The Experience of Russian Companies in Switching to Remote Work in the Context of the Pandemic

Klimova, Svetlana; Klimov, Ivan A.

doi:10.31857/S013216250016777-7

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Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya

Issue 8

The Experience of Russian Companies in Switching to Remote Work in the Context of the Pandemic

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The Experience of Russian Companies in Switching to Remote Work in the Context of the Pandemic

PII

S013216250016777-7-1

DOI

10.31857/S013216250016777-7

Publication type

Article

Status

Published

Authors

Svetlana Klimova

Affiliation: Institute of Sociology of FCTAS RAS
Address: Russian Federation, Moscow

Ivan A. Klimov

Affiliation:
National Research University Higher School of Economics
Institute of Sociology of FCTAS RAS
Address: Russian Federation, Moscow

Journal name

Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya

Edition

Issue 8

Pages

203-211

Abstract

This article presents the results of a study of the experience of the emergency transition to remote work in Russian organizations and enterprises in the spring of 2020. The main purpose of the study is to analyze how the lockdown has changed the strategies of managing teams: how managers determined the most pressing tasks and what technical capabilities, organizational and communicative techniques have been used to solve them. The transfer of employees to remote work entailed a decrease in the efficiency of collective work with an increase in the amount of working time; people’s concerns about the stability of their work; difficulties in business interaction. Those companies that had created IT-platforms and communication channels before the lockdown managed to solve production problems relatively quickly. But the problems of motivation, engagement, trust, mutual understanding, etc. could not be solved promptly. The crisis was relatively successfully passed by those organizations that already had these skills in their corporate culture repertoire. Experience in overcoming the difficulties of the lockdown has shown that effective work outside the office is possible if managers use solutions that motivate employees to show initiative and cooperate, to find the optimal balance between control and trust. As a consequence, there appeared a demand for a corporate culture involving horizontal interaction, a combination of stability and variability of communication rules, and feedback tools.

Keywords

lockdown, remote work, IT-systems, work time, business communication, corporate culture, cooperation, motivation, engagement, trust

Acknowledgment

This article is a translation of: Климова С.Г., Климов И.А. Опыт перехода российских компаний на удаленную работу в ситуации пандемии // Sotsiologicheskie Issledovaniia. 2021. No 7: 50–60. DOI: 10.31857/S013216250014470-0

Received

21.09.2021

Publication date

27.09.2021

Number of characters

35018

Cite Download pdf

GOST	Klimova S., Klimov I. The Experience of Russian Companies in Switching to Remote Work in the Context of the Pandemic // Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya – 2021. – Issue 8 C. 203-211 [Electronic resource]. URL: http://ras.jes.su/socis/s013216250016777-7-1-en (circulation date: 19.03.2025). DOI: 10.31857/S013216250016777-7
MLA	Klimova, Svetlana, Klimov, Ivan A "The Experience of Russian Companies in Switching to Remote Work in the Context of the Pandemic." Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya 8 (2021):203-211. DOI: 10.31857/S013216250016777-7
APA	Klimova S., Klimov I. (2021). The Experience of Russian Companies in Switching to Remote Work in the Context of the Pandemic. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya (8), pp.203-211 DOI: 10.31857/S013216250016777-7

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