scholarly journals The benefits and pitfalls of employees working from home: Study of a private company in South Africa

2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 36-49
Author(s):  
Ajay K Garg ◽  
Jan van der Rijst
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Work Experience ◽  
Virtual Work ◽  
Structural Factors ◽  
Private Company ◽  
Work From Home ◽  
Working From Home ◽  
Relational Factors ◽  
Professional Isolation ◽  
The Cost

Working from home is a worldwide trend and effect companies in various ways. This study focussed on South African circumstances and examined the cost saving implications for a private company and their employees if they would be able and allowed to work from home. Further, relationships between structural and relational factors with experience with virtual work were studied. Based on the data collected from 48 respondents, study found that majority of the employees were willing to work from home and the savings to company was estimated at R1 058.25 per month on rental, electricity, levy, rates, sewer and water expenses, while employees could save an average of R8 822.06 per month if they do not travel to work. On the other hand employees will spend only R347 per employee if they work from home. Relationship between structural factors and relational factors with perceived virtual work experience was found positive. Professional isolation and job performance was found highly negatively correlated.

Factors contributing to virtual work adjustment

2001 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 383-405 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sumita Raghuram ◽  
Raghu Garud ◽  
Batia Wiesenfeld ◽  
Vipin Gupta
Keyword(s):  
Work Experience ◽  
Virtual Work ◽  
Evaluation Criteria ◽  
Work Adjustment ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Structural Factors ◽  
Factors Associated ◽  
Relational Factors ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Relationship

We explore factors associated with employee adjustment to virtual work. In particular, we explore structural factors (i.e., work independence and evaluation criteria) and relational factors (i.e., trust and organizational connectedness) as predictors of adjustment to virtual work. Additionally, we explore age, virtual work experience and gender as moderators of the relationships. We find that structural and relational factors are important predictors of adjustment and that the strength of the relationship is contingent upon individual differences. We explore the implications of these findings for future research and for practice.

A study of cane supply benefits associated with ad hoc mechanical harvesting to mitigate cutter absenteeism

2013 ◽  
pp. 532-538 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhammad Kadwa ◽  
Carel N Bezuidenhout
Keyword(s):  
Supply Chain ◽  
South African ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Sugar Mill ◽  
The South ◽  
Optimum Performance ◽  
Kwazulu Natal ◽  
Cane Quality ◽  
The Cost

The Eston Sugar Mill is the newest in the South African KwaZulu-Natal sugar belt. Like most other mills, it can be argued that there are inefficiencies in the supply chain due to systematic issues, which reduce optimum performance. It was alleged that mill processes are slowed, or stopped, on Sundays, Mondays, as well as some Tuesdays and Wednesdays, due to pay-weekends, because of the associated cutter absenteeism. This increases the length of the milling season (LOMS), increases milling costs and reduces the average cane quality for the season. Data on cane deliveries to the Eston Mill, over a period of five seasons, were analysed to study the magnitude of the problem. It was statistically verified that cane shortages occur immediately after payweekends and it was conservatively estimated that cutter absenteeism occurs between 25–29 days per season, which increases the LOMS by six to ten days. The associated cost of this problem equated to an average of US$159,500 (approximately EUR120,000) per milling season. In this paper, an alternative harvesting system scenario is suggested, assuming that mechanical harvesters be used after a pay-weekend, to mitigate the impacts of cutter shortages. However, the solution is calculated to be risky. When the cost of new equipment was considered, only two of the five seasons were able to justify the associated costs.

Relationship among social tactics, job embeddedness, and affective commitment in newcomers: the moderating effect of workplace spirituality

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Hsien-Long Huang ◽  
Li-Keng Cheng ◽  
Pi-Chuan Sun ◽  
Yi Shiuan Jiang ◽  
Hsin Hua Lin
Keyword(s):  
Work Experience ◽  
Affective Commitment ◽  
Human Resources Management ◽  
Workplace Spirituality ◽  
Job Embeddedness ◽  
Moderating Effect ◽  
Empirical Examination ◽  
Employee Survey ◽  
The Cost ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract The cost of recruitment and training of newcomers can be a burden for enterprises, causing adverse effects on human resources management. Although much research has addressed employee turnover, less attention has been paid to methods of improving the retention of new hires. This study is an empirical examination of the increase in predictive strength of antecedents of affective commitment for comparing newcomers’ workplace spirituality. The results of an employee survey completed by 237 newcomers with under two years of work experience indicate that socialization tactics have a direct impact on job embeddedness, which in turn has a direct effect on affective commitment. Workplace spirituality has a significant moderating effect on the relationship between socialization tactics and job embeddedness. Also, workplace spirituality has a significant moderating effect on the relationship between job embeddedness and affective commitment.

scholarly journals Working from Home During Covid-19: Doing and Managing Technology-enabled Social Interaction With Colleagues at a Distance

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Banita Lal ◽  
Yogesh K. Dwivedi ◽  
Markus Haag
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Work Lives ◽  
Work Related ◽  
Work From Home ◽  
Working From Home ◽  
Time Basis

AbstractWith the overnight growth in Working from Home (WFH) owing to the pandemic, organisations and their employees have had to adapt work-related processes and practices quickly with a huge reliance upon technology. Everyday activities such as social interactions with colleagues must therefore be reconsidered. Existing literature emphasises that social interactions, typically conducted in the traditional workplace, are a fundamental feature of social life and shape employees’ experience of work. This experience is completely removed for many employees due to the pandemic and, presently, there is a lack of knowledge on how individuals maintain social interactions with colleagues via technology when working from home. Given that a lack of social interaction can lead to social isolation and other negative repercussions, this study aims to contribute to the existing body of literature on remote working by highlighting employees’ experiences and practices around social interaction with colleagues. This study takes an interpretivist and qualitative approach utilising the diary-keeping technique to collect data from twenty-nine individuals who had started to work from home on a full-time basis as a result of the pandemic. The study explores how participants conduct social interactions using different technology platforms and how such interactions are embedded in their working lives. The findings highlight the difficulty in maintaining social interactions via technology such as the absence of cues and emotional intelligence, as well as highlighting numerous other factors such as job uncertainty, increased workloads and heavy usage of technology that affect their work lives. The study also highlights that despite the negative experiences relating to working from home, some participants are apprehensive about returning to work in the traditional office place where social interactions may actually be perceived as a distraction. The main contribution of our study is to highlight that a variety of perceptions and feelings of how work has changed via an increased use of digital media while working from home exists and that organisations need to be aware of these differences so that they can be managed in a contextualised manner, thus increasing both the efficiency and effectiveness of working from home.

Accountability and the Media

2014 ◽  
Vol 652 (1) ◽  
pp. 206-221
Author(s):  
Anton Harber
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
News Media ◽  
Media Access ◽  
Political Interference ◽  
The Face ◽  
Public Broadcaster ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Poor Management

Two decades of contestation over the nature and extent of transformation in the South African news media have left a sector different in substantive ways from the apartheid inheritance but still patchy in its capacity to fill the democratic ideal. Change came fast to a newly open broadcasting sector, but has faltered in recent years, particularly in a public broadcaster troubled by political interference and poor management. The potential of online media to provide much greater media access has been hindered by the cost of bandwidth. Community media has grown but struggled to survive financially. Print media has been aggressive in investigative exposé, but financial cutbacks have damaged routine daily coverage. In the face of this, the government has turned its attention to the print sector, demanding greater—but vaguely defined—transformation and threatened legislation. This has met strong resistance.

Public servants working from home: Exploring managers’ changing allowance decisions in a COVID-19 context

2021 ◽  
pp. 103530462110555
Author(s):  
Sue Williamson ◽  
Linda Colley ◽  
Meraiah Foley
Keyword(s):  
Employee Productivity ◽  
Public Servants ◽  
Jel Codes ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Public ◽  
Work From Home ◽  
Working From Home ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Organisational Level ◽  
Large Sections

Before the COVID-19 pandemic forced large sections of the workforce to work from home, the uptake of working from home in the public sector had been limited and subject to the discretion or ‘allowance decisions’ of individual managers. Allowance decisions are influenced by factors at the organisational, group and individual levels. This research examines managers’ allowance decisions on working from home at each of these levels. It compares two qualitative datasets: one exploring managerial attitudes to working from home in 2018 and another dataset collected in mid-2020, as Australia transitioned out of the initial pandemic lockdown. The findings suggest a change in the factors influencing managers’ allowance decisions. We have identified a new factor at the organisational level, in the form of local organisational criteria. At the group level, previous concerns about employee productivity largely vanished, and managers experienced an epiphany that working from home could be productive. At the individual level, a new form of managerial discretion emerged as managers attempted to reassert authority over employees working remotely. These levels intersect, and we conclude that allowance decisions are fluid and not made solely by managers but are the result of the interactions between the organisational, group and individual levels. JEL Codes J81, J32

scholarly journals Individual shareholders’ understanding of the content of interim reports of South African listed retail companies

2015 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johan GI Oberholster ◽  
Carolina Koornhof ◽  
Quintus Vorster
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Work Experience ◽  
Good Knowledge ◽  
Financial Reports

A number of studies conducted, and reports published, by international and local accounting bodies have found that the proliferation of disclosures in financial reports has hampered users’ understanding of these reports. The reports by accounting bodies also indicate that these users prefer more concise financial reports. These findings, in conjunction with a dearth of recent questionnaire-based research on whether individual shareholders understand the content of financial reports, resulted in this study on whether individual shareholders understand the content of interim reports. The study provides empirical proof that a sound knowledge of business, accounting and economic matters is a prerequisite for understanding interim reports in the case of individual shareholders. The results of the study indicate that individual shareholders have a limited understanding of the content of interim reports as a whole, and that a good knowledge of business and economic matters and of accounting results in an improved understanding of the content of interim reports. In particular, specialisation in accounting in undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, professional qualifications, and work experience in the financial field improve the understanding of individual shareholders.

scholarly journals Topophilia, Placemaking, and Boundary Work

2022 ◽  
Vol 6 (GROUP) ◽  
pp. 1-33
Author(s):  
Janghee Cho ◽  
Samuel Beck ◽  
Stephen Voida
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Work From Home ◽  
Humanistic Geography ◽  
Working From Home ◽  
Long Term Impact

The COVID-19 pandemic fundamentally changed the nature of work by shifting most in-person work to a predominantly remote modality as a way to limit the spread of the coronavirus. In the process, the shift to working-from-home rapidly forced the large-scale adoption of groupware technologies. Although prior empirical research examined the experience of working-from-home within small-scale groups and for targeted kinds of work, the pandemic provides HCI and CSCW researchers with an unprecedented opportunity to understand the psycho-social impacts of a universally mandated work-from-home experience rather than an autonomously chosen one. Drawing on boundary theory and a methodological approach grounded in humanistic geography, we conducted a qualitative analysis of Reddit data drawn from two work-from-home-related subreddits between March 2020 and January 2021. In this paper, we present a characterization of the challenges and solutions discussed within these online communities for adapting work to a hybrid or fully remote modality, managing reconfigured work-life boundaries, and reconstructing the home's sense of place to serve multiple, sometimes conflicting roles. We discuss how these findings suggest an emergent interplay among adapted work practice, reimagined physical (and virtual) spaces, and the establishment and continual re-negotiation of boundaries as a means for anticipating the long-term impact of COVID on future conceptualizations of productivity and work.

scholarly journals THE INFLUENCE OF ERGONOMIC ON WORKING FROM HOME ACTIVITIES

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 58
Author(s):  
Imtihan Hanom ◽  
Rachel Aleyda Rozefy ◽  
Hilmiyani Taqiyyah Filasta
Keyword(s):  
Virus Transmission ◽  
Physical Distance ◽  
Employee Safety ◽  
Work From Home ◽  
Corona Virus ◽  
Working From Home ◽  
Short Period ◽  
Long Time ◽  
The Government ◽  
High Flexibility

Work From Home (WFH) is a system chosen by the government in 2020 due to the spread of the Corona virus, with this system it is hoped that it can maintain social distance, namely reducing people's mobility, maintaining physical distance, and reducing crowds so that it is expected to reduce the risk of corona virus transmission. and employee safety. The WFH system has high flexibility, this is to support employee balance between work and life. The work system that changed to WFH in a short period of time made workers experience stressful conditions such as feelings of anxiety or worry for a long time, especially when they lived under the same roof with many people. In carrying out WFH, workers need a comfortable place to work to help focus on work. One of the things that play a role in creating a sense of comfort when working is the application of ergonomic rules. This study looks for any variables that can affect WFH activities and which variables most affect WFH activities. The application of ergonomics, especially macro ergonomics in WFH activities, is considered appropriate to be able to solve various problems in WFH activities. This study uses a descriptive qualitative method by conducting a study through distributing questionnaires to respondents who are doing WFH. From the results of the study, it was found that the comfort of workers in carrying out WFH activities is closely related to ergonomics in a residential house. The results of this study can be used as a reference for designing a suitable workspace for WFH activities, and as a reference for further research with a similar focus of study. Keyword: Interior, Ergonomic, Working From Home

scholarly journals Whistleblowing: Impediments to effective implementation within the South African public sector

2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 196-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nirmala Dorasamy ◽  
Soma Pillay
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
South African ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Quantitative Research ◽  
Code Of Conduct ◽  
The South ◽  
The Public ◽  
Effective Implementation ◽  
The Cost

This purpose of this article is to explore impediments to effective whistleblowing as a strategy for promoting anti-corruption practices within the South African public sector. Corruption, which violates the public service code of conduct; deters foreign investment, increases the cost of public service delivery, undermines the fight against poverty and unnecessarily burdens the criminal justice system. The article addresses the question on whether legislation on whistleblowing is adequate to encourage whistleblowing in the public sector. A review of literature determines that the effective implementation of whistleblowing legislation is largely dependent on addressing the challenges identified in the article. The quantitative research method was employed in the study to ascertain the views of employees in the public sector on whistleblowing. Empirical findings confirm the hypothesis that the protection of whistleblowers through legislation is inadequate to encourage whistleblowing. The article provides a conceptual framework for the effective achievement of the intended outcomes of whistleblowing in the public sector.

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