Negotiating the Virtual Landscape: An Examination of Principal Drivers Affecting Employee Productivity in Remote Work during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Background

After the COVID-19 epidemic, remote working arrangements became rather common in the information technology industry.  While many IT workers welcomed this shift, companies also started to notice productivity issues at the same time.  Our study was motivated mostly by this developing conflict between organisational concerns about preserving efficiency and employee inclination for remote work.

 Research Objective

 Our study sought to pinpoint and examine the main elements affecting employee output in home-based businesses especially in the IT industry.  Understanding these elements can help companies create focused plans to increase output while preserving the freedom employees value.

 Methodology

 To gather main information on remote work experiences and productivity elements, we carried out a thorough survey.  Based on past studies and initial qualitative research, the poll was carefully crafted to cover several facets of the remote work experience.

 Sample Characteristics

Sample Size: 400 people in total

Geographic Focus: Indian region of Delhi/NCR

Sector of Industry: Information Technology Enterprises

Participant Profile: IT experts

 Stratified random selection guarantees representation among several company sizes and IT subsectors.

Data Collection

Validated scales covering many facets of remote work—including working hours, employee

wellbeing and learning and training support and self-reported productivity measures—were part of the survey tool.  Respondents answered Likert scales, which allowed quantitative study of the elements influencing output.

 Analysis Approach

 Using Principal Component Analysis (PCA), we sought the fundamental causes of remote work productivity.  This statistical method helped us to simplify many variables into relevant components explaining the variation in output of productivity.

 Significance

 Given millions of experts employed in the Indian IT industry and major contribution to the national economy, this study is very pertinent to them.  These results can guide evidence-based methods to remote work management that combine organisational productivity objectives with employee preferences as businesses create long-term workplace rules in the post-pandemic context.

 The found elements provide useful insights for IT firms to handle particular areas of remote work rules instead of applying one-size-fits-all solutions that do not consider the multidimensional character of remote work productivity.