IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/gender/v31y2024i2p456-471.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Working from home during COVID‐19: What does this mean for the ideal worker norm?

Author

Listed:
  • Sue Williamson
  • Helen Taylor
  • Vindhya Weeratunga

Abstract

The ideal worker norm is associated with specific ways of working. The ideal worker is a man who works long hours, is constantly available, and highly productive. Emerging research suggests that the shock of COVID‐19, which forced millions of employees to work from home, may have been powerful enough to disrupt the ideal worker norm. We therefore ask: how did working from home during the pandemic impact the ideal worker norm? We apply Acker's ideal worker norm to determine whether different groups of women employees who worked from home during the pandemic worked in ways which aligned to the norm. We conduct this analysis through the lens of two modalities of time: being clock time and (feminine) process time. Our examination of how employees experienced time extends existing, yet limited, research focused on time use during the pandemic. We used a mixed‐method design to analyze survey data from almost 5000 Australian employees to show that significant proportions of women, women carers, and disabled women worked in a manner aligned more to the ideal worker norm, compared with pre‐COVID times. We therefore conclude that a multidimensional ideal worker is emerging and one which works to both clock time and process time. This is an important finding as we seek to better understand how employees can work in a hybrid environment and what this means for organizations and employees.

Suggested Citation

  • Sue Williamson & Helen Taylor & Vindhya Weeratunga, 2024. "Working from home during COVID‐19: What does this mean for the ideal worker norm?," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(2), pages 456-471, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:gender:v:31:y:2024:i:2:p:456-471
    DOI: 10.1111/gwao.13081
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.13081
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/gwao.13081?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Barrero, Jose Maria & Bloom, Nick & Davis, Steven J., 2020. "Why Working From Home Will Stick," SocArXiv wfdbe, Center for Open Science.
    2. Ioana C. Cristea & Paul M. Leonardi, 2019. "Get Noticed and Die Trying: Signals, Sacrifice, and the Production of Face Time in Distributed Work," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(3), pages 552-572, May.
    3. Anna Kurowska, 2020. "Gendered Effects of Home-Based Work on Parents’ Capability to Balance Work with Non-work: Two Countries with Different Models of Division of Labour Compared," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 151(2), pages 405-425, September.
    4. Stefan Tangen, 2005. "Demystifying productivity and performance," International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 54(1), pages 34-46, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Duanyi Yang & Erin L. Kelly & Laura D. Kubzansky & Lisa Berkman, 2023. "Working from Home and Worker Well-being: New Evidence from Germany," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 76(3), pages 504-531, May.
    2. Ro’i Zultan & Eldar Dadon, 2023. "Missing the forest for the trees: when monitoring quantitative measures distorts task prioritization," Working Papers 2319, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Department of Economics.
    3. Petra Nieken & Sven Walther, 2024. "Honesty in Virtual Communication," CESifo Working Paper Series 11094, CESifo.
    4. Jean-Marc Bourgeon & José de Sousa & Alexis Noir-Luhalwe, 2022. "Social Distancing and Risk Taking: Evidence from a Team Game Show [Distanciation sociale et prise de risque : Les résultats d'un jeu d'équipe]," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03792423, HAL.
    5. Cevat Giray Aksoy & Jose Maria Barrero & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis & Mathias Dolls & Pablo Zarate, 2023. "Time Savings When Working from Home," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 113, pages 597-603, May.
    6. Elstner, Steffen & Grimme, Christian & Kecht, Valentin & Lehmann, Robert, 2022. "The diffusion of technological progress in ICT," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    7. Bergeaud, Antonin & Eyméoud, Jean-Benoît & Garcia, Thomas & Henricot, Dorian, 2023. "Working from home and corporate real estate," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    8. Vij, Akshay & Souza, Flavio F. & Barrie, Helen & Anilan, V. & Sarmiento, Sergio & Washington, Lynette, 2023. "Employee preferences for working from home in Australia," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 214(C), pages 782-800.
    9. Titan Alon & Sena Coskun & Matthias Doepke & David Koll & Michèle Tertilt, 2022. "From Mancession to Shecession: Women’s Employment in Regular and Pandemic Recessions," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36(1), pages 83-151.
    10. Paula Franklin & Wouter Zwysen & Agnieszka Piasna, 2022. "Temporal Dimensions of Job Quality and Gender: Exploring Differences in the Associations of Working Time and Health between Women and Men," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(8), pages 1-18, April.
    11. Hoffmann, Christin & Thommes, Kirsten, 2024. "Can leaders motivate employees’ energy-efficient behavior with thoughtful communication?," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    12. Gopalakrishnan, Balagopal & Jacob, Joshy & Srivastava, Jagriti, 2022. "Fishing in muddy waters: Mergers and acquisitions during uncertainty," IIMA Working Papers WP 2022-09-02, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Research and Publication Department.
    13. Martha J. Bailey & Janet Currie & Hannes Schwandt, 2022. "The Covid-19 Baby Bump: The Unexpected Increase in U.S. Fertility Rates in Response to the Pandemic," Working Papers 2022-30, Princeton University. Economics Department..
    14. Norlander, Peter & Erickson, Christopher, 2022. "The Role of Institutions in Job Teleworkability Before and After the Covid-19 Pandemic," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1172, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    15. Stephen Redding, 2023. "The Economics of Cities: From Theory to Data," Working Papers 304, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    16. Azmat, Ghazala & Hensvik, Lena & Rosenqvist, Olof, 2020. "Workplace presenteeism, job substitutability and gender inequality," Working Paper Series 2020:9, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    17. Masayuki Morikawa, 2023. "Productivity dynamics of remote work during the COVID‐19 pandemic," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(3), pages 317-331, July.
    18. Zarate, Pablo & Dolls, Mathias & Davis, Steven & Bloom, Nicholas & Barrero, Jose Maria & Aksoy, Cevat Giray, 2024. "Why Does Working from Home Vary Across Countries and People?," CEPR Discussion Papers 19003, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    19. Bas, Maria & Fernandes, Ana & Paunov, Caroline, 2024. "How resilient was trade to COVID-19?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 240(C).
    20. Duede, Eamon & Teplitskiy, Misha & Lakhani, Karim & Evans, James, 2024. "Being together in place as a catalyst for scientific advance," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(2).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:gender:v:31:y:2024:i:2:p:456-471. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0968-6673 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.