Factors Affecting the Effectiveness of Work from Home among the Middle-Level Employees of Manufacturing Industry

Abstract

Work from Home (WFH) concept gained much popularity and importance than earlier with the quarantine period during global pandemic COVID 19 as many countries applied physical distancing strategy to avoid the pandemic. The current study was initiated to identify the factors affecting work effectiveness from home among middlelevel employees in the manufacturing industry using individual-level data from 136 middle-level employees randomly selected from three (03) manufacturing companies. In studying that, four main research objectives; identifying the level of effectiveness of WFH, identifying the factors that affect the effectiveness of WFH, identifying the relationship between factors and effectiveness of WFH, and identifying the impact of factors on WFH, were raised. Hence, this was conducted as a cross-sectional, quantitative field study. Primary data were collected via a standard questionnaire that met the acceptable level of validity and reliability. The data were then analyzed using descriptive statistics to assess the level of effectiveness, Pearson correlation coefficient analyses to assess the relationship among variables, regression analyses to assess the degree of impact, and independent sample T-Test. The study results revealed a high level of effectiveness of WFH among middle-level employees of selected manufacturing companies and management support, technical support, employee training, task identity, feedback, and job autonomy significantly correlates with the effectiveness of WFH and significantly impact the effectiveness of WFH. According to the results, all four research objectives were achieved. Hence it is recommended for practicing managers to pay much attention to these factors that affect the effectiveness of WFH when allowing employees to WFH.