Using Mobile Ethnography to Understand How Employees are Adjusting to Remote Working
The changing work environment has been a topic of many conversations. With the world being more connected than ever a lot of skilled workforce have been exploring their remote ‘digital nomad’ opportunities striving for a better work/life balance. The sudden shift to remote working has influenced a huge change in how we work and is now forcing organizations to make important decisions about working life post-COVID-19.
In May Twitter & Square announced a permanent work from home policy ( Source: Forbes ) shortly followed by a statement from another social media giant Facebook, and their plans to shift their workforce to remote working over the next 5 to 10 years ( Source: The Verge )
A recent PWC US Remote Work Survey highlights just how much our behaviors have changed over these 5 months. While not ready to abandon the office, over 72% of office workers admitted they would like to work from home at least 2 days a week. Additionally, the percentage of employees anticipated working from home at least one day a week has increased from 39% pre-pandemic to 77% during COVID and a projected 55% in the future. This data strongly suggests more flexibility with working hours and a ‘hybrid’ office is the preferred option for many employees working in roles that afford the flexibility of remote work e.g. non-customer facing front line roles.
Here, at Indeemo, we wanted to better understand the challenges our employees are facing during this unusual time and we leveraged the power of our mobile ethnography app utilizing a mobile diary study to gather rich insights to help inform our approach to the working environment post lockdown.
The Challenge
Given COVID hit everyone so quickly, the rapid shift to remote work meant that many office workers had no time to prepare their new workspaces or to get familiar with new communications tools. Meanwhile, many businesses struggled to equip their teams with the necessary technology or to train staff with new remote policies. Many team members also had no prior work from home experiences and struggled to get used to their new environment.
With all of our team working remotely, understanding how employees are finding working in isolation was proving very difficult. Synchronous video calls and online meetings lacked longitudinal insight and some employees were reluctant to share their concerns in a group format.
Synchronous research also lacked the rich, in-the-moment feedback that we were looking for. What we really wanted was the ability to have team members share their experiences over the course of a week to get a real sense of how employees were really doing and how they were being impacted.
The Solution
At Indeemo we have leveraged the power of our smartphone Mobile Ethnography App to carry out an online qualitative research project to help us understand how our team was finding their new work environment and how we could best move forward post COVID.
Using scheduled tasking the research was designed to learn about each employee’s and their daily tasks while understanding their new morning, lunch, and evening routines, their workstation setups, internet connectivity, and communications, as well as how they rate their current work experience versus their office routine.
Tasking Strategy
The three-day study consisted of 10 tasks designed to gather rich insight and inspire the employees to share their everyday experiences working from home during the pandemic.
Day one of the study explored the employee's views on moving to remote working. From creating a dedicated workspace at home to adapting new routines - the team got to open up about the transition and how they adjusted to the new normal.
Day two captured their daily routines. With in-the-moment tasks, the employees got to share a glimpse of their morning, afternoon, and evening routines. They recorded video feedback about their workstations, commuting, finding new balance and challenges they face every day working away from their team.
Day three tasks were designed to understand how the employees feel about the transition and the positives and negatives of their remote working experience. The end of study reflection video was of critical importance to truly understand how the team is feeling about working from home, what is better and worse about remote working, and how we can improve this experience.
Want to learn how you can leverage Indeemo mobile research app to improve your employee’s work from home experience? Schedule a strategy call today.
Key Takeaways
The project enjoyed a great engagement rate. With tasks being scheduled around the employee's free time and encouraging creativity and honesty the data gathered generated invaluable insights into the lives of our team. With remote working systems and policies in place, the transition from office to home was very efficient. While the overall experience was positive there were a number of challenges almost all of the team were facing.
With most of employees citing enjoying the lack of commute and an improved work/life balance, the pros were greatly outweighed by the cons. Isolation, lack of communication, and loss of the community aspects of the office were some of the most common issues all the team were facing.
The difficulty in distinguishing between your work and home space was also mentioned by over 40% of the employees. The lack of commute and time between work and home life was proving very challenging and many struggled to switch off at the end of the day while still in their ‘workspace’. With bedrooms serving as private offices and kitchens working as a co-working space many employees felt like they no longer had space to ‘switch off.
The workspaces were also lacking the taken for granted facilities of an office e.g. smaller desks, no access to printing facilities, etc all cited as examples where home offices were falling short.
Is Remote Working Here to Stay?
Looking at the data and in-the-moment feedback from our samples we can say that remote working is here to stay. While not to the isolated extent as during COVID, many more office workers appreciate the flexibility and safety of working from home.
The general consensus was certainly leaning towards a new, hybrid environment. The team felt just as motivated and excited to do their work. With the improved work/life balance, they could spend more time exercising, preparing healthy meals, and enjoying their downtime. While excited to get back to the office employees were still conscious of the impacts of the virus thus happy to work from home but with more real-life interactions and office visits.
What Does This Mean for Your Business?
Improving the employees at home working experience is key. Investing in better technology and improving remote communications and providing the team with adequate work setups are the key elements to making the new hybrid workplace a success.
Embracing this new environment where work gets done regardless of the location can allow organizations to reduce their costs but also keep their staff more motivated and satisfied with their work, resulting in improved productivity and lower staff turnover.
Here, at Indeemo we have embraced these findings and have modified our working conditions so that post-COVID employees will have the opportunity to work at home more regularly.
If you too would like to transform your team’s remote working experience, schedule a strategy call with our experienced advisors by filling out the form below.
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