Employees demographic charactersitics' impact on the remote working perception

Abstract

Current business environment all over the world is affected by Covid-19 pandemic, which forces companies to introduce new concepts of work design in order to protect employees and ensure business continuity. Focus is shifted from physical presence and work environment, to achieving set goals through the remote working. Such working model implementation takes certain period of adaptation, bringing, at the same, certain side effects: increased stress, loneliness, social distancing, losing the border between professional and private life, etc. Demographic characteristics itself influence the perception of remote working, which is the subject of this research among companies operating in Serbia. The paper is based on the results of the research conducted through a survey among employees of the companies operating in various sectors in the Republic of Serbia. T-tests and the ANOVA test were used to determine the influence of the demographic characteristics of the respondents on their perception of remote working. The aim of the paper is to point out the challenges faced by the companies from different industries during remote working implementation having in mind diverse categories of employees and in the situation where remote working is a necessary response of companies to the current pandemic caused by the Covid-19 virus. Based on the obtained results, the purpose of this paper is to provide guidelines for easier remote working implementation taking care of diverse employees’ categories.