Abstract:

With the advent of COVID 19, telecommuting has become an increasingly widespread work mode and a necessity for all institutions to adjust quickly (Debata, Patnaik, & Mishra, 2020). During the last ten years, the United Arab Emirates-UAE was extensively investing on e-government, e-learning, e-commerce, e-banking and the digital economy. Nevertheless, in person attendance in UAE was mandatory at all workplaces. Telecommuting in UAE was not allowed before COVID19 (Alketbi, 2018). Telecommuting or working from home has been around in the literature for a while at the global level (Khan et al.,2021). The available literature has strong advocates for and against it. As the world becomes more interconnected and globalized, both telecommuting and in person jobs are needed and the way they are managed is changing rapidly (Beno, 2018).
The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of telecommuting in UAE higher education and how it impacted faculty and staff motivation, productivity & efficiency, work-life balance, stress level and isolation . In addition, this study aims to investigate the success factors for a productive higher education workforce. Various work tasks were examined for efficacy, convenience, speed and productivity while telecommuting .
This study uses the mixed methods methodology where quantitative data is collected from UAE higher education employee surveys and qualitative data is collected from two higher education focus group interviews, the first one for faculty and the second one for staff and administrators. The survey was distributed to 380 participants in a public university. Only one hundred thirty one employees filled the survey.
The data analysis and findings showed that the level of adjustment at the start of the pandemic was quiet high because the UAE technological readiness and infrastructure was advanced which helped the employees to conform quickly to the new government mandates. Challenges such as lack of motivation and learning inefficiency increased over time due to students lack of interest in online delivery. Whereas for the administrative tasks and meetings, online practices were found extremely convenient for all higher education employees during and after covid 19. Meetings are still conducted online after the covid19 for convenience of transportation between campuses, efficient time management, and economy in using campus facilities and amenities. At the psychological level, a high sense of isolation and disconnection was present with telecommuting. Issues of mental and physical health were raised by the employees. Some faculty and some administrators felt stressed due to the lack of work-life balance. Workday was extended after official work hours. There was an interference between work and personal life. Working mothers were struggling with their children at home while doing meetings and delivering classes. Finally, the success factors for a telecommuting workforce were found as follows: strong infrastructure and technological support , well trained employees, ongoing professional development, high level of leadership support, well organized tasks in online format, high level of employee commitment and self-regulation, high level of confidentiality of work information, and lastly well-organized workplace at home.

Keywords:

Telecommuting, UAE, Higher education.