁOPOTEK stated that WFH helps to improve employee's emotional health
due to lower stress level.

However, flexible working hours not just provides a positive influence for the
employees but also gives some favourable impact for the employers. Employers acquire better
employee's behaviour when allowing employees to WFH because of fewer employee's non-
attendance issues (Kurland & Bailey, 2014). Lower employee's behaviour issues will help

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employers to focus on achieving the organisation's goals and it will motivate employees to be
more dedicated in completing tasks and feeling more responsible will provide greater
performance to the organization. The employers are capable of minimizing office supplies and
overhead due to a smaller number of employees working physically in the office (Harpaz,
2002). On the whole, as an organization, allowing employees to telecommute could possibly
escalate the organization towards its goals and accomplishment. WFH encourages
organizations to use resources more efficiently. We believe that a healthy work environment
affects an organization’s performance and employee's satisfaction.

Despite the benefits of WFH, nevertheless, there are irrefutable issues such as a
person’s quality of life becoming dreadful by an individual's feeling of isolation from being
remote from others. According to Alspach (2013), it is undeniable the deficiencies in social
affiliation, poor synergy, and having minimum social contacts as being segregated by others
are the roots of individuals sustaining a chronic experience like mental and physical health
disorder. As individuals feel plummeting on their shared goals and efforts against the new rigid
changes that cause adjustment disorder, cognitive stress, fall into depression, severe anxiety,
insomnia or even paradoxically late-life dementia (Banerjee & Rai, 2020). Moreover, a
person's body physique also can become lethargic, weary, sleepy, burnout and even sluggish
due to being physically inactive since the regular face-to-face workstyles allow an individual
to move around the buildings, go to worksites and have lunch together (Tsipursky, 2021). In
essence, remoteness from others can heavily affect employees, especially individuals used to
teamwork that needs socialisation and holistic life which leads to harm to their physical well-
being and mental illness.

Furthermore, individuals also feel anguish about the lack of segregation between work
and home chores whereby work from home indeed consists of an abundance of disruption such
as being intruded on by the family members, especially young children, the assumption is to
be available for their request consistently (Aczel, Kovacs, van der Lippe, & Szaszi, 2021). This
indicates the relationship between family members to be distant as they also may feel
unpleasant and presume the individual to be a workaholic and disregard their supposed
responsibilities. Not only that, based on Harpaz (2002), the disproportionate work-life balance
is the origin of the badgered feelings by fellow employees who are prone to urgent matters at

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any time that requires attention 24/7 that results in an over-availability syndrome where it
coerces individuals to be online as they feel burnout too. In addition, employees find the
discomfort of their privacy invasion as a feeling kept under criminal-like surveillance by the
company as they invest in artificial intelligence (AI) technology. The scepticism over
employees by tracking every second movement such as the presence, facial expressions, the
logins and even personal data; health (Faulds & Raju, 2020). Hence, unclear boundaries of
work-life balance cause tons of interruptions that affect efficiency, productivity and motivation
that may lead employees in needing moral and mental support to overcome their personal
issues.

Another reason why the quality of life becomes more depressing is that performance
inconsistency due to an individual's unsuitability in working independently, inflexibility or
accustomed to teamwork. In particular, those who used to work under strict supervision, tend
to execute the task hesitantly as to whether the technique used is right or wrong (Garg & van
der Rijst, 2015). Subsequently, deplorable and indolence coaching provokes individuals to be
disengaging by receiving negative feedback repeatedly since they are only carrying out tasks
based on their understanding (Govindarajo, Kumar, & Ramulu, 2014). The tasks will become
very strenuous and laborious that they have to rework that induce employees to be low energy,
bad attitude, absenteeism, or maybe even quitting the company. Other than that, the authority
of a self-imposed schedule prompts the inducement of no self-discipline, unproductive and
inefficient whereby individuals take advantage to procrastinate (Michael, 2019). It is because
managers are incapable of evaluating them properly out of sight, which presumes to be
pointless, given that inability to grasp any opportunities for promotions, rewards and great
achievement reviews anyway (Aczel et al., 2021). To summarise, the occurrence of
inconsistent performance is due to personal unsuitability, lack of self-discipline, poor guidance
and being beyond sight.

Having mentioned the first dilemma, the next one is on the adaptation to the new normal
in organisational and social factors perspectives. Employees are experiencing enormous stress
and burdensome brainstorming ideas or interactions with others through texting or alone due
to restriction in spite of living in the 21st century where tons of advanced technology developed
such as virtual meetings. For example, inferior connection or glitching applications cause

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miscommunication between fellow employees which contributed to incorrectly completed
tasks (Lowly, 2020). Organisations should define distinct objectives for all roles because this
will promote low productivity and low morale to employees and be difficult for employers to
control, influence, cultivate commitment and motivate (Sankar, 2020). In summary, restrictions
of collaboration and innovation on new ideas will build on disengaged behaviour and prevent
the company from achieving its mission, vision and path to success.

Next, the application of complexity of centralisation labour law disregards the issues of
new flexible work arrangements by numerous companies. Selfish hierarchical structures abuse
and discriminate against their employees by depriving and stealing their rights of obtaining
protection such as the insurance coverage of workers, the decision on working hours and
overtime, vacation, sick leave and privacy (Harpaz, 2002). Some businesses are obliged to pay
non-exempt hourly hours worked, including overtime working hours, refraining from the
backfire effect (Henderson, 2020). The backfire effect is the tendency of certain people to
oppose the acceptance of evidence contrary to their belief which is the employee strike that can
ruin the company reputation. This effect also can occur when a company does background
checks and examines the employee for acquiring an accessible company information security
system that displeases the employee for being dubious over their allegiance and obedience
(Faulds & Raju, 2020). Ergo, implementation of the new centralisation labour law causes
drawbacks from the internal issues on employees’ rights.

Additionally, the budget allocation for equipment, software and training procurements
demanded avoiding excessive money expenses that lead to a debt crisis or bankruptcy,
especially during this current COVID-19 epidemic where countless companies deteriorated
significantly as the rest of the world faced inflation and unemployment. According to
Henderson (2020), the money investment is for standard installation requirements of essential
equipment, training, information technology and risk management which may improve the
employee retention in accomplishing their work (Gray, 2017). Nonetheless, it is explicitly that
not entire fields can remote working such as retailing, dining and other industries whereby
operating exclusive equipment acquire specialised assistance and supervision. Therefore, the
company has to deliberately find a plan to sort out the excellent unbiased decision making for

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all employees whether work from the office, work from home and even hybrid can perform
excellently.

Despite having seen the dilemma brought upon due to WFH, nevertheless, the benefit
outweighs the negativity owing to hidden benefits and potential of WFH that sharpens the
employees' soft skills and hidden talent. Employees possess autonomy and freedom in their
work within their range of skills, talent and complete job control, which increase job
satisfaction as they can adjust to new work styles (Nakrošiene, Buciuniene, & Goštautaitė,
2019). The digital tools also enhance employee creativity and visions by brainstorming through
Google Meet, Webex, Canva, Microsoft Teams etc. Consequently, digital technology also
allowed inclusion of diverse teams from different socioeconomic, geographic, cultural
backgrounds and with different perspectives that also inspire soft skills such as delegation,
leadership, communication and even teamwork (Menabney, 2020). Thus, setting a new
standard for potential employees by boosting up a facet of task concentration, communication,
collaboration, time management, adaptability and endurance in the range of employee swaths
of talent (Prossack, 2020).

In conclusion, the welfare WFH can save a lot of costs and have a flexible working
method that totally benefits the employee and employer. Notwithstanding, the organisation
should partake in an immediate solution in clarifying the negligence of the life quality of
employees and the systematisation of new rules for the whole structures. Accordingly,
employees will be able to comprehend and sharpen new skills, talents and excellent job control
relevant to their duties that boost up the employee retention standard.

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