Evaluating critical success factors of remote work for bank employees, in Gauteng, South Africa.

Abstract

Remote working occurs when employees conduct work outside the traditional office location of the employer. This practice has been steadily increasing over the years due to technological enablers and globalization. However, the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated remote working in the past few years because of government social distancing regulations, that were enforced to circumvent the spread of the virus. The regulations influenced many organizations to unexpectedly adopt remote work policies. This was due to their required adherence to COVID-19 restrictions and sustained business continuity, during the global health crisis. Even though literature provides numerous studies on remote work, they are often not in the context of South Africa and the COVID-19 period. The focus of this research was to determine predictors of remote work success in a South African context, considering the pre- and post-COVID periods. This research was undertaken to evaluate critical success factors of remote work for bank employees in Gauteng, South Africa to provide conclusive evidence of the most important predictors of remote work success. This will facilitate, decision making for organizations that continue with telecommuting beyond the pandemic period. In this study, remote work success is defined as the ability of an organization tomeet or exceed its business objectives whilst working remotely. A conceptual framework was defined to frame the study and it included organizational, people, Information Communication Technologies (ICTs), location and environmental factors. Then a quantitative post-positivism research methodology was applied to further analyze each of the proposed critical success factors of telework. This study was conducted in the field of Information Systems and Technology, and it sought to understand the social phenomenon of employee perceptions of what they considered critical success factors of remote work. Therefore, the selected structured quantitative research approach was deemed suitable. The data collection for the study was conducted using a closed-ended electronic questionnaire. The sample population of this study consisted of 150 remote-working bank employees. Empirical evidence from statistical tests confirmed that all the proposed critical success factors suggested in the conceptual framework of this research were significant predictors of successful remote working except for organizational factors. The people factors were identified as the greatest predictor of remote working success. The research outcomes also indicated that even though the surveyed respondents had a great preference for remote work, they sometimes wanted to work from the office location. Despite the research outcomes demonstrating that employees perceived remote work as more successful and productive than working from the office. There were slight differences in significant agreements across the sample population demographics such as gender, marital status, ethnicity, and age. In conclusion, the research found that the most critical success factor of remote working was employees of the organization. The research outcomes demonstrated that people factors were instrumental to the success of remote working organizations. Provided the people felt empowered with adequate telecommuting IT tools, remote work policies and management support.