Face-to-Display Work: Czech Managers’ Experiences and Expectations

Abstract

There has been a clear increase in the number of e-workers across countries and industries. But the experience of working from home has not been the same in all countries. The purpose of this quantitative study was to explore and understand the managers’ perspectives of and attitudes towards face-to-display working, namely the reactions of managers working from home, their use of the home-office during the ongoing Covid-19 epidemic, advantages and disadvantages, their productivity, how they cooperated and organised teleworking, and how they evaluated the reasons that led to their experience and their views on future home-office development. One hundred and sixty-two respondents from the Czech Republic participated in the online survey from February to March 2022. Eleven hypotheses were established that needed to be proved or disproved (six hypotheses were confirmed and five were not). Face-to-display working was identified as an effective, time-saving tool that fostered increased productivity and satisfaction (especially among the younger generation), promoted cost-saving and provided a future work model option. Conversely, management professionals were concerned that face-to-display working affected work-life balance and resulted in a lack of physical human interaction, also that productivity was not affected by less support from colleagues, by gender or by having an at-home work space and that workers were not spending more time at their desks. The findings from this study demonstrate positive social change involving the adoption of face-to-display working in businesses. Understanding the management perspective regarding face-to-display working in the Czech Republic may lead to ways of dealing with problems that will allow more employees to work in other premises.

Received: 23 May 2022 / Accepted: 16 August 2022 / Published: 2 September 2022