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This work examines teleworking as it relates to the shared understanding throughout an organization. This inquiry seeks to understand how people cope with a pandemic in a world that keeps changing. When the Coronavirus, or COVID-19, first hit the United States it was just an imposing danger that had to be dealt with. Around the world there was panic, uncertainty, and desperation to name a few of the emotions and conditions we saw everywhere around us.
Discovery must address the need for and existence of a shared understanding where leaders and employees openly discuss the challenges presented by teleworking. It must also asks whether there are impediments or obstacles that organizations could remove or reduce to enable employees to accomplish the same amount of work they are currently doing in the office, but in a shorter duration of time while teleworking.
The following is intended to be a deeper evaluation of telework than is currently available in relevant literature so that we can understand how to build strengths and mitigate weaknesses in trust and performance as they are applied in organizational development. This is accomplished without delving into the details of the pandemic and how it grew. It deals with the aftermath and how people came to cope with the disease and its effects. To do that, it was necessary to examine telework, how it has been done in the past, how people experienced it during the pandemic, and what telework might look like in the future.
Research about work conditions and approaches involves many things. This project focuses on two vital telework considerations: trustworthiness and performance. Trustworthiness can be defined as the quality of a person, or a thing, that inspires reliability. Key trustworthiness qualities include being respectful, honest, consistent, positive, and selfless. The performance part of this examination deals with how well employees, and the organization, perform because of telework. Further, what is required to set employees up for success and how can leaders and managers be persuaded that telework can be a viable solution leading to continued or increased productivity?
There are four data points that guide this examination of telework, trustworthiness, and performance.
Telework Examination Data Points
- 1.
Telework Act of 2010
- 2.
2021 Department of Defense Inspector General (DOD IG) report on technology and communications
- 3.
Telework, Trustworthiness, and Telework Survey, March 2021
- 4.
Personal interviews
The first data point is the Telework Act of 2010, which set continuity of service, cost reduction, work-life balance, and employment for people with disabilities goals for federal entities. The second is the 2021 DOD IG report, Evaluation of Access to Department of Defense Information Technology and Communications During the Coronavirus Disease-2019 Pandemic (IG, 2021). DOD wanted to understand how well components did in providing access to DOD information technology and communications during COVID-19.
The third data point is a survey I conducted with Dr. Denise Siegfeldt of Florida Institute of Technology. The survey was intended to identify problems that exist with telework and what can be done to remedy these issues and allow employees to be productive. The study was also intended to contribute to the teleworking body of knowledge. The survey collected 135 responses before being closed. Two responses were deleted from the database because the participants did not agree to question 1, which asked respondents to agree to the terms of the survey.
The fourth data point is 12 interviews in which participants were asked their impressions and experiences in the areas of how telework was conducted, what were positive aspects, and what areas needed improvement. The interviews were then synthesized into several common areas: distractions, fatigue, accountability, communication, productivity, technology, coping, work hours, resources, and plan approaches.
Those data points contribute to the examination of the current state of teleworking. President Barack Obama signed the Telework Enhancement Act of 2010 into law (Cook, DeMarco, Doherty, & Jones, 2013; Rosenberg, 2020, p. 15). Federal entities were directed to aspire to four goals: to foster continuity of service during an emergency, to reduce costs, to promote work-life balance, and to increase employment opportunities for persons with disabilities.