A New Style of Working: Imposed Teleworking in the Context of the covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

In the context of the covid-19 pandemic, teleworking has largely become a useful model of work for many employees, managers and employers. This new style of working can be easily distinguished from traditional telework habits, especially by its imposed character. For this reason, this paper attempts to develop the term “imposed telework,” which has deeply changed the established habitual routines of employees who have never or rarely ever engaged in telework, in order to test the possibility of quasi-permanent teleworking instead of the full-time office-bound work style. Therefore, a generalization of a quasi-permanent teleworking method would be that it is a new, more environmentally-compatible professional mode; however, are employees ready for such change? This research, comprising 73 participants from France, Italy, and Turkey, clearly showed that it is too soon to generalize such a new professional model, owing to the difficulties that the participants faced, such as isolation, absenteeism, work/life conflicts, etc., even if their productivity increment was recorded.