Remote work became the norm for many companies during the pandemic, but issues with collaboration, communication and the overall work environment meant it wasn’t always a positive experience. Now, a new study reports the companies that catered to employees’ interests, gave employees independence, fostered collaboration and offered flexible policies were most likely to have strong remote workplaces.
Research from the Georgia Institute of Technology used data from the employee review website Glassdoor to determine what made remote work successful.
Munmun De Choudhury, an associate professor in the School of Interactive Computing, and her Ph.D. student Mohit Chandra presented the research in the paper, “What Makes Some Workplaces More Favorable to Remote Work? Unpacking Employee Experiences During Covid-19 Via Glassdoor,” at Proceedings of the 15th ACM Web Science Conference.
“One of the biggest changes during the pandemic for all of us, for better or worse, was remote work,” said De Choudhury. “The motivation for us in this research was to understand what makes some organizations more suitable for remote work and others not. We found that cultural aspects matter the most.”
The researchers collected more than 140,000 reviews from current employees at 52 Fortune 500 companies where remote work was allowed for the time period between March 2019 to March 2021, which overlapped with the COVID-19 pandemic. Their analysis mainly focused on the pros and cons section of the Glassdoor reviews.
An algorithmic prediction task was created to identify which cultural attributes a company had prior to the pandemic would lead to favorable remote work environments. Their model used statistical and deep learning methods and correctly predicted a company’s favorable remote work environment 76 percent of the time.
Using organizational behavior theory, the researchers divided company culture into 41 different dimensions categorized into seven subgroups: interests, work values, work activities, social skills, job structural characteristics, work styles and interpersonal relationships.
The researchers found that companies that fostered a positive culture for remote work excelled in three main categories:
Interests: Companies that empower employees to pursue their own goals, interests and the way in which they conducted their work were viewed more favorably.
Work values: Companies that give their employees freedom to make their own decisions and work in a collaborative environment led to more satisfaction.
Structured job characteristics: Companies with flexible remote work and hours were more likely to entice employees.
“We found these keywords in reviews like ‘work-life balance’ or ‘flexible work’ occurring frequently in the pros section of good companies,” Chandra said.
Conversely, companies with toxic cultures frequently failed to promote diversity, equity and inclusion efforts; made workers feel disrespected; and acted unethically.
The researchers believe the results highlight generational differences in what’s most valuable to employees.
“There are a lot of reports of quiet quitting and the great resignation because millennials or Gen Z value culture a lot, in contrast to previous generations like baby boomers, for whom job satisfaction was largely about compensation,” said De Choudhury. “Younger generations might say they’re OK with an average salary if they can have that flexibility in work hours, and that’s what makes these companies more favorable to remote work.”
