Designing a Telecommuting Framework for a Post-Covid-19 Business Environment

Abstract

COVID-19 changed the business practices for many organizations as “safer at home” and closure mandates abruptly made many work forces transition from an in-office employee presence to full-time telecommuting at home. This capstone analyzes the current telecommuting practices for a healthcare company (“Magnolia”) to recommend a permanent telecommuting framework for employee retention and career advancement. Drawing on research in the areas of concerted cultivation, cultural capital, social identity, leader-member exchange, and job characteristics, I developed a telecommuting work design conceptual framework based upon three major pillars of theory: interpersonal processes, organizational identity, and individual role design to determine what is most important to Magnolia's employees in a permanent telecommuting framework. Using a mixed methods approach including employee surveys, manager surveys, and an ethnography including interviews, virtual meeting observations, and e-mail analysis resulted in findings that identified organizational identity, high-quality leader-member exchanges, concerted cultivation, and intentional interpersonal interactions as being vital components of a successful telecommuting framework.