Impact of ‘Work from Home’ on Employee Performance/ Productivity in Software Industry during COVID 2019 Lockdown - Result of Perception Survey in India

Abstract

The issue of ‘Work from home’ has been studied by several researchers but most of the studies enquired from the psychological aspect associated with ‘Work from home’. A few have studied to examine its effect on employee productivity/performance. Whatever findings have been reported in the extant literature are based on studies for limited number of people at work from home. This is the first time the whole world is giving a try to implement ‘work from home’ with large scale employee involvement. Particularly in software industry, the practice is being followed by all most all the software industries in India during the ongoing lockdown for the COVID 19 pandemic. In order to quickly get the views of the software professionals on the impact of ‘work from home’ on employee productivity/performance a short survey was carried out. As it is a perception based and self-reported study the result is not quantitatively substantiated but it gives an idea to take call as to whether such a practice could be a new normal in the IT industry. Descriptive statistics have been used as the responses are very limited. But nevertheless, the study period is very current and responders have given real-time feeling hence it is more reliable. The result shows that at least, if not increased, the employee productivity level has not been reduced.