Evaluating The Impact of "Work From Home Policy" On Job Performance (Study Case in Indonesia)
Evaluating The Impact of "Work From Home Policy" On Job Performance (Study Case in Indonesia)
Evaluating The Impact of "Work From Home Policy" On Job Performance (Study Case in Indonesia)
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Evaluating the impact of "work from home policy" on job performance (Study
Case in Indonesia)
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Richard S. Hutajulu
Doctoral Programme in Management, Jakarta State University,
Jakarta, Indonesia
Abstract
Introduction
Innovations in technology increase the possibilities of working from the home. Implications of work-at-
home arrangements for the individual's quality of working life are discussed. Included are discussions
o/several major aspects o/the work experience relevant to quality of working life, analyses of the
dijiferences along these aspects between working at home and working at a normal workplace, and
speculation about the possible consequences for the individual of the transfer of jobs from employers'
premises to ’employees' homes (Shamir, B., & Salomon, I., 1985). The effect of work-from-home on
job performance of employees remains debatable (Allen, Golden & Shockley, 2015), thus creating a
research gap. Researchers have argued that workers can work at home by utilizing video conference
platforms for communication. Home-based work also allows employees to be more flexible in making
appointments and running errands. Furthermore, they don’t need to spend time or money on
commuting. Office workers who work from home have increased autonomy. This refers to the extent to
which a job allows one to make decisions around the method of how to complete the work. Another
benefit of working from home is the chance for employees to modify or choose their own workplaces.
Allen, Golden & Shockley (2015) argue that telecommuting will work well when the nature of the job
is portable, or it can be done online. Therefore, job performance in a telecommuting environment is
heavily affected by the characteristics of the job itself. The main weakness of electronic communication
is the level of its information richness, which is defined as the extent to which a medium of
communication can create heterogeneity of information content between different frames of reference
(Nisar, Prabhakar & Strakova, 2019). Other disadvantages are that it offers no physical separation
between work and personal time, and finally, home may be a boring work environment. These
disadvantages can create uncertainty impacting on job satisfaction, and lack of satisfaction can lead to
lower performance among employees, as gauged by the company’s key performance indicators. It is
generally understood that employee performance plays a crucial role in company success and an
employee who is satisfied with his or her work performs better than one who is not satisfied (Khan et
al., 2016). The work-from-home discussion is always related to electronic communication. Despite its
convenience and accessibility in the modern era, many studies (Marshall et al., 2007; Zhang, 2016)
have shown evidence of its relative weakness when compared to face-to-face communication. Besides
electronic communication, working from home also creates a feeling of isolation among employees.
The perception of being isolated is mainly caused by less interaction among employees and their co-
workers, supervisors, and manager.
Employees may not get recognition and support when needed and this may lead to employee
dissatisfaction, as their social needs cannot be fulfilled by working from home (Marshall et al., 2007).
Employees find it more difficult to exhibit their work ethic and have achievements recognized by their
manager when all communication is conducted electronically. The limitation exists because when
employees work from home, they usually submit their work when it is ready, but their manager does
not see the process involved in producing a deliverable; some employees may work overtime but their
work is only judged by the result, not by the difficulties that employees overcame during the process.
The last change is work-life balance. Zhang (2016) contends that when the boundary is blurred,
employees are exposed to numerous disturbances by family matters, preventing them from focusing on
their work and fulfilling their role in their organization completely. It is also highly probable that family
problems can influence their mood at work when everything happens in the same place and time.
Indonesia, as the most densely populated country in Southeast Asia, is home to about 136 million
workers (Central Bureau of Statistics Indonesia, 2019). As Indonesia is a seriously affected country, the
government took the initiative to implement work-from-home policies in affected cities. The debate
about the effectiveness of working from home made companies reluctant to implement the program;
therefore, scholars have been urged to study the benefits of it.
Some previous studies (Marshall et al., 2007; Zhang, 2016) related to virtual office and telecommuting
already exists; nevertheless, a work-from-home policy is not exactly the same as telecommuting. The
biggest difference is in its limitations on work locations. While telecommuters can work in other
comfortable areas such as coffee shops, people can only work in their home. Thus, they will also be
distracted by family matters because isolation does not only affect employees; it affects all family
members. The widespread implementation of work-from-home will allow researchers not only to
gather data from companies that are ready for telecommuting, but also more importantly from those
companies that are not ready for it and are still struggling to adapt. Moreover, there is little research on
this topic from an Indonesian perspective, especially from the perspective of employees.
This study aims to assess the effect of working from home on work performance and answer how it
affects employee performance by using the mediating variables of work environment, job satisfaction
and work motivation. This new model will make a significant contribution to the knowledge of
business people, especially the Indonesian government, who need to measure the work from home
policy. It can also serve as fundamental input for governments and companies to decide whether to
assess work from home policies or look for other alternatives. The original contribution of this study
lies in its questionnaire which has been adapted to changes caused by the Work from Home Policy, as
well as in data processing methods.
Literature Review
Research Hypohesys
In line with the results of previous studies, this research posits the following hypotheses:
• Hypothesis (H1).
Work from home has a positive and significant effect on Work Environment
• Hypothesis (H2).
Work from home has a positive and significant effect on Job Satisfaction
• Hypothesis (H3).
Work from home has a positive and significant effect on Work Motivation
• Hypothesis (H4).
Work Environment has a positive and significant effect on Job Performance
• Hypothesis (H5).
Job Satisfaction has a positive and significant effect on Job Performance
• Hypothesis (H6).
Work Motivation has a positive and significant effect on Job Performance
Method
For this study, the instrument’s development was based on an extensive literature review and all the
items which have been used in previous relevant studies were adopted. Several tests were performed to
establish Content Validity, Construct Validity and Reliability of the research instrument.
Questionnaires
To measure the variables in this study, indicators were selected from previous studies, which were then
adapted to suit them, which is shown in table 2.
Work from Home (WFH) Work Environment (WE) Job Satisfaction (JS) Work Motivation (WM) Job Performance (JP)
Easton, S., et al., (2018, p.49) Dalkrani, M., et al., (2018, p.19) Easton, S., et al., (2018, p.49) Olafsen, A. H. et al., (2018, p.183) Chong, S. C. et al., (2020, p.73-74)
Data Analysis
A total of 713 participants provided feedback on the online questionnaire, the characteristics of the
respondents are shown in the table 3.
To get the fit model, the initial indicator is 19 items, deleted 7 items (WFH2, WE1, WE2, WM1, JS2,
JS4 dan JP4). In this study, 12 indicators were found for the fit model, shown in Figure 2.
H1 There is a positive relationship among work from home and work environment (CR = 8.517).
H2 There is a positive relationship among work from home and work motivation (CR = 7.485).
H3 There is a positive relationship among work from home and job satisfaction (CR = 8.549).
H4 There is a positive relationship work motivation home and job performance. (CR = 10.517).
H5 There is not supported relationship work environment and job performance. (CR = -1.435).
H6 There is not supported relationship job satisfaction and job performance. (CR = 0.645).
Conclusion
Findings of the study reveal that working from home in Indonesia able to improve job performance.
This policy able to continued into a permanent policy, it is very positive in contributing to job
performance. However, the work environment will be improved, such as infrastructure and facilities
needed for employees related to work from home.
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