Home office employee satisfaction during and after Covid

Abstract

THE AIM OF THE PAPER

The aim of our study is to show how employees' satisfaction with home office changed during and after Covid. The home office became popular in Hungary during the Covid period, and many people who had not worked in this form of work before could experience its advantages and disadvantages. It is also an important aspect of how people experienced this during Covid, but since many distorting factors were present during this period (illness, stress, uncertainty, coercion, children while working at home), it is also worth examining how the satisfaction changed after the pandemic. Our main research question is also related to this, i.e. how the perception of the home office changed after the end of the pandemic.

METHODOLOGY

The applied method was a standard online questionnaire. Our research consisted of two parts. During the investigation, we first interviewed 600 Hungarian residents aged 18-64 with an online questionnaire, who had at least three months of home office experience. The first phase of the survey took place at the end of the 3rd wave of the Covid epidemic, in May and June 2021. The research took place according to specific quotas. The second research phase took place after Covid, in February and March 2022. During the research, we asked 1,000 Hungarian residents using an online questionnaire. The results are representative of the entire adult Hungarian population aged 18-64, in terms of age, gender, education, place of residence, and employment sector.

MOST IMPORTANT RESULTS

The most important results and novelties include the fact that the employees' satisfaction with the home office (satisfaction index) decreased while the positive attitude increased. The research results make it clear that employees are open to the possibility of a home office, but they no longer see it as a reward but rather expect this form of working opportunity from their employer and have higher expectations regarding the conditions.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Our practical recommendation is that the managers of small and medium-sized companies take the above results into account and, if they have the opportunity, provide the home office for their employees. This makes it even easier to retain talent, acquire new employees, and increase employee satisfaction.