The Perception of Employees on Work-From-Home During Movement Control Order in Malaysia
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has made Work from Home (WFH), an officially mandated and strictly enforced rule. The WFH concept is already gaining traction across many industries mainly requires in non-essential companies. Most employees are not satisfied with the WFH concept, as COVID-19 has required practically some employees from non-essential industries to work from home for the first time. This paper aims to discuss employees' perception of work from home during the movement control order in Malaysia as employees experience a new environment. However, this paper's research focuses on the effectiveness and challenges employees face when working from home. In this study, the researchers used quantitative methods which employed a set of a survey which included 20 questions. It contained three parts, (i) Respondent’s information, (ii) is working from home effectively for the employees during the MCO, and (iii) are there any challenges the employees face during work-from-home. The survey was distributed among 104 employees in different working sectors in Malaysia who Work-from-Home during movement control order (MCO). Among others, the findings revealed that (i) The effectiveness of WFH affects employees to feel demotivated due to (ii) less interaction with coworkers that cause anxiety and stress levels to rise. This paper brings to light how employees withstand the new norm of working and what the employers could do to embrace the effectiveness and endure the challenges of the new norm of WFH as it may take a long period of time to adapt.
Downloads
References
Bansal, A., & Rajagopal, K. (2021). A Study on Employees’ Satisfaction and Perception towards Work from Home During COVID-19. Shanlax International Journal of Management, 8(S1-Feb), 157-166. https://doi.org/10.34293/management.v8is1-feb.3770
Cascio, W., & Montealegre, R. (2016). How Technology Is Changing Work and Organizations. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 3(1), 349-375. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-041015-062352
Chan, D. (2021, January 11). MCO 2.0: Five economic sectors deemed essential by MITI. New Straits Times, https://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2021/01/656705/mco-20-five-economic-sectors-deemed-essential-miti
Gisin, L., Schulze, H., & Degenhardt, B. (2016). Boundary Management as a Crucial Success Factor for Flexible-Mobile Work, Demonstrated in the Case of Home Office. Advances In Ergonomic Design of Systems, Products and Processes, 375-394. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-48661-0_25
Grant, C. A., Wallace, L. M., Spurgeon, P. C., Tramontano, C., & Charalampous, M. (2019). Construction and initial validation of the e-work life scale to measure remote e-working. Employee Relations, 41(1), 16-33. https://doi.org/10.1108/er-09-2017-0229
Gómez, S. M., Mendoza, O. E. O., Ramírez, J., & Olivas-Luján, M. R. (2020). Stress and myths related to the COVID-19 pandemic’s effects on remote work. Management Research: Journal of the Iberoamerican Academy of Management, 18(4), 401-420. https://doi.org/10.1108/MRJIAM-06-2020-1065
Hamouche, S. (2020). COVID-19 and employees' mental health: Stressors, moderators and agenda for organizational actions. Emerald Open Research, 2(15), 15. https://doi.org/10.35241/emeraldopenres.13550.1
International Labour Organization (2011), “Telework”. Occupational Health and Safety part-xvii-65263/office-and-retail-trades/item/648-telework.
Irawanto, D., Novianti, K., & Roz, K. (2021). Work from Home: Measuring Satisfaction between Work–Life Balance and Work Stress during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Indonesia. Economies, 9(3), 96. https://doi.org/10.3390/economies9030096
Kaushik Meenakshi & Neha Guleria (2020). The Impact of Pandemic COVID -19 in Workplace. European Journal of Business and Management, 12(15), 9-18. https://doi.org/10.7176/ejbm/12-15-02
Kreiner, G. E., Hollensbe, E. C., & Sheep, M. L. (2009). Balancing borders and bridges: Negotiating the work-home interface via boundary work tactics. Academy of Management Journal, 52(4), 704-730.
Kumar, D. (2020). Corona Virus: A Review of COVID-19. Eurasian Journal of Medicine and Oncology, 4(1), 8-25. https://doi.org/10.14744/ejmo.2020.51418
Mostafa, B. (2021). The Effect of Remote Working on Employees Wellbeing and Work-Life Integration during Pandemic in Egypt. International Business Research, 14(3), 41. https://doi.org/10.5539/ibr.v14n3p41
Osborne, S., & Hammoud, M. (2017). Effective Employee Engagement in the Workplace. International Journal of Applied Management and Technology, 16(1). https://doi.org/10.5590/ijamt.2017.16.1.04
Prasad, D. K., Mangipudi, D. M. R., Vaidya, D. R., & Muralidhar, B. (2020). Organizational climate, opportunities, challenges and psychological wellbeing of the remote working employees during COVID-19 pandemic: a general linear model approach with reference to information technology industry in hyderabad. International Journal of Advanced Research in Engineering and Technology (IJARET), 11(4).
Rubeena, S. (2021). Impact of COVID-19 on employee engagement in 2020. Journal Of Management Research and Analysis, 7(4),137-141. https://doi.org/10.18231/j.jmra.2020.033
Thorstensson, E. (2020). The Influence of Working from Home on Employees’ Productivity: Comparative document analysis between the years 2000 and 2019-2020 (Dissertation). Karlstad Business School, Karlstad University SE-651 88 Karlstad Retrieved from http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kau:diva-78743
Trougakos, J., Chawla, N. & Mccarthy, J. (2020). Working in a pandemic: Exploring the impact of COVID-19 health anxiety on work, family, and health outcomes. The Journal of Applied Psychology, 105(11). http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/apl0000739
Wong, A., Cheung, J. & Chen, Z., 2020. Promoting effectiveness of “working from home”: findings from Hong Kong working population under COVID-19. Asian Education and Development Studies, 10(2), 210-228.
