{"668229":{"#nid":"668229","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Flexible, Supportive Company Culture Makes For Better Remote Work","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003EThe pandemic made remote work the norm for many, but that doesn\u2019t mean it was always a positive experience. Remote work can have many advantages: increased flexibility, inclusivity for parents and people with disabilities, and work-life balance. But it can also cause issues with collaboration, communication, and the overall work environment. \u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003ENew research from the Georgia Institute of Technology used data from the employee review website Glassdoor to determine what made remote work successful. Companies that catered to employees\u2019 interests, gave employees independence, fostered collaboration, and had flexible policies were most likely to have strong remote workplaces. \u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u201cOne of the biggest changes during the pandemic for all of us, for better or worse, was remote work,\u201d said \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.munmund.net\/\u0022\u003EMunmun De Choudhury\u003C\/a\u003E, an associate professor in the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/ic.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003ESchool of Interactive Computing\u003C\/a\u003E. \u201cThe motivation for us in this research was to understand what makes some organizations more suitable for remote work and others not. We found that cultural aspects matter the most.\u201d\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003EDe Choudhury and her Ph.D. student \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/mohit3011.github.io\/\u0022\u003EMohit Chandra\u003C\/a\u003E presented the research in the paper, \u201c\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.munmund.net\/pubs\/WebSci23_RemoteWork_Glassdoor.pdf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003EWhat Makes Some Workplaces More Favorable to Remote Work? Unpacking Employee Experiences During Covid-19 Via Glassdoor\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E,\u201d at Proceedings of the 15th ACM Web Science Conference.\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EData Discovery\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003EGlassdoor made for an ideal dataset because employees can post anonymously, leading to more authentic reviews. Although review sites are known for attracting people with strong views, this bias worked in the researchers\u2019 favor \u2014 they were looking for people with strong opinions on company culture. \u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u201cWe are missing the people who are in the middle, but it also actually works in our favor because we really were interested in those positives and negatives,\u201d De Choudhury said. \u201cWe recognize the bias, but at the same time, it was still a pretty good data set for us to know the extremes of how people felt.\u201d\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003EUltimately, they collected more than 140,000 reviews from current employees at 52 Fortune 500 companies that a\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003Ellowed remote work from March 2019 to March 2021, which overlapped with the Covid-19 pandemic\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E. Some of these companies included Verizon, Walmart, and Salesforce. Their textual analysis mostly f\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003Eocused on the pros and cons section of the\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E Glassdoor reviews. \u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003ETo analyze the data, the researchers created an algorithmic prediction task to identify which cultural attributes a company had prior to the pandemic would lead to favorable remote work environments. Their model used statistical and deep learning methods and correctly predicted a company\u2019s favorable remote work environment 76% of the time. \u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003EUsing organizational behavior theory, the researchers divided company culture into 41 different dimensions categorized into seven subgroups: interests, work values, work activities, social skills, job structural characteristics, work styles, and interpersonal relationships. \u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EThe Company Culture Curve\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003ECompanies with a positive culture for remote work excelled in three main categories:\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cul\u003E\r\n\t\u003Cli\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003EInterests: Companies that empower employees to pursue their own goals, interests, and how they conduct their work were viewed more favorably.\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/li\u003E\r\n\t\u003Cli\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003EWork values: Companies that give their employees freedom to make their own decisions and work in a collaborative environment led to more satisfaction.\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/li\u003E\r\n\t\u003Cli\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003EStructured job characteristics: Companies with flexible remote work and hours were more likely to entice employees. \u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/li\u003E\r\n\u003C\/ul\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u201cWe found these keywords in reviews like \u2018work-life balance\u2019 or \u2018flexible work\u2019 occurring frequently in the pros section of good companies,\u201d Chandra said. \u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003EConversely, companies with toxic cultures frequently failed to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts; made workers feel disrespected; and acted unethically. \u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003EUltimately, the researchers believe these results reflect generational differences in what\u2019s most valuable to employees.\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u201cThere are a lot of reports of quiet quitting and the great resignation because millennials or Gen Z value culture a lot, in contrast to previous generations like Baby Boomers, for whom job satisfaction was largely about compensation,\u201d said De Choudhury. \u201cYounger generations might say they\u2019re OK with an average salary if they can have that flexibility in work hours, and that\u2019s what makes these companies more favorable to remote work.\u201d\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003ECITATION: \u003Cspan\u003EMohit Chandra and Munmun De Choudhury. 2023. What Makes Some Workplaces More Favorable to Remote Work? Unpacking Employee Experiences During COVID-19 Via Glassdoor. In Proceedings of the 15th ACM Web Science Conference 2023 (WebSci \u002723). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 312\u2013323.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1145\/3578503.3583602\u0022 title=\u0022https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1145\/3578503.3583602\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003Ehttps:\/\/doi.org\/10.1145\/3578503.3583602\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003ENew research from the Georgia Institute of Technology used data from the employee review website Glassdoor to determine what made remote work successful. Companies that catered to employees\u2019 interests, gave employees independence, fostered collaboration, and had flexible policies were most likely to have strong remote workplaces. \u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"New research from the Georgia Institute of Technology used data from the employee review website Glassdoor to determine what made remote work successful."}],"uid":"34541","created_gmt":"2023-06-26 21:06:53","changed_gmt":"2023-07-06 21:48:38","author":"Tess Malone","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2023-06-26T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2023-06-26T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"671041":{"id":"671041","type":"image","title":"Heatmap","body":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cspan\u003EFrequency Heatmap for the most popular 30 terms in the Desired and Less Desired organization reviews.\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","created":"1687815838","gmt_created":"2023-06-26 21:43:58","changed":"1687815902","gmt_changed":"2023-06-26 21:45:02","alt":"Frequency heatmap","file":{"fid":"254032","name":"Frequency_Heamaps.png","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2023\/06\/26\/Frequency_Heamaps.png","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2023\/06\/26\/Frequency_Heamaps.png","mime":"image\/png","size":171591,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2023\/06\/26\/Frequency_Heamaps.png?itok=nMhLltSl"}}},"media_ids":["671041"],"groups":[{"id":"1214","name":"News Room"},{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"187915","name":"go-researchnews"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39501","name":"People and Technology"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ETess Malone, Senior Research Writer\/Editor\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003Etess.malone@gatech.edu\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["tess.malone@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}