Social Resilience of Work from Home Environment Post-COVID-19: Case of Telecommuting

Work from home theme has been discussed thoroughly in relation to sustainability and transportation reduction. However, it was less common to work from home before the COVID-19 pandemic, when many professionals experienced significant changes in their working environments. Telecommuting was made an option at the time due to the need for adaptation to the lockdown. After COVID-19, the work from home option remained as a basic alternative. This transition has motivated researchers to investigate various related economic, environmental, and social issues. The current study highlights the social resilience of the work from home environment post-COVID-19 in the Jordanian context in terms of telecommuters’ adherence and satisfaction prior to, during, and post-COVID-19. The study focused on telecommuters in the call center of a leading telecommunications company. Telecommuters’ adherence was investigated based on monthly employee performance assessment data. A questionnaire was also disseminated to examine the telecommuters’ satisfaction with the indoor environmental quality of their workspaces in terms of the social dimensions, including privacy, personalization, and territoriality at home. There was then a comparative analysis of two resulting groups: namely, those with better adherence to their work and those who became less devoted to work after telecommuting. Finally, a set of recommendations and design guidelines were developed to improve the social resilience and flexibility of future work from home settings. This result is expected to have a beneficial effect, supporting comfort, satisfaction, and productivity enhancements. This, in turn, will improve the implementation of sustainability measures during times of crisis, thus promoting the resilience of the worker’s home life.