Reshaping the Landscape of Future Work: Flexible Work Practices and Retaining Covid-19 Organisationally Acquired Efficacies

Background: Public health service administrative staff performed home-based work for the first time in their occupations during the Covid-19 pandemic, which has precipitated the challenge to manage operations and staff remotely and distinctively contrarily than formerly. This prompted the substantial issue of establishing whether the continuation of flexible work practices was considered practical for the future, as such a vast work transition would influence work methodologies moving forward.

Purpose of the Study: This study aims to determine the feasibility of a continued home-based work practice as the new work norm during the remainder of the pandemic and post-pandemic, and consequently to explore flexible work practices and organisationally pandemic acquired efficacies.

Design/Methodology/Approach: A mixed methods design was performed in two phases: the interview phase and the survey phase. A hypothetico-deductive (H-D) approach was deemed appropriate for this study as it combined both deductive and inductive reasoning views. The authors’ good base knowledge of the phenomenon under study allowed for a working hypothesis formulation. The respondent pool’s occupation was related to the administrative cadre in the public sector and was selected through purposive and convenience sampling.

Results/Findings: Future home-based working was deemed practical and acceptable. The former pre-Covid 19 workforce is not similar to the current workforce, and employers should comprehend that there has been a transition in how workers perceive work. With this massive transition in the workforce, accompanied by the digital restructuring in work methods, the landscape of future work has been reshaped.