During the COVID-19 pandemic there were several concerns about remote work
including communication difficulties like less in person communication and technology
difficulties when working from home like your connection not working. One of the hardest
challenges was “Shaping and keeping job performance in times of COVID-19 pandemic was a
challenge for organizations, due to its negative impact on employees, causing their stress or lack
of sense of security” (Bienkowska et al., 2022). With these challenges companies had to find
effective network communications for workers in which they were able to do with different
platforms.
Companies needed to find effective network communications for their employees so the
job at task could be completed. Companies found different solutions using communication tools,
virtual meetings, and also providing training and support to employees. Companies used
different communication tools like Microsoft teams so employees can chat, call, and share files
to make their job easier all under one application. A lot of different companies utilized virtual
meetings using either Zoom or Google Meetings. These meetings could help the employees to
see their coworkers' faces and be able to keep up the communication on different projects for
their work. These tools were trying to increase the effective communication between workers.
Also, companies provided different training to their employees since work was completely
different. They needed to provide the training to employees so they knew how to use the tools or
technology the company wanted to use. If they were training employees the companies had to
make sure they had people that could help with any problems that occurred with either the tools
or the employee needing help.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic there are potential benefits and negatives to using these
communication tools and working from home. The benefits are increased collaboration since the
programs offer better communication tools in one area. The next would be increased
accountability for employees since they had to call meetings more frequently to see if the
employee was doing their job. The last potential benefit is the connection between workers
increased since they had to find other ways to communicate and work with each other during this
time to make sure the work they were putting out was still at the level they wanted to. With these
benefits, studies took results from different people about being “asked whether their work type
would permit them to continue to work from home after the Covid-19 restrictions had completely
eased. The highest number (31.6%) suggested that their work may sometimes permit working
from home, followed by 19.8% who felt that they would often be able to work from home and
11.3% who felt they could always work from home” (Al-Habaibeh et al., 2021). These are higher
numbers so after the pandemic employees wanted to stay home and work because they got used
to it but also since they enjoyed it. There are also negatives about working from home during the
pandemic and those are putting too much importance on the use of technology meaning if the
programs weren’t working you couldn’t communicate with your employees and get your work
done for the day. Employees getting tired from constant communication tools of messaging their
employees, sending emails, or having virtual meetings multiple times a day. The last negative is
being by yourself. People missed going into work and being in a space with all their coworkers,
not just having to sit in your house all day by yourself trying to do work.
The importance of network communication during the COVID-19 pandemic was
tremendous and companies forced the importance by using different tools like Microsoft teams,
Zoom, Google Meetings, and providing the training employees needed for these tools and other
technological tools. The broader implications and impact these solutions had to the COVID-19
pandemic are the adaptability from the employees being able to learn on the job and using these
different communication tools to keep the level of their job at the level it should be at. The other
impact would be the increased employee engagement it had because these companies were trying
to have virtual meetings every day or multiple times a day to keep everyone informed and keep
up the collaboration. The COVID-19 pandemic was hard for companies but they did a good job
adapting with these different communication tools leading to remote work being an option for
most employees nowadays.
References:
Bieńkowska, A., Koszela, A., Sałamacha, A., & Tworek, K. (2022). COVID-19 oriented
HRM strategies influence on job and organizational performance through job-related attitudes.
PLOS ONE, 17(4), e0266364. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0266364
Habaibeh, A. A., Watkins, M., Waried, K., & Javareshk, M. B. (2021). Challenges and
opportunities of remotely working from home during Covid-19 pandemic. Global Transitions,
3(1), 99–108. sciencedirect. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.glt.2021.11.001
