DEGREE PROJECT IN INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING ANDMANAGEMENT,SECOND CYCLE, 30 CREDITSSTOCKHOLM, SWEDEN 2021

Remote Work’s Effecton MotivationA study of how remote work duringthe covid-19 pandemic has affectedemployee motivation

PHILIP HEDSTROM

MARIO GONZALEZ MUNOZ

KTH ROYAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGYSCHOOL OF INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING AND MANAGEMENT

© 2021 Philip Hedstrom and Mario Gonzalez Munoz

Remote Work’s Effect onMotivation

A study of how remote work during the covid-19 pandemichas affected employee motivation

by

Philip Hedstrom

Mario Gonzalez Munoz

Master of Science Thesis TRITA-ITM-EX 2021:294KTH Industrial Engineering and ManagementIndustrial ManagementSE-100 44 STOCKHOLM

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Hur distansarbete paverkarmotivation

En studie om hur distansarbete under covid-19 pandeminhar paverkat anstalldas motivation

av

Philip Hedstrom

Mario Gonzalez Munoz

Examensarbete TRITA-ITM-EX 2021:294KTH Industriell teknik och managementIndustriell ekonomi och organisationSE-100 44 STOCKHOLM

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Master of Science Thesis TRITA-ITM-EX 2021:294

Remote Work’s Effect on Motivation:A study of how remote work during the covid-19

pandemic has affected employee motivation

Philip HedstromMario Gonzalez Munoz

Approved Examiner Supervisor

2021-06-08 Anna Wahl Monica LindgrenCommissioner Contact person

Abstract

The current pandemic infused by the covid-19 virus has changed the world weonce knew. To prevent the spread of the disease, many countries have imple-mented restrictions involving social distancing, which has resulted in millions ofemployees that have started to work remotely from their homes. Previous studieshighlight mainly the positive consequences of remote work due to the rising pop-ularity of remote work before the virus hit. However, the pandemic has forcedcompanies and employees to apply these new working methods, creating unfa-miliar conditions.

Therefore, it is of great interest to analyze how these changes have affected em-ployees, mainly their motivation. This study aims to evaluate how working re-motely, as a consequence of the pandemic, have affected the motivation amongthe employees of a Swedish company within the power industry. The authors didit by conducting a literature review to understand the definition of motivation andhow certain needs affect motivation. By interviewing ten employees, the authorsof this study were given insights regarding how the employees have experiencedremote work during the pandemic, how it has affected their personal needs, andif it has had any implications on their motivation.

The results show that the interviewees share several of the advantages mentionedin the literature, such as flexibility and autonomy, and disadvantages, such asfewer social interactions and relatedness. However, most interviewees had notexperienced that their motivation has changed, which is partly due to increasedautonomy—those who do experience a loss in motivation attribute it to lackingrelatedness and fewer opportunities for self-development.

Keywords

Employee motivation, remote work, job satisfaction

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Examensarbete TRITA-ITM-EX 2021:294

Hur distansarbete paverkar motivation:En studie om hur distansarbete under covid-19pandemin har paverkat anstalldas motivation

Philip HedstromMario Gonzalez Munoz

Godkant Examinator Handledare

2021-06-08 Anna Wahl Monica LindgrenUppdragsgivare Kontaktperson

Sammanfattning

Radande pandemi och covid-19 har forandrat den varld som vi en gang kandetill. For att minska smittspridningen har lander infort restriktioner gallande socialdistansering, vilket orsakat att flera miljoner anstallda borjat jobba pa distans.Tidigare studier betonar de positiva aspekterna med distansarbete pa grund avdess okade popularitet innan pandemin slog till. Pandemin har tvingat foretagoch anstallda att borja jobba pa distans, vilket skapar frammande forutsattningar.

Darfor ar det av stort intresse att undersoka hur dessa forutsattningar harpaverkat anstallda, framforallt deras motivation. Syftet med denna studie aratt evaluera hur distansarbete som en konsekvens av pandemin har paverkatmotivationen bland anstallda inom ett svenskt foretag som verkar inom el-industrin. Detta genomfordes genom en litteraturstudie for att forsta hur mo-tivation definieras och hur manskliga behov paverkar motivation. Genom attintervjua 10 anstallda har forfattarna av denna studie fatt insikter gallande deanstalldas upplevelse av distansarbete, hur det har paverkat deras behov samt omdet har haft nagon inverkan pa deras motivation.

Reslutaten visar att intervjuobjekten delar flera av de fordelar som namnts i tidi-gare studier sa som flexibilet och autonmi, men ocksa nackdelar sa som avsak-nade av sociala interaktioner samt tillhorighet. Majoriteten av intervjuobjeketenupplever inte att deras motivation har forsamrats, vilket delvis beror pa okad au-tonomi. De som upplever att deras motivation minskat antyder att det beror paforsamrad samhorighet samt mindre mojligheter for sjalvutveckling.

Nyckelord

Motivation, distansarbete, arbetstillfredsstallelse

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Acknowledgements

The authors of this report would like to express their greatest gratitude to allthe interviewees who contributed with their insights and experiences. You allmade this research possible. Furthermore, the authors would like to extend theirgratitude to their contact person at the case company. We are deeply gratefulfor the opportunity to work together with you and your company and for yoursupport throughout the research.

Finally, the authors would like to express their gratitude to their supervisor Profes-sor Monica Lindgren, who provided continuous support and guidance throughoutthe research. Your input and experience provided us with the feedback and en-couragement needed to conduct this thesis.

Stockholm, June 2021Philip Hedstrom and Mario Gonzalez Munoz

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Contents

1 Introduction 1

1.1 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.2 Research Question . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31.3 Aim and objective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31.4 Scope and Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

2 Theoretical Context 5

2.1 Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52.1.1 Types of motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52.1.2 The interrelationship between the two types of motivation . 62.1.3 Internalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72.1.4 Human needs and motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92.1.5 Conditions affecting motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122.1.6 Goals and aspirations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

2.2 Remote work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132.2.1 Benefits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142.2.2 Disadvantages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142.2.3 Effect on motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152.2.4 Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

3 Method 17

3.1 Introduction to the Research Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173.2 Research Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

3.2.1 Literature Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183.2.2 Data collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193.2.3 Data analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

3.3 Evaluation of Research Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223.3.1 Internal Validity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223.3.2 Construct Validity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233.3.3 External Validity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

3.4 Ethical Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

4 Results 25

4.1 Motivational factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254.2 Benefits with remote work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304.3 Disadvantages with remote work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

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4.4 Optimal way of working in the future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384.5 Informal meetings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384.6 Actions by The Company . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

4.6.1 What has been done well . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394.6.2 What could have been done better . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 404.6.3 What should be done in the future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

4.7 Psychological needs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414.7.1 Autonomy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 424.7.2 Competence and self-development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 424.7.3 Relatedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

4.8 Remote work’s effect on motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

5 Analysis 47

5.1 Human needs and motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 485.1.1 Relatedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 485.1.2 Autonomy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 515.1.3 Self-development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

5.2 Conditions influencing motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 565.2.1 Work environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 565.2.2 Type of work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 595.2.3 Life situation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

6 Discussion 62

6.1 Remote work’s effect on motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 626.1.1 Advantages and disadvantages with remote work . . . . . . 626.1.2 Remote work’s effect on psychological needs . . . . . . . . 646.1.3 Individual conditions that influence the result . . . . . . . . 65

6.2 Validity of results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 666.3 Future studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

7 Conclusion 69

References 71

Appendices 74

A Interview questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74B Thematic analysis themes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

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List of Figures

1 Motivation and its categories, according to SDT . . . . . . . . . . . 8

2 Maslow’s hierarchy of needs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

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List of Tables

1 List of interviewees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

2 List of motivational factors and the corresponding interviewees(represented by the first letter of their fictional names) who men-tioned it . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

3 List of benefits with remote work and the corresponding intervie-wees (represented by the first letter of their fictional names) whomentioned it . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

4 List of disadvantages with remote work and the corresponding in-terviewees (represented by the first letter of their fictional names)who mentioned it . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

5 Remote work’s effect on the three basic psychological needs cen-tral to SDT (each interviewee is represented by the first letter oftheir fictional name) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

6 Remote work’s effect on motivation summarized (each intervieweeis represented by the first letter of their fictional name) . . . . . . . 45

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Foreword

Our five years at KTH Royal Institute of Technology have been a journey filledwith many up and downs and battles with motivation. Especially over the lastfew months when our courses resorted to digital mediums and we had to stopmeeting our classmates that we would meet daily before the pandemic.

This, together with the struggles of social distancing, is what sparked the idea forthis master thesis. The course of our master thesis has been enjoyable and pro-vided us with valuable insights. Now that our academic journey is at its end, welook forward to beginning our next chapter in our lives with these new valuableinsights and knowledge. We hope that this report will be able to provide the sameinsight and joy to you.

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1 Introduction

The covid-19 virus and the pandemic have changed the lives of many peoplearound the world. In order to stop the spread of the virus, countries around theworld have imposed restrictions. These restrictions revolve around socially dis-tancing, which have resulted in changed work lives for many employees globally.Due to restrictions, many companies and businesses with regular workplaces andoffices have adapted to running their operations through video-conference soft-ware platforms and chat rooms at home as a substitute to physical meetings in theoffice. As a result, people have started to adopt a new way of working: remotework. This working method was rising in popularity even before the pandemichit.

1.1 Background

Remote work is not a new concept. However, the covid-19 pandemic has creatednew circumstances unfamiliar to many, even though remote work is somethingthat many had adapted before the pandemic. Working remotely was a growingtrend, and it has since been accelerated even further (Felstead & Henseke 2017).Previous studies on Swedish employees show that the number of employees do-ing some or all work remotely from their homes increased from 5.9% to 19.7%between 1997 and 2012. While in the US, the number increased from 19.6% to21.1% from 2003 to 2015. This trend has also been seen across entire Europe(Felstead & Henseke 2017). These numbers can be compared to surveys done inrecent pandemic times showing that among the employees working from homein Canada and the US, 50% and 60% respectively have intentions to continueworking remotely (Como et al. 2021, Brenan 2020).

Thanks to the new development of vaccines and restrictions being lifted, given thereduced spread of the virus, the future is looking brighter thanks to measurementstaken during the pandemic. Companies and businesses might be able to returnto workplaces as they were before the pandemic. However, continuing to workremotely for an indefinite future is a real possibility, given that many companieshave experienced the transition from traditional offices to remote workspaces tobe successful and supported by many employees. Remote work is suddenly apreferred way of working worldwide, and it has become more usual than everbefore in all fields and organizations where it is possible to execute (Virtanen2020).

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Nevertheless, there is a large number of employees that feel great dissatisfactionby working remotely. A study in the United Kingdom showed that, on average,28% of all employees are likely to be impacted by lower motivation due to theongoing pandemic and more work from home (Lane4 2020a). Among employeesunder the age of 35, this number was up to 44%. There is much different researcharound the psychology of motivation and what the key drivers are. Consideringthe situation of young people working from home, it is clear that especially two ofthese drivers could be affected: belonging and autonomy (Lane4 2020b). There-fore, it is highly relevant to examine the effects of this type of work on employees.Motivation is a complex area that is highly correlated to psychological health.Therefore, it can be argued that keeping or increasing motivation among employ-ees is important for the psychological well-being of society.

In the early days of the pandemic, much focus went into enabling people to workremotely. Now, it is time to focus on enabling people to perform their best andenjoy working from home. A key component for succeeding is ensuring that allemployees stay motivated since motivation has been shown to correlate with per-formance and psychological well-being (Amabile 1993, Ryan & Deci 2015, Ganta2014). Motivation is therefore argued to be important for both employers andemployees. Therefore, the authors argue that motivation is important for bothemployers and employees. Furthermore, an individual’s performance at work isoften considered a result of their motivation and ability. The ability is hard to en-hance in the short run and depends on education, experience, and training, whilethe motivation can be improved quickly. Managers are in a unique position to bothunderstand and enhance different drivers affecting individual employees’ motiva-tion. Therefore, it is highly relevant to examine the effects of this type of work onemployees. Motivation is a complex area that is highly correlated to psychologicalhealth. Therefore, it can be argued that keeping or increasing motivation amongemployees is important for the psychological well-being of society.

Despite having had a negative effect during the pandemic, remote work is an op-portunity for companies to work more sustainably in the long term if it is imple-mented effectively. Examples are less expensive office space, less travel in termsof commuting and business trips, flexible hours and location, and greater focusfor employees (EY Belgium 2020). However, the implementation of remote workis deeper and broader than most companies initially think. A structured approachand investments to change the corporate culture are essential for a successful im-plementation in the long term (EY Belgium 2020). Since remote work offers greatbenefits, it is unlikely that all companies will go back to work the same way as be-fore the pandemic. Therefore, even though the pandemic might end, some peoplewill probably still keep working remotely. This suggests that the findings in thispaper will be relevant not only during the covid-19 crisis but also afterwards.

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1.2 Research Question

In order to evaluate how remote work has affected individuals and their motiva-tion at their new workplaces at home, the authors of this study have formulateda research question that will assist them in their research. The research questionhas been formulated as:

”How has remote work, as a consequence of the covid-19 pandemic, af-fected the motivation among employees?”

To answer this research question in a more structured way, it was divided intothree sub-questions:

1. ”What advantages and disadvantages have been experienced as a result ofworking remotely?”

2. ”How has remote work changed the satisfaction of psychological needs relatedto motivation?”

3. ”How do individual conditions influence the effect that remote work has onemployees’ motivation?”

1.3 Aim and objective

The aim of this paper is to provide the reader with a deeper understanding of howmotivation is defined and what factors contribute to changes in motivation in thecontext of remote work. Hopefully, this will help both organizations and individ-uals in their work towards creating an environment that cultivates motivation.

1.4 Scope and Limitations

This study will collaborate with a Swedish multinational company, referred to as”The Company” from here on, with over 20.000 employees across several coun-tries in Europe. At the start of the study, the authors evaluated whether to includemultiple companies. However, it was decided to limit it to only one due to thescope of the study and time limitations. The Company was founded over 100 yearsago and has since been operating within the power industry. For this study, thefocus will be on one of the company’s subsidiaries with over 900 000 customers,both private customers and companies. Therefore, the data collected for this studywill solely be based on employees that are based in this subsidiary. Furthermore,the subsidiary in focus has offices not only in Sweden but in neighbouring coun-tries as well. However, this study will only be limited to employees that operatein the Swedish offices. There are eight different units across the subsidiary thatall have different tasks and functions. These have all been included in this studyto offer a fair representation of the whole subsidiary. Among the subsidiary, aportion of employees works at the offices due to the nature of their work. Their

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tasks require them to always be at the office. Therefore, these employees havecontinued to work at the offices during the pandemic. However, most employeeshave more traditional office jobs and have been working from home since Marchor April of 2020. This was done following the new policies set by The Companyafter the recommendations imposed by the Swedish government. This study willonly be limited to employees who have had to start working remotely and arestill doing so up to this date. Furthermore, the study has also collected data onemployees that started working at The Company during the pandemic.

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2 Theoretical Context

This section is based on the results of the literature review conducted by the au-thors. The aim is to provide the reader with theoretical frameworks and insightsfrom previous literature regarding motivation and remote work. These frame-works and insights are later used in the paper to analyze the interviews, andserves as theoretical boundaries for the scope of this research.

2.1 Motivation

Motivation is an area that has been researched for many decades, and there ex-ists a lot of different theories that try to explain what motivation is and how itoccurs. This section gives a short introduction to this subject. The main theo-ries used are Maslow’s hierarchy of need, Self-determination theory (SDT), andHerzberg’s two-factor theory. Together, they are believed to give a comprehensiveexplanation of what motivation is and what factors affect motivation, providinga framework that the authors can use to analyze the interviews performed in thisresearch.

2.1.1 Types of motivation

Before looking at the different types of motivation, it is important to define whatmotivation is. Someone motivated can be defined as an individual that feels ener-gized to behave or act toward an end. On the contrary, an individual that does notfeel any inspiration or impetus to behave or act is considered to be unmotivated(Ryan & Deci 2000a). Based on this simple definition, it is thus possible to beeither motivated or not motivated towards a behaviour.

Despite numerous different frameworks, models, and theories that try to solvethe mystery behind motivation, one idea acknowledged by most researchers isthat there are intrinsic and extrinsic motivational factors (Ganta 2014). Intrinsicmotivation comes from personal enjoyment when performing certain tasks. Onthe other hand, extrinsic motivation comes from factors outside the individual,for instance, earning a reward working to avoid punishment (Reiss 2012). Peoplethat have no motivation nor intentionality are considered to be amotivatied. Amo-tivation follows when individuals do not feel competent to execute a behaviour ordo not value the results that follow from certain behaviour (Ryan & Deci 2015).

Additionally, a questionnaire answered by hundreds of working adults showed

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that intrinsic items clustered onto two scales: challenge and enjoyment, while ex-trinsic items clustered onto recognition and compensation (Amabile et al. 1994).These findings imply that it is possible to categorize motivation into four differ-ent types of motivation, where two of them are intrinsic, and two are extrinsic.However, this research will mainly consider the distinction between intrinsic andextrinsic motivation.

This basic distinction between two types of motivation is common among motiva-tional theories, regardless of what they call the two types. For example, SDT em-phasizes the distinction between autonomous and controlled motivation (Gagne& Deci 2005, Ryan & Deci 2015). It is said that autonomous motivation refersto doing something because it is either inherently interesting and enjoyable orconsistent with one’s deep values, and the experience of flexibility and choice typ-ically accompanies it. This type of motivation is most common when we are youngand do what we feel like doing. However, as we grow older and integrate into so-ciety, social demands and roles become parts of our lives and require us to assumeresponsibility for tasks that one can consider non-intrinsically. As a consequence,the freedom to be intrinsically motivated becomes more limited. Kids in schoolsare an example of that since as students advance grades, the intrinsic motivationbecomes weaker (Ryan & Deci 2000a). The pursuit of rewards, such as money orprices, or social approval is considered acting out of controlled motivation. Whenpeople experience controlled motivation, they act out of obligation, coercion, orseduction. It is for these reasons that classic extrinsic motivators are consideredthe typical ‘carrot and stick’ (Eccles & Wigfield 2002, Ryan & Deci 2015).

Since autonomous or intrinsic motivation is a natural motivation involving inter-est and enjoyment, it is not necessary to motivate people to do what they findintrinsically interesting (Ryan & Deci 2015). They simply do those behaviours.This natural motivational tendency is a critical element in cognitive, social, andphysical development because it is through acting on one’s inherent interests thatone evolves their knowledge and skills (Ryan & Deci 2000a). Furthermore, fo-cusing on certain tasks’ potential intrinsic interests and properties can enhancemotivation and improve task design, contributing to considerable practical utility(Ryan & Deci 2000a).

2.1.2 The interrelationship between the two types of motivation

Although both extrinsic and intrinsic motivation can motivate employees to dotheir work, they can have very different effects on subjective feelings about thework, eagerness to do the work, and the quality of their performance (Amabile1993). As mentioned earlier, most researchers categorize motivation into thesetwo broad categories. However, they differ in their view of whether and howthese types of motivation affect each other. If you look at most jobs today, mosttasks likely contain both intrinsic and extrinsic motivators. Because these typesof motivation often co-occur, it is important to consider how one might combinethem to enhance the other (Reiss 2012).

There are, simply put, three ways that extrinsic rewards affect intrinsic motiva-

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tion: (1) it may enhance the intrinsic motivation and thus the total motivationexperienced by the individual, (2) it may diminish the intrinsic motivation for theactivity, or (3) it may not have any effect at all but would add to the total motiva-tion. The initial research on the interaction between these two types of motivationshowed controversial findings since it indicated that extrinsic rewards did under-mine intrinsic motivation (Ryan & Deci 2015). This was especially true if therewards were contingent on the behaviour, expected while doing it, and relativelysalient. More specifically, threats of punishment, deadlines, evaluations, competi-tion pressure, and surveillance all undermined intrinsic motivation. On the otherhand, providing people with choice, giving positive feedback, and acknowledg-ing their feelings and perspectives tended to enhance their intrinsic motivation.These types of extrinsic factors all affect two of the fundamental psychologicalneeds found in SDT: the need for autonomy and competence (Richardson et al.2012, Ryan & Deci 2015). These findings correlate to other findings suggestingthat a synergistic combination of the two types of motivation is most likely tooccur when the initial levels of intrinsic motivation are high and when extrinsicmotivators ”provide information about the individual’s competence and the valueof the product or directly allow increased autonomy or involvement in intrinsi-cally interesting tasks” (Amabile 1993).

2.1.3 Internalization

Internalization is a concept within SDT that can address whether it is possiblefor people to be intrinsically motivated while being extrinsically motivated. Theidea is that people can integrate extrinsic contingencies into their sense of self,which results in individuals being autonomous concerning motivational factorsthat one first experienced as external (Eccles & Wigfield 2002, Ryan & Deci 2015).Additionally, studies have indicated that both extrinsic and intrinsic motivationcan be present among individuals in a temporary state or as a stable trait formedwithin the individuals (Amabile et al. 1994). These studies also showed thatworking environments that consist of strong motivational structures could affectindividuals’ traits. In the same way, individuals that have a strong motivationalorientation can affect others in their surroundings and thus alter the motivationalenvironment.

Internalization thus creates positive effects by enhancing autonomy (Eccles &Wigfield 2002). It can, however, result in motivational factors only being par-tially internalized and not fully integrated. Therefore, one can understand inter-nalization in terms of a continuum of autonomy. Depending on to what extentan individual has internalized some value or regulation, the level of how theyperceive the accompanying behaviour as autonomous increases. SDT divides thiscontinuum into four different degrees of internalization, resulting in four differentcategories of extrinsic motivation: (1) external regulation, (2) introjected regula-tion, (3) identified regulation, and (4) integrated regulation (Gagne & Deci 2005,Eccles & Wigfield 2002, Ryan & Deci 2015). Figure 1 illustrates to what extentthese types of extrinsic motivation affect one’s behaviours to emerge from one’s

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self.

Figure 1: Motivation and its categories, according to SDT

The autonomous continuum ranges from left to right, with amotivation on the farleft and intrinsic motivation to the far right. The first type of extrinsic motivation,external regulation, is the least autonomous form. These actions and behaviourssatisfy an external demand or are conducted to obtain an externally imposed re-ward contingency. Next to external regulation is introjected regulation. Theseinternal regulations are more autonomous than their predecessor but still con-trolling since individuals feel pressure to perform these actions to avoid guilt oranxiety and attain ego enhancements or pride (Ryan & Deci 2000a). The thirdcategory, identified regulation, is when individuals have identified and connectedwith the importance of certain actions and behaviours. It is more autonomousor self-determined compared to the other two categories since individuals haveaccepted its regulation as their own. However, the most autonomous form ofextrinsic motivation is integrated motivation. This form highlights behavioursamong individuals that have been induced by fully assimilating regulations to theself and bringing new regulations into congruence with one’s values and needs.

The different degrees of internalization can be connected to the two types ofmotivation presented in SDT: autonomous motivation and controlled motiva-tion. External and introjected regulation corresponds to controlled motivation,while identified and introjected regulation corresponds to autonomous motiva-tion (Ryan & Deci 2015). However, it is important to note that even the mostintegrated forms of motivation, such as identified and integrated regulation, arestill extrinsic. These forms share characteristics of intrinsic motivation, such asbeing autonomous and unconflicted. However, the difference is that integratedregulation is done ”for its presumed instrumental value with respect to some out-come that is separate from the behaviour, even though it is volitional and valuedby the self” (Ryan & Deci 2000a). For these reasons, SDT’s definitions of au-tonomous and controlled motivation are not completely synonymous with what

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is commonly called intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.

Figure 1 also helps to illustrate how certain behaviours can begin as introjectsor identifications. Depending on what activities and experiences an individual isexposed to, the behaviours can result in an orientation shift and result in indi-viduals experiencing an activity’s intrinsically interesting properties. For instance,if external regulation such as rewards is not perceived as too controlling, certainbehaviours can start moving ”forwards”. However, this orientation shift can goboth ways. An individual whose experiences are too controlling, even thoughthey have identified with the value of an activity, might lose that value and moveback to an external regulatory mode. Therefore, it is important to note that howindividuals move among these orientations is not necessary a natural sequence.It depends on the initial behaviour and whether individuals experience these ascontrolling or not (Gagne & Deci 2005, Ryan & Deci 2000a).

Extrinsically motivated behaviours are not naturally interesting and must at firstbe externally induced. However, some significant reasons and factors contributeto the willingness of individuals to do such behaviours. According to SDT, theprimary reasons and factors belong to what is referred to as a sense of relatedness.If certain behaviours are considered to be of high value to people the individ-ual feel connected to, such as family members, peers, or society, he might findincentives to complete these behaviours. By providing a sense of belonging or be-ing connected to people, cultures, or society, one can facilitate the internalizationof such behaviours (Ryan & Deci 2000a). Another factor that might engage anindividual to complete extrinsically motivated behaviours is competence. For anindividual to adopt extrinsic goals and behaviour, it is important that they feel thatthey understand the tasks at hand and comprehend the relevant skills required tosucceed at them. That does not mean that tasks should not be challenging. Itis about offering optimal challenges and relevant feedback to facilitate internal-ization by supporting competence (Ryan & Deci 2000a). Autonomy support isanother method to facilitate internalization. By offering autonomous support, itallows the individual to grasp the meaning and worth of certain regulations. Al-though competence and relatedness can result in introjected regulation, it is onlyautonomy-supportive contexts that will result in integrated self-regulation. It isimportant to note that a regulation that has been internalized has not necessar-ily been fully internalized. For instance, an internalized regulation may be onlyintrojected. In combination with competence and relatedness, autonomy supportcreates the environment and support for regulations to be fully internalized regu-lations (Ryan & Deci 2000a).

2.1.4 Human needs and motivation

When considering the relationship between fulfilling certain psychological needsand how motivated a person is, one of the most famous theories is Maslow’s hi-erarchy of needs. This motivational theory consists of 5 psychological needs thatare often illustrated as hierarchical levels in a pyramid (McLeod 2018). The ideais that needs lower down in the pyramid must be satisfied before needs higher

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up emerges and becomes relevant, which simply means that people are not mo-tivated to fulfil needs higher up in the hierarchy if the needs lower down arenot satisfied. From the bottom to the top, the needs are (1) physiological needs,(2) safety needs, (3) belongingness and love needs, (4) esteem needs, and (5)self-actualization (Taormina & Gao 2013, Maslow 1943). Thus, at the bottom ofthe pyramid are physiological needs like food, water, clothes, reproduction, andsleep. Just above these needs are safety needs like personal security, employment,health, and property. Together, these two levels constitute the basic needs that aperson should have fulfilled before attending to the other needs higher up in thepyramid. The next level is belongingness and love needs like friendships, family,intimate relationships, and a sense of connection. The second-highest level in thepyramid is the esteem needs like recognition, freedom, strength, self-esteem, con-fidence, and respect. Together, these two needs constitute a person’s psychologicalneeds. At the top of the pyramid are the needs to self-actualize, such as achiev-ing one’s full potential, creativity, morality, spontaneity, and purposefulness. Thistop-level is often referred to as self-fulfilment needs, which the theory suggestsare only present if the needs in all other levels are fulfilled.

Figure 2: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

As previously mentioned, it is possible to categorize Maslow’s 5 needs into ba-sic needs, psychological needs, and self-fulfilment needs (Taormina & Gao 2013,McLeod 2018). However, another categorization is to divide them into deficiencyneeds and growth needs, where deficiency needs comprise the basic and psycho-logical needs and the growth needs are the self-fulfilment needs. The reasoningfor this categorization is that Maslow believed that the deficiency needs, i.e. thefour lowest levels, arise due to deprivation (Maslow 1943). This means that themotivation to fulfil such needs will increase the longer they are unmet, and whenthey are satisfied, they will go away. For example, a person will get hungrierthe longer he goes without food, and the hunger will fade once he eats. On thecontrary, growth needs continue to be motivating when they are satisfied. Theymight even become stronger once they start to become fulfilled (Maslow 1943).

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What is worth mentioning about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is that he initiallystated that individuals must satisfy lower-level needs before progressing onto thehigher levels. However, he has clarified that lower-level needs do not have tobe 100% satisfied for higher-level needs to emerge; the transition may overlap(McLeod 2018). Additionally, many people will fluctuate within the pyramid,moving back and forth between higher and lower levels in the hierarchy (McLeod2018). The reason is that life experiences like a divorce or getting fired may moveone down the hierarchy, disrupting the progress of moving up to self-actualization,which is something that all individuals desire.

Similarly to Maslow’s needs, SDT mentions three basic psychological needs thatneed to be satisfied to enhance both motivation and mental health: (1) auton-omy, (2) competence, and (3) relatedness (Richardson et al. 2012, Ryan & Deci2000b). Within SDT, the satisfaction versus thwarting of these needs can be sum-marized as catalysts to either enhance or undermine intrinsic motivation and theinternalization of extrinsic motivation (Ryan & Deci 2015). Some studies haveshown that the need for competence and autonomy works as a primary source tomaintain intrinsic motivation. At the same time, relatedness can be seen as thecatalyst for internalizing extrinsic motivation (Ng et al. 2012). The relationshipbetween relatedness and internalization can simply be explained by the fact thatindividuals are more likely to execute behaviours if they feel that their actionsare of value for people they are connected with or identify with their groups (vanKnippenberg 2000). Furthermore, both motivation and performance have beenshown to be positively linked to social identification as long as the social identity issalient and high performance is perceived to be in the group’s interest. Thus, thefeeling of belonging and being connected to different groups is what prompts ex-trinsic motivators to create autonomous behaviours. In other words, people tendto internalize material endorsed by significant others to satisfy a basic psycho-logical need for relatedness (Ryan & Deci 2015). Additionally, studies have alsohighlighted that the satisfaction of these three psychological needs contributesto individuals’ psychological health and well-being across different cultures, gen-ders, and circumstances. This implies that the theory has been well-tested indifferent environments without being proven wrong.

Most workplaces have both extrinsic and intrinsic motivators. One can argue thatthe extrinsic motivators that promote identification and relatedness are the mostcrucial ones for workers trying to achieve the goals and performance levels thatcompanies and firms set (Amabile et al. 1994, O’Reilly 2008). Culture is impor-tant to increase the commitment of employees to companies. It is used as a socialcontrol system to ensure that employees are committed to other control systemsthat measure companies’ performance (O’Reilly 2008). Companies’ control sys-tems only work if the employees care about the results and are paying attention.Therefore, companies establish strong cultures that the employees feel connectedto and create the feeling among employees that they are in control of the results ofthe companies, which is in line with the rhetoric of identification and relatedness.

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2.1.5 Conditions affecting motivation

In SDT, it is argued that interpersonal events and structures, such as rewards,communications, and feedback, that contribute toward feelings of competenceresulting from an action can enhance intrinsic motivation for that action (Ryan &Deci 2015). Furthermore, feelings of competence will not enhance intrinsic moti-vation unless a sense of autonomy accompanies them. Thus, for people to main-tain or enhance intrinsic motivation, their behaviours need to be experienced asself-determined. For instance, several studies that have observed classroom learn-ing have shown the significance of autonomy in maintaining intrinsic motivationin contrast to control. The studies show that teachers supporting their students inbeing autonomous have shown to increase students’ intrinsic motivation, curios-ity, and desire for a challenge (Ryan & Deci 2015). On the other hand, studentsthat were not given the same autonomy and were controlled more lost motiva-tion. As a result, their learning experiences were not as effective, especially whenit came down to complex subjects and creativity. The same could be observedamong children whose parents are more controlling. The children with parentsthat provided autonomous support tended to be more mastery-oriented and morelikely to explore and extend themselves, contrary to the children with more con-trolling parents (Ryan & Deci 2000a).

Herzberg’s two-factor theory assumes that a person’s motivation and attitude to-ward a behaviour is mainly decided by the satisfaction and dissatisfaction he feels(Alshmemri et al. 2017). The theory further suggests that the satisfaction anddissatisfaction are affected by two factors; motivation factors and hygiene factors(the theory is also known as the motivation-hygiene theory). Motivation factorsis related to the need for personal growth or self-actualization and include factorslike work itself, the possibility of growth, responsibility, recognition, and achieve-ment. Hygiene factors are associated with the need to avoid unpleasantnessesand include factors such as salary, interpersonal relationships, policies, supervi-sion, and working conditions (Alshmemri et al. 2017). Furthermore, the theorysuggests that the presence of motivation factors creates job satisfaction, whilegood hygiene factors can only reduce job dissatisfaction. This means that it is notenough to have good hygiene factors to become satisfied in the workplace; moti-vation factors is essential. Relating Herzberg’s two-factor theory to SDT, one canargue that motivation factors affect autonomous motivation while hygiene factorsaffect controlled motivation.

2.1.6 Goals and aspirations

The concept of goals has been perhaps the most common motivational conceptin the psychological literature on motivation during the last 60 years. Althoughthe basic psychological needs are the most important explanatory concept in SDT,goals also have an important place (Ryan & Deci 2015). Several studies havefound that if people’s goals are manipulated experimentally, having intrinsic goalsmade salient led to better learning and performance than having extrinsic goalsmade salient. When, for example, business students who were learning about

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communications were told that it would help them learn about themselves, whichis an intrinsic goal, their learning and performance were better than when thestudents were told that it would help them make more money, which is an ex-trinsic goal (Vansteenkiste et al. 2004). Additionally, adopting as one’s own anextrinsic goal requires that one feel efficacious for it. Students will more likelyadopt and internalize a goal if they understand it and have the relevant skills tosucceed (Ryan & Deci 2000a).

Research has shown that when people value extrinsic aspirations more stronglythan intrinsic aspirations, they also tend to display poor psychological health. Incontrast, when they value the intrinsic aspirations more strongly, they are psy-chologically healthier (Kasser & Ryan 1996). SDT explains this phenomenon bysaying that the pursuit and attainments of the intrinsic goals of self-exploration,meaningful relationships, and community contributions tend to provide directsatisfaction of the three basic psychological needs described in SDT. In contrast,pursuing and attaining the extrinsic goals of material possessions, social recogni-tion, and attractive image at best indirectly satisfy the basic needs and may evenbe antagonistic to them (Ryan & Deci 2015). Furthermore, research has shownthat people tend to value extrinsic aspirations when they have had a low levelof basic psychological need satisfaction during their years as children. However,they tend to value intrinsic aspirations when they have had a high level of basicsatisfaction during those years (Kasser et al. 1995).

2.2 Remote work

Over the last five years, workplaces worldwide have gone through rapid changesand transformations, creating new alternative workplaces such as remote workand teleworking (Manca 2020). Many companies have undergone these trans-formations since it can save costs, enhance flexibility and collaboration, but it isalso a consequence of less dependency on physical locations and material assets(Halford 2005, Manca 2020). However, while companies and organizations havevoluntarily adopted these new workplaces, the current pandemic and restrictionshave forced employers and employees globally to adopt these new working meth-ods. Given the rising trend of working remotely both before and during the pan-demic, there has been much research regarding the benefits and disadvantages ofremote work and how companies should implement it (Fujii 2020). Nevertheless,it is important to question previous research regarding remote work due to the ex-treme circumstances of the ongoing pandemic (Wang et al. 2021). Since remoteworking has been considered a positive alternative to the more traditional waysof working, employers need to consider how to create the conditions necessary tostimulate those employees who have not had the ability to adapt to this new wayof working by choice (Wang et al. 2021).

Remote working can be defined as working from elsewhere than in the employer’spremises. Due to that, employers and managers must utilize modern technologyto communicate and work with each other (Virtanen 2020). Additionally, remotework and teleworking can be considered as flexible working as it does also provide,

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in some cases, a chance for employees to determine at what hours they want tocarry out their work (Manca 2020). Another characteristic of remote work is thelack of personal contact between employees and the digital channels that are usedto communicate instead (Allen et al. 2015). It is mainly the advancements withininformation and communication technologies (ICT) and new tools that have en-abled and facilitated the possibility of working remotely (Manca 2020, Wang et al.2021, Halford 2005, Allen et al. 2015). It is important to differ between the widespectrum of working remotely since it can be categorized as either relocation ofwork or dislocation of work. Dislocation of work is the act of transferring work tothe cyberspace, while relocation of work is the transferring of work to domesticspaces such as the employees’ home (Halford 2005). In this report, it is the latterthat is considered given that it is mainly the relocation of work that organisationsand employees have had to adapt to since the beginning of this pandemic.

2.2.1 Benefits

Previous research has had a positive perspective when it comes to the conse-quences and implications of remote work (Fujii 2020, Wang et al. 2021). Thereare several benefits of remote work such as:

• Less distraction from co-workers

• Flexibility (location and time)

• No commuting (time- and cost-saving)

• Autonomy

One of the most beneficial aspects of remote work is the increased flexibility(Manca 2020, Virtanen 2020, Allen et al. 2015), which is enabled by employeesbeing offered increased control over the distribution of their work. As a result,employees gain greater control over their work-life balance and increased well-being. Other effects are increased job quality and less stress related to work. As aresult, employees working remotely tend to achieve higher productivity (Virtanen2020).

Depending on the level of autonomy among employees, they might experienceless interference at home and thus achieve higher levels of performance and well-being (Wang et al. 2021, Allen et al. 2015). A higher level of autonomy resultsin less interference, while a lower level increases the interference. It can alsobe argued that remote working can directly lead to increased autonomy sincestudies have shown that employees working remotely experience a higher level ofautonomy than employees not working remotely (Allen et al. 2015).

2.2.2 Disadvantages

As previously mentioned, there are benefits associated with working remotely.However, research (Allen et al. 2015, Virtanen 2020, Manca 2020, Wang et al.2021) also shows that there are multiple disadvantages with working remotely:

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• More distraction from home-chores

• Less ergonomic workstation

• Less interaction with co-workers (harder to open up about their problemsand worries + decreased feelings of belonging)

• Blurred lines between personal life and work (increased feelings of neverbeing free from work) stick to/changing habits might help

• Procrastination

Furthermore, there are other key challenges with remote work, such as commu-nication quality. Many of the previously mentioned advantages can, in turn, beconsidered disadvantages depending on the personality and preferences of em-ployees (Virtanen 2020, Wang et al. 2021). For instance, the flexibility gainedby remote work might not necessarily result in higher well-being or performance.This could be a consequence of employees not receiving the training nor mentor-ing that can be lacking when working remotely (Virtanen 2020). Furthermore,procrastination is one of the biggest challenges companies and managers have tocounteract because they are among the biggest productivity killers at work. Pro-crastination becomes an even bigger challenge in remote environments due to theincreased responsibility by employees and their need to self-regulate (Allen et al.2015). The failure to self-regulate is also what causes employees to be distractedby other chores at home or interruptions from family members.

Another major challenge that is caused by remote work is the increased lonelinessamong employees (Allen et al. 2015, Virtanen 2020). Less face-to-face interac-tions with other colleagues negatively affect the feeling of belonging. One wouldthink that ICT and tools that have evolved would facilitate social interactions bytransferring those to digital mediums. However, social interactions do not hap-pen spontaneously as in offices. Thus, social interactions need to be proactivelyinitiated. The effect of loneliness and not belonging is further increased due torestrictions imposed in our societies as a consequence of the covid-19 virus; in-dividuals have even fewer social interactions with family members and friends(Wang et al. 2021).

2.2.3 Effect on motivation

When looking at how remote work is affecting employees, it will likely have a dif-ferent impact on different employees. Therefore, it is important to divide employ-ees into different groups. One research that investigated the social and psycholog-ical factors affecting the satisfaction levels of employees used age as the dividingfactor (Fujii 2020). More specifically, they wanted to unveil differences amongstbaby-boomer, millennial and gen-z generations in how they interact within theworkplace. This is a reasonable segmentation of employees since there is a bigcontrast between digital communication technology use and knowledge. This isprobably because both millennial and gen-z workers grew up in an era of rapidlyevolving digital technology, while baby boomers did not. Thus, the adoption of

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teleworking solutions will come more naturally to millennial and gen-z work-ers. At the same time, baby boomers will need a greater incentive to overcomethe obstacle of learning to use new technology. Additionally, it has been shownthat millennials are particularly loyal to companies that offer high autonomy andflexibility in work hours and the workplace, (Sale & Jones 2019), Which can beachieved by remote work.

It is also important to note the effect loneliness can have on individuals’ motiva-tion and commitment to organizations. The lack of social interactions and theresult of isolation is what can cause the lack of commitment due to difficulties inachieving the psychological needs for belongingness and relatedness (Allen et al.2015, Wang et al. 2021). To reduce these risks, organizations must offer socialsupport to their employees to stay committed and motivated.

2.2.4 Implementation

To implement remote work successfully, one research suggests 5 steps (Fujii 2020):

1. Identify the jobs that are possible to do remotely.

2. Create a policy concerning remote work.

3. Train concerned employees on remote work technologies and its expecta-tions.

4. Use remote work solutions.

5. Evaluate success by measuring the result of the implementation.

When creating the policy, it must be created through input from managementand employees along with best practices from other companies (Fujii 2020). Thepolicy should incorporate questions covering teamwork concerns, communicationtechniques, customer service needs, office space options, trust issues, virtual pres-ence options, performance measures, technology supports, and result measures(Tarallo 2018). It is worth mentioning that a potential sixth step in this processcould be to evaluate if the implementation was as successful as intended or if it isworth updating the policy and go over the following steps a second time.

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3 Method

3.1 Introduction to the Research Project

The research can be divided into three main parts: (1) performing a literaturereview on the research area and deciding on the main frameworks that should beused in this paper, (2) interviewing workers that have experience working both inan office and from home, and (3) analyzing the interviews using the frameworksfound in the literature review.

3.2 Research Design

To investigate the research question, it was decided by the authors to collaboratewith a company operating in Sweden to gain access to personnel that could beinterviewed. Thus, the research can be considered as a case study on this specificcompany.

This study will be conducted using mainly qualitative methods. The main reasonbehind this decision is that qualitative methods are most adequate when trying tocontribute to existing theories and develop new ones (Shah & Corley 2006, Baxter& Jack 2008). Another factor that was considered is that the empirical results willbe based on the subjects’ experiences of the phenomenon in question, which inthis study is how employees have been affected by working remotely due to thepandemic and how it has had an effect on their motivation. In these cases, quali-tative methods are to prefer (Shah & Corley 2006). To gather the empirical dataneeded, it was decided to interview several employees from the company collabo-rating with the authors of this study. This will provide the individual perspectivesand experiences of the interviewees.

A literature review will be conducted to understand the subject, with the mainobjective of defining motivation and understanding what factors and conditionsfoster and hinder motivation. This will also serve as a basis for creating rele-vant interview questions and define theoretical boundaries (Shah & Corley 2006,Durach et al. 2017).

Due to the nature of this study and the fact that it will be conducted in collabora-tion with the mentioned company, this study can also be considered a case studyof the phenomenon at the company in question and its employees. Since our goalis to contribute to existing theory and provide insights into how the future after

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the covid-19 pandemic is over, an interpretativistic and inductive approach seemsmost adequate for this study (Gibbert et al. 2008, Baxter & Jack 2008). Addition-ally, this study is not based on theories and hypotheses that have been defined bythe authors beforehand. Therefore, an interpretative and inductive approach ismost suited. In conclusion, these methods should provide the methodological fitthat is needed to answer the research questions.

3.2.1 Literature Review

The first part of this study consisted of a pre-study in the form of a literaturereview. The goal of the literature review was to evaluate existing frameworksand theories regarding motivation. Additionally, evaluate what literature says re-garding remote work, the benefits and disadvantages of remote work, and how itpotentially can alter the motivation among employees. It is important to note thatthe literature review was not intended to directly answer the research questionbut to use those insights to understand the interviewees’ empirical results andhelp formulate the interview questions used in this study. The literature reviewwas also done with the intention to be used as a foundation for evaluating andanalyzing the results.

To contribute and build onto the existing theory, it is crucial to conduct a liter-ature review and synthesize relevant literature (Gehman et al. 2018). Further-more, synthesizing literature is also a key part in order to be able to structure aframework that can be used to structure interview questions (Durach et al. 2017).The literature review in this study was inspired by the concepts of a SystematicLiterature Review (SLR). An SLR shares many similarities with a traditional liter-ature review but differs in the used systematic methods. One of the benefits ofan SLR is to provide the prerequisites needed to replicate the study. However, themain goal of this literature review was not to ensure replicability but to ensurethat relevant and prominent literature regarding motivation and remote work isexplored, evaluated, and synthesized systematically so that insights from others’work could be successfully incorporated into this paper. Durach et al. (2017) hascontributed with a framework that can be used to conduct an SLR and was usedfor this study as a base when conducting the literature review. The steps followedin order to perform the literature review were inspired by the methods providedby Durach et al. (2017) and Gehman et al. (2018):

1. Define the research question

2. Determine required characteristics of primary studies

3. Retrieve sample of potentially relevant literature

4. Select pertinent literature

5. Synthesize the literature

6. Report the results

An initial research question was defined at the start of the study and was broadly

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defined and was intended to answer how motivation has been affected. However,the process of refining the research question was iterative, given that potentialresults could prove to be lacking to answer a broad research question.

By determining the characteristics of primary studies, multiple keywords wereused to explore the field of motivation and what is of relevance to answering theresearch question. The keywords used were mainly combinations of the followingwords:

• Motivation

• Remote work

• Telework

• Workplace

• Covid

• Pandemic

• Encouragement

• Incentive

Depending on the combinations, the results yielded either a high number of arti-cles or too few articles of relevance. Therefore, the process was divided into twosteps. The first step is synthesizing literature that could define what motivationis and its role in a workplace. The second step is synthesizing literature regard-ing remote work and its advantages and disadvantages. The searches were mainlymade using the database Web of Science. However, other databases were also usedto access articles referenced in articles that were selected as pertinent literatureand due to certain articles chosen not being available on the Web of Science. Afterselecting the pertinent literature, it was synthesized.

3.2.2 Data collection

As previously mentioned, the method used to collect data was interviews withselected employees at the case company. There are several ways to structureinterviews, and it depends on the nature of the study being conducted. For thisstudy, it was decided to formulate the interview questions in a semi-structuredmanner. The reasoning behind this decision was that semi-structured interviewsgenerate exploratory answers, which are preferred when conducting a study ofqualitative nature (Saunders et al. 2015a). The same principles are applied toin-depth interviews. However, it was decided to avoid in-depth interviews toensure that the discussions during the interviews are limited to the theoreticalboundaries that have been defined. It was also decided that structured interviewswere not adequate for this study since motivation is very subjective. It can bedifficult to quantify, which is what structured interviews are usually for (Saunderset al. 2015a). However, some questions were formulated to provide quantitativeanswers to measure the relative motivation of employees during the differentstages of the pandemic.

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In total, 18 questions were formulated to acquire the data required to answer theresearch questions. These questions were aimed to cover four different areas: in-troduction & background, relationship to remote work, motivation & performanceand psychological needs. The first questions aimed to provide the author an intro-duction and background to each interviewee to understand each interviewee andhow their views regarding motivation and remote work might differ from others.The question that was categorized as ”relationship to remote work” was formu-lated to gain insights into remote work’s advantages and disadvantages and themajor differences between working at their offices versus remotely. Furthermore,the questions about motivation and performance were aimed to understand theinterviewees’ conception of motivation and how it has been affected by workingremotely due to the pandemic. Lastly, the final questions were aimed to providethe authors with an understanding of how the interviewees relate to the iden-tified psychological needs and how these have been affected. It is important tonote that the questions were not a manuscript of how the interviews were to beconducted. They were used as guidance in order to make sure that enough datahad been collected. Given the nature of semi-structured interviews, many of theanswers to the questions were provided during open discussion and conversionsduring the interview. Each interview was also provided with the opportunity toadd their own perspectives regarding areas that the interviewers did not cover.Each interview took place on digital communication platforms given the restric-tions imposed due to the covid-19 virus. Each interview ranged between 45-60minutes and was recorded to transcribe them at a future stage. The questions arelisted under Appendix A.

Some studies claim that articles published in management journals lack in pro-viding validity and reliability measures (Gibbert et al. 2008). To provide validityand external validity, it was important to ensure that the participant chosen forthe interviews offered a mix of different backgrounds, genders, ages, and rolesin enabling the authors to triangulate the data and ensure validity. Furthermore,ensure that the results are not biased towards a certain group. For instance, thereare 8 different units at the subsidiary, and it was decided to include at least oneparticipant from each unit. When choosing participants, there were attempts toonly limit them to employees who had worked at the company in question beforethe pandemic started for them to compare their current situations. However, itwas decided to include participants that started working a the company during thepandemic to provide a fair representation of all employees. Additionally, it wasalso important to involve a mix of participants who feel displeased with workingremotely but also pleased with the current situation to ensure a fair representa-tion of the phenomenon. For achieving external validation, it would have beenpreferred to base this case study on multiple companies, but due to the natureof this study and time constraints, it had to be limited to only one (Gibbert et al.2008). However, given that the company consists of several thousand employeesand subsidiaries, it was decided to limit the participants to employees that allwork for the same subsidiary.

To find participants, the authors’ supervisor at the company reached out to all the

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employees of the chosen subsidiary through the company’s internal communica-tion channels. Among the employees who declared their interest in participatingin this study, 10 employees were chosen based on different criteria to ensure agood spread among them. The criteria considered important for this researchwere: (1) age, (2) gender, (3) department within the company, (4) role or senior-ity, (5) office, the company has offices in mainly 3 geographical locations, and (6)living conditions, e.g. if they live by themselves and if they live in a big house orsmall apartment.

Due to the limited number of interested participants, it was not possible to get agood variation within all parameters. However, all eight departments at the casecompany were covered. Interviewees Carl and Greta works in the same depart-ment, and David & Ida works in the same department; the other intervieweeswork in separate departments. When it comes to living conditions, Carl and Gretalived by themselves while Iris lived by herself every other week, and the rest ofthe interviewees lived together with at least one other person. Additionally, all in-terviewees felt they had the ability to work undisturbed if they wanted to. Finally,all interviewees can be considered to be working in relatively senior roles withsome degree of leadership responsibilities. Some have managerial roles withinprojects, while some are managers within development work. The intervieweesand remaining key characteristics are summarized in Table 1 below.

Interviewee Gender Age group CityAlex Male 55-70 XBeatrice Female 40-55 YCarl Male 25-40 XDavid Male 40-55 XEric Male 55-70 YFred Male 40-55 YGreta Female 55-70 XHelena Female 40-55 YIris Female 25-40 ZJulia Female 25-40 X

Table 1: List of interviewees

To ensure anonymity, the name and exact age of each interviewee could not bedisclosed. Instead, the interviewees were given fictional names and were put intodifferent age groups within a 15-year span. Not disclosing the different cities ismotivated since it ensures anonymity for both the interviewees and the company.

3.2.3 Data analysis

To analyze the data from the interviews, it was decided to conduct a thematicanalysis. According to Saunders et al. (2015b), the advantages that a thematicanalysis brings are most suited when applying an interpretivistic and inductiveapproach in a study. Such advantages include ease in identifying key elements

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and generate comprehensive data that can be of use for answering the researchquestion. The thematic analysis in this study also provided key themes that werederived from the theoretical frameworks that had been put in place after theliterature review (Saunders et al. 2015b, Flick 2014). To execute the thematicanalysis, a framework provided by Saunders et al. (2015b) was used according tothe following steps.

1. Becoming familiar with your data

2. Coding your data

3. Searching for themes and recognizing relationships

4. Refining themes and testing propositions

Before completing these steps, it was required to prepare the data for analysis(Flick 2014). Therefore, each interview was transcribed to start becoming familiarwith the data and ensure that it is formatted to allow for coding of the data.The coding of the data and the generation of themes were based both on theliterature and identified common answers from the interviews. This means thatsome themes could already be predicted as suitable themes from structuring theinterview questions, while other themes could be decided only after becomingfamiliarized with the data. Furthermore, themes were created in two differentlayers to enable the categorization of the themes. An overview of the themesbased on the literature and interview questions be seen down below. Themescreated after becoming familiarized can be seen clearly in the results section sincethe results are structured the same way like the themes. All themes can also beseen in Appendix B.

3.3 Evaluation of Research Design

Several methods and frameworks can be used in qualitative research to ensurerigidity. Case studies are a powerful method for generating new theories andcontributing to existing ones (Gibbert et al. 2008). In such cases, different crite-ria can be used to ensure rigidity in case study research, which mainly revolvesaround validity and transferability (Gibbert et al. 2008, Shah & Corley 2006).This research will mainly use the criterion and strategies provided by Gibbertet al. (2008) in order to ensure rigour.

3.3.1 Internal Validity

Internal Validity refers to the relationship between the results and whether thereis a trustworthy cause-and-effect relationship (Gibbert et al. 2008). The authorsof this research have put a lot of effort in establishing a clear research frameworkthat is based on existing literature that revolves around motivation and remotework. The established research framework contributes to demonstrating how theempirical data and observation made among employees at The Company can beput in to theoretical context and understand how their perspectives and experi-

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ences leads to different outcomes. That is, how variable x might lead to outcomey. Additionally, as mentioned earlier, the authors made sure to incorporate tri-angulation of data by selecting interviewees with different backgrounds to addmultiple perspectives and thus adding to the internal validity of this research. Byhaving multiple perspectives in the form of interviewees, the authors ensure thatthe research contains a wide range of analytic generalizability and describes theinterviewees’ social context (Shah & Corley 2006). The authors made a deliber-ate choice to conduct this case study in collaboration with The Company, giventhe different subsidiaries and units within each subsidiary and the possibilities oftriangulating data and adding different perspectives.

3.3.2 Construct Validity

Construct Validity is a criterion that aims to ensure that research or studies areactually measuring or testing that it was set to measure or test (Gibbert et al.2008). The authors of this research aimed to evaluate how motivation has beenaffected among employees since they had to start working remotely and the gen-eral effects of remote work. Ensuring construct validity can be troublesome insocial studies given the subjective nature of and lack of measurement scales. Thisresearch also had to face the challenge that motivation is generally a subjectivefeeling among different individuals. However, to add construct validity, the au-thors of this research tried to establish a clear chain of evidence that facilitatesreaders to reconstruct how the authors reached the conclusions from the initialresearch question. By presenting the results separately from the analysis and dis-cussion, the authors allow the readers to evaluate the subjective answers of eachinterviewee. The analysis section then allows the reader to put the subjectiveanswers into a contextual analysis based on existing literature and theories.

3.3.3 External Validity

External Validity describes to what extent a study can be incorporated in otherdomains or context. External validity explains how a study can be generalizedin other populations or other environments for case studies. In this case, onemethod of achieving external validity is to conduct several case studies in otherorganisations or within the same organisation. However, due to time constraints,that was not a possibility for the authors of this research. However, this case studywas conducted at a company within the power industry. However, the author’smethods used in this research and theoretical frameworks could be used withinseveral industries that have adapted to working remotely during the pandemic.Additionally, this research offers the prerequisites needed to conduct this studyamong other employees within The Company and its other subsidiaries.

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3.4 Ethical Considerations

One of the most important considerations this study had to consider was the re-quest of some interviewees to remain anonymous. Therefore, the authors of thisstudy have made efforts to respect their wishes while still providing enough trans-parency to this work. As a result, the names of each interview have remainedundisclosed. Given that the age and unit of some interviewees might result intheir identities being revealed, the interviewees’ ages have also been undisclosedand the real name of each unit. Additionally, before each interview, the intervie-wees were asked for permission to record the interviews.

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4 Results

This section objectively presents the results from the interviews. The section is di-vided into 8 parts following the thematic analysis of the interviews so that multi-ple interviewees’ answers could be grouped by the themes selected. This hopefullypresents the results more structured to make it easier to digest the informationand compare the answers from different interviewees.

4.1 Motivational factors

During the interviews, each interviewee was asked what factors contribute to in-creased motivation and what factors they consider are the most important to feelmotivated. There was a clear difference regarding how quickly the intervieweesanswered or how comprehensive their answers were. While some made it obvi-ous that they had clear answers and had given this area multiple thoughts before,others stumbled on their words and had difficulties defining what motivates them.

The following section is divided into subsections that correlate to the themes inthe thematic analysis to make the results easier to digest. However, many moti-vational factors are connected, making it difficult to segment each factor logicallyand distinctly. Therefore, some sections will correlate to each other. Additionally,it is worth highlighting that this section is not specifically correlated to remotework. The purpose of this section is to map what motivates the interviewees ingeneral to enable a deeper analysis of the cause-and-effect of how remote workhas affected the motivation and make it easier to draw valuable conclusions fromthe result.

Motivational factor IntervieweesHelping others B, D, E, F, H, JHaving a purpose A, C, D, E, I, JFeeling capable, needed or responsible A, C, D, E, I, JStimulating work A, C, D, F, G, H, ISelf-development A, F, ISalary B, C, D, E, ICollaborating C, D, ENon-work factors A, C, H, J

Table 2: List of motivational factors and the corresponding interviewees (represented bythe first letter of their fictional names) who mentioned it

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When looking at Table 2, it is important to consider that some factors were impliedby more interviewees, and the interviewees displayed in Table 2 are only the onesthat explicitly mentioned it. Additionally, it was hard to grade how important eachmotivational factor was for each interviewee, so simply looking at the number ofinterviewees does not accurately illustrate which factors can be considered the”biggest”. Please, see more thorough descriptions of each motivational factordown below.

1. Helping others

One of the most common answers from the interviewees regarding motivationalfactors was to help others. However, there was a wide variation in whom theyfeel motivated to help. For instance, Beatrice said that she is motivated by help-ing both other co-workers across the company and the company itself. She alsomentioned that helping the company’s clients in her day-to-day job is rewarding.Helena said that she gets highly motivated by helping The Company’s customers.She attributes it to her personality and her desire to always help others. For in-stance, she claims that she could never work as a salesman because it clasheswith her personality. She feels more motivated by knowing that the customers aresatisfied and appreciate her help.

Three other interviewees, David, Eric, and Fred, referred to helping other co-workers performing their jobs. David said that he himself enjoys receiving positivefeedback, so he tries to give it to others as well, helping them enjoy their worka little more. Fred said that it is highly rewarding to help employees and seethem excel in their work by becoming better at what they do. Eric said thathe really enjoys working with large documents containing valuable informationthat can be too complex for others to understand. By rewriting these documentsin a more pedagogical format, he argued that they become more accessible andeasier to understand by his co-workers, enabling them to use these documentsfor their work. All three of these interviewees said that the main motivationaldriver is to help the individual employees. They were also aware that if they canhelp employees become better at their work, it helps the company become better,which adds an extra layer of motivation. Along the same line, Julia said that sheenjoys helping others by creating a better work environment, both because shewants them to enjoy their work more and because she indirectly has a positiveeffect on The Company’s goals and mission.

2. Having a purpose

Another popular answer was that having a higher purpose increases the motiva-tion to perform certain tasks, which Alex, Carl, David, Eric, Iris, and Julia shared.Alex and Eric acknowledged that having interesting tasks was important but ar-gued that this was not enough and that there needs to be an underlying deepermeaning behind the tasks. Eric said that creating a large excel document withreally complex calculations can be fun. However, if you know beforehand that noone will use the document within the organization and thus will not create value

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for anyone, you lose motivation to complete these tasks. On the same line, Alexdescribed the relationship between having fun and having a purpose:

I want to have fun. It might sound like a cliche, but if you don’t have agood time at work, it’s no fun to go to work, and then you lose motiva-tion. With that said, you can have a lot of motivation, focus, and drive,but it will not be as interesting to work if you don’t have a purpose. Forinstance, The Company’s sustainable goals and vision are something I amreally passionate about, and it has made The Company rise in rankingsregarding places to work at.

The Company has, throughout the years, focused on sustainability and has a clearvision and mission connected to sustainability that all interviewees resonated withand feel more than happy to contribute towards. For instance, Alex highlightedthe importance of having a clear connection for all employees between their day-to-day work and The Company’s vision to feel like they are contributing to thebroader picture. This appears to be the case among all employees. All intervie-wees feel like they are contributing to reaching the goals set by The Company andcontributing to creating a more sustainable society.

3. Feeling capable, needed or responsible

Another common answer given by the interviewees was the feeling of being capa-ble, needed, or responsible. However, it is important to notice that this need wasframed and formulated differently among the interviewees. David mentioned thateither feeling capable or accomplishing certain tasks is the most important factorfor him and that this feeling can be satisfied in different manners. It could beeither he himself that manages to perform a task and personally feel that he hasdone something valuable, or it could be someone else acknowledging his workby giving him praise or credit. When asked whether internal or external affirma-tion is most important, he said they are equally important and often go hand inhand. Additionally, Alex said that it is more important that he himself feels thathe is making progress in his work and that he keeps growing and developing hisindividual skills. Along the lines of praise, it is very rewarding to receive praiseduring a group meeting and hear a co-worker say, ”look here what he has done,this is great work!” according to Eric. However, he added that it is not the mainfactor for him, but it adds a little extra motivation to start a new project. He alsosaid that this feeling could be achieved when some of the younger employees askhim complex questions to help them with. Thus, it can be considered as closelylinked to the previous factor of helping others.

Carl, David, and Iris said that they become motivated when they feel that theemployer believes in them and gives them increased responsibilities and freedomto solve the tasks in their own way. Increased responsibilities can be seen as aform of praise since it indirectly says that the person has done a good job and isbelieved to continue doing a good job.

Whether the interviewees answered that it was rewarding to feel either capable,needed, or a sense of responsibility, they were all coherent. It is more important

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that these feelings are generated from within rather than receiving complimentsor praise from other peers. However, the interviewees mentioned that it is pos-sible to feel uncertain whether you have done a decent job or not from time totime. In those cases, it is very motivating to get confirmation from one or severalcolleagues that the job was indeed well done. Julia said that receiving externalconfirmation has become increasingly important since she started working fromhome because she does not see her coworkers’ reaction when she gives a presen-tation today. She added that she believes this is important for all human beings,being seen and appreciated, and those who say otherwise are not telling the truth.Additionally, it is important to mention that several interviewees reaffirmed thatreceiving compliments is always beneficial for motivation. However, it is not asimportant as being pleased with their own work and achieve a feeling of havingdone something great. Eric described this with a metaphor:

”My main motivation, and what makes me do things, is knowing fromwithin that I am doing something valuable. With that said, it is, ofcourse, always fun to get a compliment and external confirmation thatI am doing something good. It is kind of like when you are travelling.You have somewhere to go, and the travel destination is the main goal.If you get to travel in a nice car, it makes it more fun to drive there. Itadds to your motivation by adding an extra aspect to the trip. However,you would not withstand the trip if you had to travel in a less nice car...unless it is really crappy.”

4. Stimulating work

Numerous factors affect whether work is perceived as stimulating or not. Accord-ing to Alex, Carl, and Iris, they find motivation when they have a lot of work todo and several tasks at their hands. They all said that if the workload is too low,they get lazy, and it gets hard to find the energy to do anything. Alex said thathe gets really motivated when there is a deadline coming. Carl tried to explainthe optimal workload by saying, ”If I can do 100% of the work during 8 hoursof regular work pace, I want the amount of work to be 110% to have the perfectworkload”. However, Iris also mentioned that if the workload is too high, it hasan opposite effect and affects motivation negatively.

Two interviewees, Carl and Helena, mentioned that they need to have varyingtasks to be motivated. Helena said that if she does not get the needed variation,she becomes restless because she wants to develop her work skills. The bestway to do so, according to her, is by doing different things. Carl also attributedthe importance to his desire to develop himself, but he also mentioned that hewanted a variance in how challenging the tasks were. He said that he likes toperform creative and intense tasks at work and then perform autonomic and easytasks to unwind. Along with the creative and challenging tasks, David, Fred, andGreta said they enjoy solving problems and working with complex tasks.

5. Self-development

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Self-development is a factor closely linked to having stimulating work since it canbe considered hard to develop if you do not have stimulating work. However, it ispossible to be motivated by having stimulating work without being motivated todevelop and learn. Thus, the two sections are separated.

Only three interviewees, Alex, Fred, and Iris, specifically expressed that they weremotivated by developing themselves even though it can be derived as a motiva-tional factor from other interviewees that did not explicitly mention it. Iris saidthat her biggest goal is to become the best at what she does, and, thus, her biggestmotivational factor is to develop herself. She continued to say that she does notknow what the next step is after becoming the best in her field, but she says thatby that time, it is probably time to move on to other projects, even though shedoes not know where. Fred said that it is essential to be just a little bit bettertoday than he was yesterday. This applies to himself personally and the companysince he works with developing different parts of the organization. Alex said thathe is always curious and always motivated to learn something new every day, nomatter what it is. He added, ”that’s what it is all about, learning something new,reading something new, doing something new”.

6. Salary

When it comes to monetary compensation for their work, Carl, David, and Ericmentioned salary as a secondary motivational factor. They said that it is not thatimportant and that they would not work only for the salary. However, they addedthat it is, of course, fun to get a higher salary so that they can buy or do certainthings. There were, however, two interviewees, Beatrice and Iris, that said theywere motivated to get a higher salary. Beatrice mentioned that she is motivatedby getting the maximum output for the minimum input required. Iris said thatthe main reason for wanting a high salary is because it is often connected to howthey are performing in their work, and she said it could be seen as a receipt thatshe is on the right path in her self-development. This was also shared by Carl,who said he thought the salary should reflect the performance.

It is worth mentioning that Eric said that a high salary definitely was a biggermotivational factor for him earlier in his career, but that was a long time ago. Hequickly realized that there were more important things once his salary got ”goodenough”.

7. Collaborating

Carl, David, and Eric said that they enjoy working together with other people tosolve problems and actually gain energy from the interaction. Because of gainingthis energy, they felt more motivated when collaborating with others. However,both Carl and Eric explicitly mentioned that it is not the same thing to collaboratedigitally, and it is not as motivating as collaborating when you are in the sameroom as the other people.

8. Non-work factors

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Alex said that it is vital to have interests outside of work aligned with your work.He said that he is active in working toward ”a clean ocean” and that this activityhas helped him become more motivated in The Company’s sustainable vision andmission. Carl said that his level of motivation dropped a little at the beginningof working from home, and he stopped working out. He then realized what hadhappened and took the responsibility to start working out and hang out morewith his friends to compensate for the decrease of social interactions in his work.He immediately felt more motivated again. Helena said that working remotely,stress levels at work have gone down, which has given her more energy to startexercising and pursue other hobbies in her spare time. She, too, felt that this hada positive impact on her work motivation. Both Carl’s and Helena’s experiencesinsinuate that motivation at work and in private goes hand in hand.

9. Goals

When asked about their professional goals, all interviewees except one did notreally know what to answer straight away. The one that knew, Iris, said that hergoal was to become the best employee within her field. When asked about thenext step after that, she said that it was probably time to move on but did notreally know what to move on to. When asked about why she wanted to be thebest, she did not know that either. After talking about it further, she concludedthat she was afraid of failing and wanted confirmation that she was good. Shealso finished by saying that receiving a higher salary was important.

After thinking about it for a while, Eric realized that a current goal for him isto ”clean up” after himself before retiring. With this, he meant that he wantedto put down all his knowledge from working 40+ years into writing to be easilyaccessible by other colleagues when he leaves. Helena came up with a short-termgoal to learn more about a specific area so she could do her job better.

Fred and Julia said that they do not have any explicit goals with their work, butthey want to become better at what they do. Julia said that she is still quite newto her job compared to her colleagues, so she has a lot to learn in most areas.Fred said he wanted to become better than he was yesterday, a recurring themein his answers.

4.2 Benefits with remote work

When asked about what benefits the interviewees see with remote work, a major-ity seemed to believe that increased flexibility and greater comfort are the mainbenefits. The main argument was that having more control of your own time letsyou decide whether you want to work out, take a walk, shop groceries, do laun-dry, take care of your child, or do something else during office hours and thencatch up with work in the evening. Additionally, less stressful and/or more com-fortable mornings without commuting was also a recurring answer among theinterviewees. All benefits, and who mentioned it, are illustrated in Table 3 downbelow. However, when looking at the table, it is important to note that simply

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looking at the number of interviewees does not give an accurate illustration ofwhich benefits can be considered the ”biggest” because the table does not capturehow important each benefit is to each interviewee. Please, see more thoroughdescriptions further down in this section.

Benefit IntervieweesFlexibility and more control over their own time B, C, D, F, H, I, JComfort and convenience B, C, E, H, JIncreased focus E, HMore time with family D, F, IIncreased accessibility/availability C, FLess segmentation between geographical regions D, F, IIncreased learning G, H

Table 3: List of benefits with remote work and the corresponding interviewees (repre-sented by the first letter of their fictional names) who mentioned it

1. Flexibility and more control over own time

Beatrice, Carl, David, Fred, Helena, Iris, and Julia all said they have a more flexi-ble work schedule with more control over their time today. Iris, who has her childstay with her every other week, said that it is easier today to work more one weekand then work less the other to have more time to be with her daughter. Along thesame line, Fred, who recently had a baby, said that working from home increaseshis ability to coordinate his work schedule with his spouse’s work schedule. Forinstance, if his spouse has to work during office hours, he can take care of thechild during those hours and then work more in the evening to catch up on whathe missed during the day.

Beatrice, Carl, David, Helena, and Julia said that it is a great advantage to havethe opportunity to work out or take a walk during the day while taking a break.Furthermore, Carl and David added that they also liked to shop groceries duringnon-peak hours when fewer people are in the stores, something more appreciatedduring the covid pandemic. Beatrice added that she likes to put on her laundryduring the workday so that she does not have to think about it in the evenings.David specifically highlighted that he saves much time when he works at home,which increases the number of things he has time to do during the day. Julia saidthat she has more time to work out today since she does not have to commute towork every day. However, she also added that some of this ”saved” time is spenton her work because of her increased workload.

Additionally, Helena gave an example where she had slept really badly one specificnight and said that she was exhausted even before lunch the next day. Since sheworked from home, she took the opportunity to sleep for 40 minutes during thelunch break, which helped her gain the energy to work more efficiently duringthe rest of the day. That is an opportunity she would not have had earlier whenworking in the office.

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2. Comfort and convenience

Three interviewees, Beatrice, Eric, and Julia, said that working from home is morecomfortable and convenient than working in the office. Eric said that especiallythe mornings had become much more enjoyable for him, being able to get up inthe morning and have coffee and breakfast in peace and then not having to go outand scrape the windows before getting in the car and driving to work. Beatricesaid that she enjoyed sitting in her pyjamas, having the TV on in the background,and taking meetings while sitting under her apple tree or while taking a walk.Julia said that since the pandemic started, she has begun to bake bread. This issomething she did not use to do earlier because she did not have time to do itbefore leaving for work. Today, she has the ability to let the bread be in the ovenduring a meeting, and after the meeting, she can enjoy freshly baked bread.

Carl and Helena both said that working from home had reduced their stress levels.Helena did not really know why but thought it was because she can manage herworkload better today since she works more efficiently. Carl said he thought itwas because he did not have to get up as early in the morning as he used to. Theidea is that previously he had stressful mornings that set the bar for the rest ofthe day. When he now starts the day without stress, he is calmer throughout theentire day.

3. Increased focus

Two interviewees, Eric and Helena, said that their focus throughout the day hadincreased noticeably because they do not get sucked into other peoples’ work.More specifically, they are now more focused when working on their own, andwhen they work together with other people in a project, they have the same focuslevel. Eric mentioned that this benefit is related to the disadvantage of a higherthreshold for asking short questions since he does not receive as many questionsfrom his coworkers today as he did while working in the office.

4. More time with family

As previously mentioned, two interviewees, Fred and Iris, said that having in-creased flexibility made it possible for them to spend more time with their chil-dren. David also mentioned the benefit of spending more time with his two chil-dren. However, he did not accredit it to being more flexible in his work; he saidit was because they study from home, so he now has lunch or coffee breaks withhis sons instead of his colleagues.

5. Increased accessibility/availability

Carl said that he had noticed that he generally gets a faster response on emailtoday compared to when everyone worked in the office. He said that he believesit is because everyone always has their computer close by nowadays.

Along the same track, Fred said that he feels like it has become easier for hisstaff to contact him when they feel like it. Previously, he visited The Company’s

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different offices to talk to all of his staff. His conception is that ”People used towait for me to visit and then saved up multiple points they wanted to talk tome about. Today, when they do not know the next time I visit, they call insteaddirectly when something arises. This has given me a much greater opportunity togive my support directly when it is needed”.

6. Less segmentation between geographical regions

David said they normally had meetings where most of the participants, includinghim, met physically and sat in the same meeting room. At the same time, a mi-nority called in from their offices at different geographical locations. He believesthat today when everyone is in their home, it has created equal opportunities forall meeting participants to have their voice heard during the meeting. Along thesame line, working as a manager, he felt that his staff today has equal opportuni-ties in contacting and getting a hold of him during the workday.

Iris, who works in a small town with her colleagues in another town, said thatshe felt that she had gotten a better relationship with her colleagues since thepandemic started. She accredits this to people having developed their technicalskills to use digital solutions more efficiently. For instance, they all have theircameras on during the meetings while no one had them on pre-covid. So she, whohad a lot of digital meetings before the pandemic, has seen the development of thequality in these digital meetings and now feels more connected to her colleaguessitting in a different geographical location than her. On the same line, Fred, whosometimes participated in similar meetings where a majority met physically and aminority called in (he was part of the minority), feels more included today wheneveryone is sitting in their homes.

7. Increased learning

Working remotely has increased the learning for both Greta and Helena. Gretasaid that it has become harder to give presentations online than in a physicalmeeting room with all participants present physically. Facing this challenge, shehas been forced to develop her pedagogical skills, which she believes will be a ofgreat advantage for her even after the pandemic. Helena said that the thresholdto ask people questions has become higher, and if the question is not big enough,she instead looks for the answer herself and learns in the process of doing so.Thus, both of these interviewees have turned a disadvantage into an advantageby realizing the effects the ”disadvantages” have.

4.3 Disadvantages with remote work

When asked about the disadvantages of remote work, it was clear that the sin-gle most prominent disadvantage is the decreased quality of social interactionand connection. What mainly seemed to be the problem is that they do not feellike they get the same type of spontaneous meetings where they talk about pri-

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vate stuff, which previously happened next to the coffee machine or in the breakroom. Additionally, blurred lines between work and private also seemed to be acommon denominator between most interviewees. They believed the reasons tobe either the lack of routines or simply because they work within the same wallsas they spend their free time. Another recurring answer was that collaboratingwith others, especially with creative tasks, has become much more difficult in dig-ital meetings. An illustration of the disadvantages associated with remote workcan be seen in Table 4 down below. It is important to consider that simply lookingat the number of interviewees in this table does not accurately illustrate whichdisadvantages can be considered the ”biggest” because the table does not cap-ture how important each disadvantage is to each interviewee. Please, see morethorough descriptions further down in this section.

Disadvantage IntervieweesHigher threshold to ask short questions C, E, FSome tasks become much more difficult A, B, E, F, G, HDecreased quality of social interaction and connection A, B, C, D, E, F, H, I, JBlurred line between work and private life B, C, F, I, JHarder to focus A, B, E, FLack of routines A, F, HIncreased accessibility/availability F, JDifficult for new hires E, JHarder to print or look through physical documents E, H

Table 4: List of disadvantages with remote work and the corresponding interviewees(represented by the first letter of their fictional names) who mentioned it

1. Higher threshold to ask short questions

Carl, Eric, and Fred mentioned a higher threshold to ask short questions as a dis-advantage for remote work. They agreed that if the question is not importantenough, they do not bother asking anyone and chooses to deal with it by them-selves. However, Eric also said that sometimes you do not realize that you are inneed of asking for help. Then when you see a person walking by in the office, youremember that he or she has experience within the area you are currently work-ing and that maybe he or she could help you. In his own words, ”you do not getthe spontaneous meetings when you bump into someone in the hallways of theoffice”. When asked about why there are bigger thresholds, the interviewees saidthat it is mostly related to not knowing whether you would disturb the other per-son by calling; if you work in the office, you could, for instance, grab them whenthey are coming back from their break, or that it is simply more cumbersome toe-mail the person and schedule a meeting for just a short question.

Carl and Eric also mentioned that they see this as a problem the other way around.They said that sometimes they would enjoy being asked by their colleagues andgetting an insight into what they are working on and what they are currentlystruggling with. These interviewees saw it as a good opportunity to take a break

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from their own work and get some variation during the workday. However, Ericadded that not being asked simple questions often is good for his focus and thatthe questions he ordinarily receives are not always stimulating, fun, or interesting.

2. Some tasks become much more difficult

Alex, Beatrice, Eric, Fred, Greta, and Helena all mentioned they believe sometasks have become more difficult than before the pandemic. What seemed to bea common thread among these opinions was that collaborating is not as easy orfun as it was pre-covid. However, they expressed themselves a little differently.Alex explicitly said that routine work works at least as well as it used to do,possibly even better today. However, he said that his department is behind inthe development work, looking at developing the organization. More specifically,he said that creative processes have become much harder since you cannot standbeside a whiteboard and draw or use post-it notes. This opinion was sharedamong Fred and Greta. Fred added that discussions do not flow as naturallyand are not as efficient as they used to be. On the same line, Beatrice, whopreviously worked on an international project, said that the language barrier wasmore prominent in digital meetings and prolonged the project’s time span by asignificant amount.

Greta said that building a team in the beginning phase of a project has becomemuch harder. She also added that giving feedback is not as efficient as it used tobe since it is done more in text than verbal communication. As a result of this,there were more misconceptions in projects concerning feedback and non-verbalcommunication. She also said that verbal communication during presentationshas become more difficult since you cannot see the audience, putting more pres-sure on rhetorical skills. Along the same line, Helena mentioned that creating andmaintaining a good relationship with a client is more challenging now than whenyou were able to visit their office physically.

Finally, Eric, who is involved in the re-construction of an office space, said thatexplaining his ideas becomes more time-consuming and often raises questions.He also said that pre-covid, he could visit the construction site out of interest andthen notice something that needed extra attention. He believes that the lack ofthese spontaneous visits will affect the result negatively.

3. Decreased quality of social interaction and connection

All interviewees except one (Greta) mentioned either decreasing quality or quan-tity of social interaction as a big disadvantage with working remotely. Whatmainly seemed to be the problem among the interviewees was that there is notthe same amount of informal conversations where you talk about private stuffoutside of work. These are conversations that previously happened during lunch-or coffee breaks, or simply became natural talking points during physical meet-ings. Today, most interviewees feel like there is too much focus on work duringinteractions with their colleagues. Thus, they feel a little lower connection to theirco-workers. Additionally, since the opportunity to ask someone a short question

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by grabbing him in the corridor is now missing, you do not keep a good trackof what colleagues in other projects are working on. As previously mentioned,some interviewees found it interesting and stimulating to be incorporated intoothers’ work. Apparently, it seems like a factor affecting the social connectionwithin the ”old office”. As a side-effect of not having a good perception of whatother people are doing, Carl, Fred, and Julia mentioned that you do not knowyour colleagues’ workload in the same way you did before. Julia said that herworkload has increased a lot since she started working from home and that herclosest manager probably does not know this. This can also be supported by thefact that the workload differed greatly among the interviewees, assuming that itwas more equal pre-covid.

Additionally, all interviewees that participated in the study have experienced at-tempts to increase the informal meetings. However, a majority of them said that itis both hard to schedule the need to talk to people and that it is not the same thingas talking in person. Carl said that he gets energy from meeting different peoplein the office and that he does not get the same amount of energy from meetingpeople digitally. Helena and Iris mentioned that they miss the larger meetings andactivities across different offices that usually took place every other month. Juliasaid that she does not get the same opportunity to vent her thoughts and feelingsas she used to, ”it is more cumbersome to schedule meetings, and you lose thespontaneous aspect”.

4. Blurred line between work and private life

Beatrice, Carl, Fred, Iris, and Julia all mentioned that they experience a blurredline between their professional and private life. What mainly seemed to be thereason for this was that you spend your time working and relaxing within thesame walls. For example, Beatrice mentioned that her family does not really putaway working equipment (computer, headset, cables, etc.) during the week. Itwas only during the weekend that they put away this stuff to eat by their kitchentable. Julia said that the line has become blurred because people call her inthe evening because she is in meetings all day during office hours, a lot moremeetings today than when she worked in the office. Fred said that the line isblurred because it is hard to get routines like start working, have breaks, stopworking at the same time every day. When working remotely, the day is morefluent.

5. Harder to focus

Beatrice said that having more flexibility makes you consider the temptations ofdoing other things, for instance, taking a walk outside if it is nice weather. Theresult is that it makes you less motivated to do your work tasks and impairs thefocus. Eric said that this is especially the case if you do not have tasks that youfind interesting. Fred, who recently had a baby, said that it has mostly been greatto work from home, but sometimes it gets hard to focus because of him havingto take care of his child. Along the same line, Alex said that he had colleaguesthat lived together with their partner and/or children in a small space and that

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for these people, this was a bigger problem than it was for him. However, none ofthe interviewees in this research mentioned this as a major drawback with remotework, only a minor one.

6. Lack of routines

As previously mentioned, a lack of routines blurs the line between work and pri-vate life, according to Fred. However, there are more potential negative conse-quences of not having routines. For instance, Helena said that she often forgot ordid not prioritised having breaks at the beginning of the pandemic. She said thatit worked fine initially, but it started to wear on her body and mind after a while.Now that she has realized the importance of taking breaks, both for the mind andthe body, she feels much better by getting up and moving a little bit. Alex specif-ically highlighted the importance of waking the body in the morning, which youusually did by commuting and not just rolling out of bed and start working.

7. Increased accessibility/availability

Fred and Julia said that the pressure to always be available has increased the timethey work. David also said, ”I believe that many of the problems related to remotework can be derived from the fact that you feel that always should be available,you never really get a break”.

8. Difficult for new hires

Eric and Julia mentioned that a disadvantage with remote work is that it createsobstacles for new hires. Julia said that half her team was hired relatively recently,and they have not been able to get to know each other really well because ofworking remotely. Eric said that it was not his personal experience since he hasworked at the company for a long time. However, he knew someone that hadcome straight from school without any real experience and, for him, it was hardto know what to do and whom to ask if he faced a problem he could not solve byhimself.

9. Harder to print or look through physical documents

Eric mentioned that he used to print out large documents when he worked inthe office since he prefers to read physical papers and turn the pages to go back,among other advantages. He also said that he kept certain folders in his office toeasily and quickly find the information he was looking for. He said that this wasa drawback for him, but maybe it could be interpreted as a good thing since hefinally has learned to work more digital and has realized that it actually works outokay. Helena said that she saw this as a minor problem because she sometimeslikes to print certain things.

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4.4 Optimal way of working in the future

All interviewees said that the opportunity to work from home is great, and theopportunity to work from an office is essential. However, it is a little mix in theratio office/home that interviewees would want to work in the future. However,a majority said around 50/50 from the office/home. Iris said that she wanted towork from home most of the time since she would be more efficient. However,she still wants the opportunity to go to her office from time to time just to get thephysical, social interactions like drinking coffee together.

Two interviewees, Alex and Greta, explicitly said that whether they wanted towork from the office or their home depended on what type of work they weredoing that day. They both said they wanted to do individual work from home andteamwork at the office. In another context, Carl mentioned that there is generallymore creative teamwork at the beginning of projects, and in the latter stages of aproject, everyone works more by themselves. Thus, it can be framed as whetherworking remotely or physically is most suitable depends on the project and whatstage they are in, according to interviewees Alex and Greta.

When it comes to the degree of flexibility, most interviewees said that they wouldprefer if they could choose how many days and what days they could work fromhome. Carl said that since he started working from home, he has experienced alot less stress in the mornings because he can wake up later if he sleeps reallybad during one night. He said that if he woke up one morning after havinghad a bad night of sleep, he would want the opportunity to decide then that hewould work from home. However, most of the interviewees also acknowledgedthat this might not be possible and that the manager would have to decide whichdays everyone should be in the office to have team meetings and that the staffcould choose whether they wanted to work from home or in the office during theremaining days. Carl said that this is important to avoid meetings where half ofthe participants sit at home while the other half sits in the office. He said that itis generally these ”hybrid meetings” that work worst in comparison to meetingswhere everyone is either home or in the office. Additionally, Julia said she hopespeople will consider other peoples’ private lives more in the future and show somerespect by not calling outside of office hours.

4.5 Informal meetings

Informal meetings before the pandemic generally took the form of having lunchtogether, meeting by the coffee machine, taking small breaks together, or simplywalking over to someone in the office and chit-chatting. Today, even though itis possible to, for instance, have a digital lunch together with a colleague, Beat-rice, Carl, Fred, Greta, and Iris feel that there is a lack of informal meetings andthat this has affected the social connection to the workgroup in a negative way.However, they all added that they have experienced attempts from The Companyand colleagues to create these interactions by organizing, for instance, digital

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breakfasts, lunches, and coffees, walk-meetings, or simply incorporating theminto other work meetings such as weekly reconciliation meetings. Across all in-terviewees, the common experience is that these meetings are 1-2 times per weekand scheduled on the same day and time every week. Eric said that he thinksthis is enough since it makes you look forward to the meetings and ensures goodattendance.

Additionally, Beatrice and Carl said they had tried these meetings but did notenjoy them because they were not the same as having coffee with someone inthe office. Greta said she did not feel these meetings were spontaneous enoughbecause ”you can’t schedule the need to talk to someone”. Fred somewhat sharedthis viewpoint since he also felt that the informal meetings are not as spontaneousas they used to be, which he believes is a negative thing. Carl said that he doesnot attend these meetings because he feels they are too early in the morning, andhe would rather prioritize sleeping. He also added that his prioritization is basedon the feeling that these meetings are not the same thing as physical meetings,similarly to what Beatrice also thinks.

Helena and Julia said that they as persons are social and have never had anyproblems picking up the phone and talking to colleagues if they feel the needto. Helena added that she believed all her colleagues in her department werenaturally social because of their roles and that maybe it is different in other de-partments.

4.6 Actions by The Company

This section presents what the interviewees believed The Company has done well,what could have been done better, and what they want to see being done in thefuture. Initially, the focus was supposed to be only on actions concerning motiva-tion, but some interviewees’ answers can be seen as outside this focus. However,the authors of this paper did not want to sort out answers that may seem irrele-vant to the interviewees’ motivation since they may, in fact, be relevant. Thus, theactions concern both motivation and remote work together and separately.

4.6.1 What has been done well

Carl said that The Company has been good at positive encouragements and show-ing examples of how employees can create great work routines when workingfrom home. Greta agreed on this but added that she was sceptical about whetherit had led to any positive results among the staff. Somewhat along the same line,Iris said that she appreciates the freedom and trust that she gets from The Com-pany. For instance, scheduling her own vacation. She continued to say that it isboth fun and motivating to feel that the employer believes in her ability to takeresponsibility for her work.

Three interviewees, Alex, Eric, and Fred, said they believed The Company hasbeen good at improving digital services. For example, they mentioned that VPN

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login has been automated and that internet transfer capacity has been scaledup to enable all employees to have video conference calls simultaneously, some-thing that did not work initially when everyone started working from home. Fur-thermore, The Company has been good at taking responsibility for their employ-ees. For instance, Beatrice initially had an ergonomically bad workstation, whichcaused her pain and forced her to visit a chiropractor. She said that The Companyoffered to pay for these visits, which was good. Alex said that The Company hasbeen good at supplying the employees with computer screens, chairs, desks, etc.,to ensure sustainable workstations at home.

Additionally, Beatrice said that The Company, specifically her closest manager,had done well in starting informal meetings to cope with the lack of social con-nection. David, Fred, and Helena said that the guidelines from The Companyhave been clear and cohesive with the general guidelines in the society, which isa good thing. However, Helena added that the guidelines were not as clear in thebeginning.

4.6.2 What could have been done better

Beatrice, Carl, David, and Fred mentioned that it took a long time to get officeequipment like computer screens, chairs, and desks. More specifically, the infor-mation regarding whether you could go to the office and pick up the equipmentwas vague and unclear. Carl compared his situation to his friends’ situations atother companies and said it took a lot longer to get his equipment. He even saidthat working from a laptop, sitting on a simple kitchen chair, for a long time madehis body hurt, ”at the end, I felt like a really old person even though I’m not even30 years old”. Along the same line, Helena said that the information regardingwhether or not you could go and work in the office or not was vague. She saidthat you were allowed to work in the office but felt ashamed to do it because ofthe societal pandemic restrictions. Additionally, Beatrice thought The Companywas way too slow to increase internet capacity since they could not have the videoon during digital meetings in the first months.

Iris said that the workload has become way too high and that she needs moresupport. This was something that Fred agreed to partly since he said that theworkload has increased. However, he feels that he has the situation more undercontrol. Julia, however, agrees with Iris’s perception that the workload is becom-ing increasingly difficult to manage.

What is worth mentioning is that most of these points are now fixed, but onething that remains is the uneven workload among employees, which has resultedin some individuals having way too many things on their plate.

4.6.3 What should be done in the future

When asked about what they think The Company should do in the future to im-prove motivation, five interviewees came up with ideas. Carl said that he believesthat The Company is good at focusing on the positive aspects but must be better

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at talking about the negative. More specifically, he thought it was important thatthey catch and follow up on how all individuals are feeling. He added that mak-ing sure important information reaches all employees is going to be importantsince he had felt that maybe some information is more adapted for employeeshigher up in the hierarchy even though it is equally relevant for all employees.Somewhere along the same line, Beatrice said that she thought a monetary bonuswould be highly appreciated among the employees ”as a thank you for fightingthrough these hard times, I think that would probably raise the motivation”.

Alex said that it is really important that managers set the tone in a workgroupand have the courage to open up and laugh at their own expense. This will createrapport, and the staff will trust the manager with difficult problems he or shemay have, both professionally and in their personal life. David mentioned thathe thinks it will be important to look if it is possible to make sure that smallergroups can meet in the office on certain days to have fun and build better socialconnections.

Carl said that The Company, which operates in multiple countries, should lookat country-adapted restrictions. He meant that countries with lower restrictionsin the rest of the society should have lower restrictions within The Company. Hementioned that, for instance, the gyms in Sweden are still open and thought thatThe Company’s private gyms should then be able to be open as well. He did notsee the logic behind the decision to close them since the employees are at greaterrisk of catching the covid virus when going to a public gym.

Julia said that she really hopes The Company learns from this period of workingremotely. She believes that The Company’s success is highly dependent on theability to attract talented employees by competing with more ”modern” companiesthat offer flexible working solutions. She added that her perception is that peopleat The Company are divided in this question, with some people wanting to workremotely and some people hoping everything will go back to the way it was pre-covid.

4.7 Psychological needs

When asked about how satisfied each of the basic psychological needs is todaycompared to previously, most interviewees reported somewhat unchanged levels.When it comes to autonomy, all interviewees said that they enjoyed a high level ofautonomy. They were satisfied both with how it was before the pandemic and howit is today, even though especially Greta and Helena seemed happy about beingmore autonomous today. According to Helena, the need for competence develop-ment is more satisfied today, which she is pleased about. Beatrice also reported ahigher degree of competence development but said she had been forced to learnthings she does not care about. For the rest of the interviewees, the satisfactionof this need seemed relatively unchanged even though three people reported amarginally lower level. All interviewees, except Eric, said they valued this needand actively worked towards developing themselves. The only need that seemed

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to have been impacted to a higher degree by working remotely is relatedness.Four employees reported a lower level of relatedness mainly because social inter-actions are worse when digital than physical. One of the remaining intervieweesreported a higher level of relatedness, while the others said it was the same. Table5 illustrates the development of these needs since starting to work remotely.

Psychological need Lower Same HigherAutonomy A, C, D, F, I, J B, G, HCompetence C, F, J A, D, E, G, I B, HRelatedness A, B, G, J C, D, E, H, I F

Table 5: Remote work’s effect on the three basic psychological needs central to SDT (eachinterviewee is represented by the first letter of their fictional name)

4.7.1 Autonomy

Alex, Carl, David, Fred, Iris, and Julia all said they had the same amount ofautonomy in their work today as before starting to work remotely. Carl said thathe had a relatively high autonomy and that he liked a variation, more guidingin some tasks and more freedom in some tasks. The rest of these intervieweessaid that they already had a high level of autonomy before the pandemic and thatthey enjoy making decisions independently without having anyone look over theirshoulder. However, Julia mentioned that her calendar has started to control moreof her day since she has more meetings booked today than she used to have. Shedid add that she has the mandate to cancel meetings if she feels she needs to.Thus, it is not a big problem for her autonomy.

Beatrice, Greta, and Helena said that they have a higher autonomy today. Beatriceaccredits this to the higher threshold of asking a colleague about questions thatarise and expressed herself like this:

”Since I started working from home, I have started to think one stepfurther on my own when a problem arises. This is because the thresh-old of asking a colleague is higher today than it was before... This hasincreased my autonomy, which is good, but I miss discussing problemswith my colleagues... Collaborating with a colleague is both fun and itsometimes also result in really creative solutions, especially if you discusswith a person that has a different perspective than yourself.”

Greta and Helena also feel they have been ”forced” to become more self-sufficientin their work since the threshold of asking a colleague is higher. They both enjoythe increased autonomy, and Greta also added that she thinks it is good that othercolleagues have been forced to make certain decisions on their own.

4.7.2 Competence and self-development

Three interviewees, Carl, Fred, and Julia, believe that their self-development islower post-covid than pre-covid. Carl and Fred both said that one reason for this

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is because they do not learn as much from other colleagues since they do not sitwith them at the office, and they do not get involved in others’ work as muchas previously. Carl said that work today feels much more monotonous becauseof this. Fred added that the decreased self-development results from having topostpone certain projects until they are back in the office and that they do not havethe same opportunity to take courses today. Julia said that the biggest reason forlower self-development is that she has more meetings with other people and hasless time to work on her self-development within certain areas. She also addedthat continuously developing herself is extremely important. She is still satisfiedwith the current level of learning since she is in a new role and keeps learningthings even though she can not control what she learns to the same degree asshe used to do. Additionally, all of these interviewees said that the competencedevelopment is marginally lower than earlier and that they value the developmentof both themselves and The Company.

Alex, David, Eric, Greta, and Iris said they have the same level of competencedevelopment today as before. Eric said that he does not care about developinghimself at this stage of his career sine he is close to retirement. He just wantsto use the knowledge he already has most efficiently. He added that he mightlearn something new if necessary to perform a task he has to do. The otherfour interviewees said they valued self-development highly and that it was ona high level both before covid and currently. Greta mentioned, however, thatshe had felt more ”invisible” since they started working remotely and thereforewere not quite sure about her development since she does not receive as muchexternal confirmation that she is on the right path. Since they value this need,they actively work towards developing themselves and take responsibility for theirown development.

Finally, Beatrice and Helena think that their learning has increased during thepandemic. They both accredit this to not having the same opportunity to askother people when they face a challenge (note: these interviewees also said theyhad a higher level of autonomy). Helena sees this as a good thing since she hasbecome very motivated to develop herself because of the reduced stress and in-creased energy she has experienced since she started working remotely. She haseven started looking at evening courses, something she had never been inter-ested in earlier. On the other hand, Beatrice had a more negative attitude to thisprogression. She said that she had been forced to learn mainly technical skillsconcerning using digital solutions and services. She added that she is indeed verymotivated to develop herself, but she would rather focus on theoretical areas likeentrepreneurship and law and not on practical skills concerning technologies.

4.7.3 Relatedness

When it comes to relatedness, Alex, Beatrice, Greta, and Julia said they haveexperienced a decrease in this psychological need. Beatrice said that it is simplybecause it is not the same thing to talk to someone digitally as meeting themin person. She added that having fun with her colleagues has always been the

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biggest motivational factor for her. Alex was on the same line and said that themotivation decreases every day they have to work from home. Greta said thatit is tough to ”build a team” at the beginning of a project. She continued to saythat a close project team is important because it allows people to fail withoutbeing ashamed. Because everyone is supposed to complete each other’s skills, itis important that you can work together. She believes this is a key component todeliver great results. Finally, Julia said that her team has really stepped up theirwork on ensuring a good social connection within the team during the last monthsby scheduling meetings to, for instance, talk about their private life or have digitalquizzes just for fun. She added that it took a while to realize the importance ofactually scheduling these meetings to make sure they happen, and that the socialconnection has become better than it was at the beginning of the pandemic, eventhough it is not really at the same level as it was pre-covid.

Carl, David, Eric, Helena, and Iris said that the feeling of relatedness is un-changed. Two of them, Carl and Iris, said that they had felt a low level alreadybefore the pandemic. The reason was that Iris did not sit in the same geograph-ical area as her colleagues, and Carl said that his workgroup was divided intodifferent projects. Eric and Helena said that the relatedness was naturally highboth pre-covid and today. Eric accredited this to the seniority level of his closestcolleagues and that he had worked together with them for such a long time thatthey knew exactly where they had each other. Helena said that because of thenature of her job, her colleagues are naturally social and that keeping in touchthus comes naturally and has never been a problem. David said that the socialconnection had changed, but neither for the better or worse. He said:

”One might think that the feeling of belonging has taken a beating, butI do not think that is the case. You still get the social connection, onlydigital. However, I think it is important to not only rely on digital in-teraction in the long-term, but you also have to meet your colleagues inperson. During a limited time like this, even though 15-16 months mayseem like a long time, I believe that most people have decided to lookat it like grownups and think, ’It is what it is, soon the pandemic willend, and I will be able to meet my colleagues at the office again. In themeantime, I will just have to do my best’. That is at least my perceptionof the situation.”

Finally, Fred was the only person who reported experiencing a higher feeling ofrelatedness, mainly because a lot of his work pre-covid was already digital, andthe digital meetings have become much better today. He said that a clear majorityof the others in his management team sit in the same geographical region. Whenthey had meetings pre-covid, they gathered physically while he joined digitally.Since they all sit digitally now, he feels less of an outsider and can take morespace in the meeting. He also added that he values The Company’s sustainabilitygoals and that the relatedness to The Company and its goals are the same.

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4.8 Remote work’s effect on motivation

Although this research aims to derive how and why employees’ motivation hasbeen affected by looking at several different parameters, the interviewees wereasked to share how they felt their motivation has changed. A summary of theanswers can be seen in Table 6.

Measure Lower Same HigherMotivation B, C, F A, D, E, I, J H

Table 6: Remote work’s effect on motivation summarized (each interviewee is representedby the first letter of their fictional name)

Beatrice, Carl, and Fred said that working remotely has negatively affected theirmotivation. Carl even said that ”it has become lower on all points”. In contrast,Beatrice said that it was initially higher because she enjoyed the flexibility thatcame with remote work but, as time passes on, the negative aspects of not seeingher colleagues in person have lowered the overall motivation. Fred said that it ismainly because of the blurred line between work and private life and the lack ofroutines. He continued to say that the motivation may, in fact, just be marginallylower or the same, but it takes a lot more energy to keep it up.

Alex, David, Eric, Iris, and Julia said that their level of motivation is unchanged.Iris said it is because her way of working has not changed much since she workedmost of the time remotely already before the pandemic. Eric argued that if youhave interesting tasks, it does not matter if you sit at home or in the office, ”onceyou delve into interesting tasks, time and space disappear”. Alex said that youcan not get away from the fact that the motivation goes up and down. For him, itwas mainly dependent on having fun and having a purpose. However, the work-load was also important because if he had a lot to do, he felt motivated to do allthose things, and if he did not have a lot to do, he did not feel particularly moti-vated. He also added that one thing related to remote work that actually affectshis motivation negatively is when digital meetings are not as efficient as physicalmeetings. For example, he mentioned that pre-covid, if you had a meeting whereyou did not really finish your agenda, you could most often simply have lunchtogether after the meeting and discuss the final points. This does not occur today,however, which forces you to schedule a new meeting. In meetings with multiplepersons, he gets the feeling that people are thinking, ”why should I even go tothis meeting? we are not going to decide anything really, so I can just go to thenext”. Julia also said that the motivation goes up and down. She said that shehas always been a really motivated person and that her problem, if any, is thatshe is too motivated and dedicated to her work. She added that because of herincreased workload, she has experienced periods of hopelessness, which has af-fected her motivation negatively from time to time. Overall, however, she feels themotivation is on the same level as it used to be. The last person who reported anunchanged level of motivation, David, said that he had gotten so used to workingremotely that it is not really that big of a difference. If anything, the motivation

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might even be slightly higher since he gets more things done nowadays.

Helena, who said her motivation has increased, said that it is mainly becauseher stress levels have gone down, and she has a lot more energy throughout theday. Because of the increased energy, she has started walking more and pursuinghobbies such as painting in her spare time. She continued to say that she usesher energy on the work and gathers energy in her spare time. She sees it as areinforcement cycle that just keeps on spinning at the moment because havingmore energy to do her work makes her finish all her tasks with ease, which inturn result in her having more energy when the workday ends so that she can domore of her hobbies and ”recharge her batteries” even more.

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5 Analysis

This section aims to answer the research question by combining the theoreticalcontext section and the results section. In other words, the key findings in theresults are analyzed using the theories presented in the theoretical context sec-tion. Additionally, identified connections between the interviewees’ answers arealso highlighted if considered relevant and valuable for the research question ofthis paper.

Based on the results of the interviews, it appears that a majority of the intervie-wees have not experienced any major increase nor decrease in motivation sincestarting to work remotely due to the pandemic. The outliers are Beatrice, Carl,and Fred that have experienced a decrease in motivation as a direct consequenceof working remotely. In contrast, Helena has experienced an increase in moti-vation. However, many of the interviewees that have experienced no change inmotivation acknowledged the challenges that have followed due to remote work.Many of these challenges have either affected their motivation temporarily or in-creased the effort and energy needed to stay motivated.

The decrease of motivation can partly be explained by how certain needs have notbeen as satisfied during the pandemic as before, the major one being relatedness.Additionally, maintaining the balance between work-life and personal life appearsto be a challenge, and the blurred line have affected the motivation among some.The authors of this report can argue that the increased autonomy and flexibilityare the main reasons why motivation has increased among some and why theoverall motivation has remained the same. One can also argue that the employeesof The Company have achieved a high level of internalization towards the goalsof The Company and expected behaviours. Thus, the authors of this study arguethat the high internalization among employees has contributed to a continuousmotivation towards The Company’s goals.

However, it is important to note that an individual’s needs are a construct oftheir own surroundings and experience. Therefore, it is important to considertheir backgrounds and life situations. However, their type of work and their roleswithin The Company may be more important to consider since the interviewees’opinions differed among those who work in projects with big groups and thosewho work individually.

This section will be divided into two segments. The first one aims to analyze howthe circumstances created by the pandemic and remote work have affected theemployees’ needs, based on the empirical answers, and how these might have

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had an effect on individuals’ motivation. The second segment aims to considerhow working remotely has affected different interviewees differently. In otherwords, it analyzes which conditions that influence remote work’s effect on theinterviewees’ motivation.

5.1 Human needs and motivation

When analyzing the different human and psychological needs, it is important toconsider that the basic needs and lower tiers of Maslow’s pyramid, such as food,water, security, and safety, are to an extent already satisfied. This is becauseSweden is a relatively developed country combined with the type of roles of-fered at The Company that offers their employees the prerequisites to fulfil thoselower-tier needs. However, it is the needs at the top three tiers that have mainlybeen affected during the pandemic. Furthermore, the top three tiers are alsothe tiers that the interviewees currently work towards fulfilling. Therefore, thisanalysis will be centred around the three needs mentioned in SDT, relatedness,competence, and autonomy, which shares characteristics with the highest levelsof Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

5.1.1 Relatedness

Based on the empirical results of the interviews, it appears that the needs thathave been majorly affected are relatedness, the feeling of belonging and socialconnection. However, to what extent the lack of relatedness has affected motiva-tion differs among the employees. Based on existing literature, an effect of remotework is the reduced interactions with co-workers, which might result in lackingrelatedness (Allen et al. 2015, Virtanen 2020). This issue becomes even moreprominent given the pandemic and lack of social interactions outside one’s work-place (Wang et al. 2021). Additionally, these consequences might have an impliciteffect on individuals’ motivation (Ryan & Deci 2000b). The authors of this reportcan see the disadvantages and effects on motivation to different extents from theempirical results.

However, many interviewees felt the need to express that relatedness can be di-vided into two different types: the relations and social interactions among co-workers, and the feeling of being related and belonging to the goals and culture ofThe Company. The authors of this report would also like to highlight this distinc-tion since most interviewees who had either felt a lower perception of relatednessor challenges in maintaining this need did not feel that their feeling of belongingand relatedness towards The Company and its goals had been affected. But rathertheir social interactions and their relations with other co-workers. The one inter-viewee that did feel that her belongingness towards The Company had decreasedwas Beatrice. When asked what her take was on relatedness, she stated:

”... The Company used to be more centred around culture and meetingeach other, at least when I started working here... Today, The Company

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has become just like any other company... I do not have the same com-mitment. I could start working at another place today and receive thesame tasks, it will not be that big of a difference.”

Beatrice also added that among the different needs, relatedness was the most im-portant. This could explain why her lack of motivation during the pandemic hasbeen lower, even though the other needs such as autonomy and competence havebeen more satisfied during the pandemic. Therefore, one can imagine that thedifference between her and other employees that have also experienced a lack ofrelatedness, but no decrease in motivation, is Beatrice’s relatedness towards Vat-tenfall. One can argue that many of the extrinsic motivational factors that she hadinternalized have now been deinternalized. In contrast, others have managed tomaintain their internalization of certain motivational factors and tasks. As a re-sult, even though there are fewer social interactions and diminishing relationshipsamong co-workers, they have maintained a similar relatedness level.

On the contrary to Beatrice, Carl has not experienced that his relatedness towardsThe Company has decreased, but highlights that his relationships with co-workershave been negatively affected and that the lack of social interactions resulted indecreased motivation at the start of the pandemic. He is not alone in experiencingthese negative effects. However, he is the only one that feels that his decrease inmotivation is partly due to the lack of relatedness. Carl’s situation can partlybe explained by how people start moving down in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needsonce certain needs at the lower levels start to be less satisfied (McLeod 2018).To compensate for the lack of relatedness at his workplace, he started to workon his relationships in his private life and prioritize spending time with friendsand family members. This can be argued as an attempt to focus on satisfyinghis social needs instead of other needs such as self-actualization and esteem. Astime progressed, he experienced that his social needs started to be more satisfied.Thus, his motivation returned closer to his normal level, even though he stillexperienced the lack of relatedness to be a demotivating factor. This implicatesthat working remotely increases the importance of having a social life outsidework in order to maintain motivation at work, which is in line with previousfindings (Manca 2020, Wang et al. 2021).

One important factor to consider that can explain Carl’s lack of motivation due tothe lack of relatedness is the fact that he lives alone. Among all interviewees, heand Greta were the only ones who did not live with a partner or their children.His lack of social interactions at home could explain why other interviewees whoexperienced a decrease in relatedness at work did not experience a decrease inmotivation. Strengthening that motivation is a construct of one’s surroundingsand environment. It could also be explained by the fact that these employeesfelt that other needs such as autonomy and competence had increased during thepandemic. Thus, their needs have been balanced differently but resulted in thesame level of motivation.

Among the interviewees, Fred was the only one that experienced that his needfor relatedness had been more satisfied during the pandemic compared to before.

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In his case, it is important to consider that his unit and group are spread aroundseveral offices and that the majority do not share the same office as him. Thus,he has, since the start of the pandemic, been more included in meetings sincethey are all connected digitally and working remotely. This raises the questionof whether those who had been more excluded before the pandemic due to theirgeographical location are now experiencing a higher relatedness. But also, em-ployees that now have had to distance themselves from their co-workers, such asFred, are now experiencing a lacking relatedness. One can argue that such is thecase based on other interviewees that have had to adapt as Fred’s co-workers had.

Overall, most interviewees experienced that their need for relatedness is just assatisfied as before the pandemic. Some claim that the relationships with their co-workers are still existing, but the difference being that they are now digital. Thus,their motivation is not as affected by relatedness as one could have imagined.However, most agree that the pandemic has caused difficulties in maintainingand flourishing relations. There are several social activities that the majority, ifnot all, interviewees miss, such as daily conversations at the office, eating lunchwith others, and sharing a cup of coffee, among other things. Besides the socialneeds that these activities satisfy, other aspects go missing due to the lack of theseactivities, such as knowledge sharing and awareness of your surroundings anddifficulties in keeping track of your peers’ well-being. Even though the majorityagree that these changes are not severe enough to decrease one’s motivation, theyagree that they affect their well-being and general mood. This was highlighted byFred who stated:

”There is one thing that worries me, and it is those subjects that youseldom speak about. But people can have issues with abuse of substancesor other issues in their lives. Some people might not be in a good state orhave the necessary pieces in place to go to your workplace and do whatis required by them. But now it is much more difficult to keep track ofthese issues among others, and you can only suspect if people are havingtrouble in their private lives or not.”

Julia shares the same experience of finding it difficult to check on the well-beingof other co-workers due to fewer interactions and the fact that many of the inter-actions today are centred around work-related topics. Julia has also experiencedthat her need for relatedness has not been satisfied during the pandemic. How-ever, it has not resulted in decreased motivation. She said her group has realizedthe importance of questioning the well-being of other peers among their group.She stated:

”Basic questions such as ’How are you?’ are less frequent due to work-related questions...We had a meeting last week to touch on these subjects.I never thought that I would cry. But it resulted in a very open-hearteddiscussion. Some people opened up and mentioned and that they felttroubled. It ended in the whole team sitting and crying behind theirscreens. Since then, we have all improved in checking in on each otherand realized the importance of that.”

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The difficulties mentioned in this paragraph corresponds with the disadvantagesmentioned in existing literature regarding remote work (Manca 2020, Virtanen2020). Therefore, the authors of this study claim that relatedness is still an ex-isting issue and needs to be considered a continuous challenge when workingremotely since there is still a high dissatisfaction among the interviewees.

5.1.2 Autonomy

If the needs for relatedness, belonging, and social relationships are the ones thathave been negatively affected the most, autonomy is the need that has seen themost positive effects since the pandemic hit and the interviewees started work-ing remotely. Those who have not experienced an increase in autonomy at leastacknowledge that there are many benefits with remote work that stimulates au-tonomy, the biggest one being flexibility. This might not come as a surprise sinceautonomy and flexibility are considered one of the biggest advantages of remotework and some reasons for the positive view on remote work in the existing liter-ature (Fujii 2020, Wang et al. 2021).

If we consider the benefits of remote work that the interviewees highlighted dur-ing the interviews, such as increased flexibility, more control over their own time,comfort, and convince, they can all be argued to result in a higher autonomy. Ifautonomy is the act of shaping one’s work environment so one can perform attheir best levels, saving time commuting or deciding how to distribute one’s dailytasks will positively affect one’s sense of autonomy. It is no surprise that most in-terviewees who experienced these benefits also experience either the same levelof autonomy or an increased level. If we consider the different types of mo-tivations such as intrinsic motivation, autonomous motivation, and motivationfactors, these can all be stimulated by an increased autonomy. As stated by ex-isting literature, these motivation factors are considered more natural and inher-ently interesting and are typically accompanied by the feeling of flexibility andchoice (Reiss 2012, Ganta 2014, Alshmemri et al. 2017). Therefore, it is reason-able to believe that the increase in autonomy has stimulated the autonomous andintrinsic motivational factors across the employees who have also experienced in-creased motivation. Helena was the only interviewee who felt that her motivationhad increased during the pandemic. It was partly because of the increased flexi-bility that allows her to distribute her work according to the number of tasks andother activities revolving around her private life. For instance, she mentioned thatif she wakes up in the morning and feels that she has not gotten enough sleep, shenow has the flexibility to sleep in. How autonomy had stimulated motivationalfactors became clearer when several interviewees explained the importance andneed for autonomy. For instance, Iris stated that:

”I would not manage to work at a place where the boss constantly keepsknocking on your shoulder to check how you are doing certain tasks. Ifthat were the case, I would leave in no time. I like my autonomy andfreedom. It is more encouraging to receive praise for what you have donebecause it makes you feel capable of assuming the autonomy you have

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been given.”

To further elaborate on her attitude towards autonomy, it is also important toconsider the other category of motivation under which extrinsic motivation, con-trolled motivation, and hygiene factors fall under. Many of these factors are ac-quired as one grows older and integrates into society, and assumes responsibility,such as being responsible for one’s task at a workplace. A consequence of thisis that intrinsic motivation becomes weaker. However, these can be reduced byreducing the amount of monitoring and control. The experiments with the stu-dents mentioned in the theory section illustrate this phenomenon. Based on theinput provided by Iris and others, remote work has reduced the amount of mon-itoring and control by their supervisors, which in turn have increased autonomy.Therefore, it is reasonable to believe that many extrinsic, controlled, and hygienefactors are today perceived as less controlling and intrinsic instead, resulting inincreased motivation among these interviewees. This is further strengthened bythe fact that many hygiene factors are not as present today and do not decreasemotivation, since hygiene factors are associated with avoiding unpleasing factorssuch as policies and supervisions (Alshmemri et al. 2017).

These discussions bring us to internalization. As mentioned earlier, the authors ofthis study suggest that many of the employees have either achieved a high levelof internalization during their time at The Company or that internalization hasremained strong or grown during the pandemic. This is based on the fact thatmany of the interviewees share the goals and values set by The Company butalso on the fact that many of the motivational factors among the intervieweesare connected to improving The Company, helping co-workers, and feeling ca-pable, needed, and responsible. For instance, Julia mentioned that she quit herold job because she did not share their values and that she would do the sametoday if she did not feel any connection to The Company, and Eric said that hewants to improve as many processes as possible before he retires. These factorscan be connected to the late stages of internalization, where one has managedto achieve a conscious valuing of activities, self-endorsement of goals, hierarchi-cal synthesis of goals, and congruence. All these factors correspond to the laterstages of internalization: identification and integration. Given the premise thatonly autonomy support can result in identification and integrated self-regulation,it is reasonable to believe that this premise, combined with increased autonomy,has resulted in higher internalization. Especially considering that competenceand relatedness enable the first stages of internalization, external regulation andintrojection, but have no impact on identification and integration. One can arguethat the lack of relatedness has affected the internalization of regulations amongsome employees. Beatrice’s statement regarding how she could work at any com-pany these days and would not notice a difference is an example of this. However,it appears that the increased autonomy has counteracted the effect of decreasedrelatedness among some. This could also explain why some interviewees expe-rience no change in motivation even though they experience a higher autonomybut reduced feeling of relatedness. However, this does not mean that relatednessand competence can be neglected since these three needs combined offer support

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for regulations to be fully internalized regulations.

To put context to why the increase of autonomy has resulted in the same levelof motivation or higher, it is also important to consider Maslow’s Hierarchy ofNeeds. As mentioned earlier, many of the interviewees’ motivational factors re-volve around helping others, having a meaningful job, problem-solving, and cre-ativity, which correlates with the top levels of the hierarchy, esteem, and self-actualization. It is reasonable to believe that increased autonomy has paved wayfor the employees that pertain to the top levels to stimulate and work on thoseneeds. Based on existing literature, as the lower levels become more satisfied, it isbelieved that their motivation will decrease given that these needs do not need tobe fulfilled to the same extent anymore. For instance, no interviewee consideredsalary to be one of the main motivating factors. It might be because of how thebasic needs are already satisfied. However, once the needs at the top level startto become satisfied, the need of satisfying these further becomes even stronger.Thus, it increases the motivation as the need to keep self-actualizing grows more.Furthermore, the existing theory surrounding Maslow’s hierarchy of needs claimthat the lower levels do not need to be completely fulfilled before one can startworking on self-actualizing (McLeod 2018). Therefore, it is reasonable to arguethat the constant or increased level of motivation among some interviewees is dueto the level of autonomy perceived during the pandemic, even though some of thelower levels might be less satisfied today due to the lack of relatedness among thesame employees that experience the same or higher motivation.

Although many interviewees enjoy autonomy and feel that it is important to staymotivated, working remotely has forced a few interviewees to become more au-tonomous. This is an experience that both Greta and Helena share. They bothagree that autonomy is an important motivational factor and one that they enjoyhaving. But due to the technical difficulties in asking other co-workers for helpor bounce ideas with others, they are forced to be more autonomous and makemore decisions by themselves. However, they do not experience this as a negativefactor. Greta stated that:

”I enjoy autonomy. People who were more dependent on coaching mightbe more autonomous today... Many experiences that it is favourable thatwe now need to be more autonomous. Now, the bosses don’t really havetime for that. So you need to make your own decisions and responsibility.That is good.”

It is important to note that Greta separates motivation into two categories: mo-tivation towards work and problem-solving versus motivation towards her co-workers and helping others. Given that her autonomy has increased during thepandemic, she feels more motivated to work, solve problems, and innovate. How-ever, due to the lack of relatedness, she has experienced that her motivation to-wards the cooperative aspects have decreased. This could perhaps be explainedby how certain internalized processes can move backwards. But it also serves asan example of how a higher level of autonomy can partly increase the level ofmotivation even if other factors such as relatedness have decreased.

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If strong motivational structures can increase personal traits, it is clear that thereare strong structures present that can stimulate the autonomy of employees,which can not be replicated at offices and are unique to remote work. The struc-tures are made more apparent considering that many interviewees already hada high level of autonomy and considered it an important motivational factor. Asmany of the interviewees do, having senior roles also increases the autonomyneeded to fulfil those roles. Someone that is used to less autonomy or does not feelcomfortable in such autonomous roles might have different experiences. Thus, itis important to consider what roles individuals have but also their attitude to-wards autonomy. The authors will discuss the individual roles more in upcomingsections. Nonetheless, it is important to keep these structures while counteractingthe negative effects, such as reduced relatedness, to support internalization.

5.1.3 Self-development

One’s competence need and the need to self-develop was where the interviewees’experiences differed the most. As mentioned previously, Carl, Fred, and Juliaexperienced that their self-development needs have been less satisfied duringthe pandemic, while Beatrice and Helena have experienced that they are moresatisfied. The rest of the interviewees have experienced the same level of self-development and competence. Among the interviewees displeased with the levelof self-development and competence, Carl and Fred have also experienced a de-crease in motivation since the start of the pandemic. On the other end, Helenahas experienced an increase in motivation partly due to a more satisfying level ofcompetence and self-development.

One of the main reasons for some interviewees’ dissatisfaction with the level ofcompetence is the reduced amount of courses and educational programs since theThe Company imposed the restrictions. Throughout the years, The Company hashad a high level of courses and educational programs that several intervieweeshave highly appreciated. But due to remote work, the employees of The Companyhave had to resort to online courses that are also limited. Fred stated that thelack of courses is one of the reasons for his stagnated self-development. However,as mentioned before, a huge part of knowledge transfer among co-workers wasdue to the social interactions at the offices. Fred highlighted that there is lessknowledge transfer since there are fewer social interactions today, which otherinterviewees also shared. Carl highlighted this:

”I feel like my need for competence ain’t as satisfied as it was before. Ithink it is due to the repetitive type of work I do these days. Before at theoffice, I could be pulled into projects or just learn about other people’sprojects. I get restless very easy, so it is a shame that my self-developmenthas stagnated.”

In these cases, it appears that the lack of relatedness has also affected the reducedlevel of competence and self-development among Fred and Carl. This might ex-plain why their motivation decreased during the pandemic. These are two factorsthat are important to foster internalization, and a pillar for individuals to begin

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the process of experiencing extrinsic motivational factors as intrinsic. This couldalso explain why their experience of increased flexibility and similar level au-tonomy have not resulted in a higher or unchanged level of motivation as otherinterviewees.Another factor that potentially adds to the dissatisfaction of self-development andcompetence of Fred and Julia is the increased workload. Due to the increasednumbers of meeting Julia has to attend since the pandemic started, she does notfeel that she have the same control over here self-development. She does not havethe same opportunities to attend courses and focus on developing herself withinareas of her choice due to time constraints. However, due to the nature of herrole and tasks, she still experiences that she is growing. She stated:

”There is a huge room for self-development thanks to my role, and Ido feel that I am constantly learning and developing. But once yourworkload increases, it is usually your own time and ability to attendcourses that take a hit.”

Based on her statement and others’ experiences regarding self-development, self-development and learning comes as a natural consequence due to the nature oftheir roles and type of work. However, one can argue that her self-developmentis not as autonomous as before the pandemic, thus changing the perception ofhow one can self-develop. As highlighted earlier, previous studies conducted in aclassroom where one group of students where more monitored and encouragedto learn because they were required to, whereas the other group was given morefreedom to learn and encouraged to learn because it was beneficial for them,showed that the later student was more motivated to learn but also valued thelearning experience higher. Based on these studies and Julia’s statements, itis reasonable to believe that employees can experience similar aspects at work-places. One can argue that today, Julia is required to self-develop because ofwhat is required by her to do her job. Hence, she still experiences room to self-develop, but the lack of autonomous support results in less self-development.Fred made a similar point. He stated that many of the activities connected to hisself-development, such as conducting experiments at the office, have had to bedelayed due to the pandemic. But due to his role and tasks, he still experiencesthat he is developing in certain areas just as before the pandemic. Therefore, itis reasonable to assume that their lack of self-development can be explained by alack of self-determination and on SDT’s premise that a feeling of competence willnot enhance extrinsic motivation unless a sense of autonomy accompanies them(Ryan & Deci 2015). On the contrary, one reason for Helena’s increased satis-faction with self-development and competence is her increased time to focus onother areas, such as self-development. Due to her flexibility, she can now attendcourses and focus on developing competencies after her desire, highlighting howa feeling of competence can enhance extrinsic motivation if a sense of autonomyaccompanies them.

Another factor mentioned as a reason for less self-development and competencewas the inability to ask other peers for help or bounce ideas. However, thiswas also a primary reason for Helena’s and Beatrice’s increased level of self-

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development and competence. Since they cannot ask others for inputs, they mustdo more thorough research and make their own decisions. One can argue thatthey have been forces to continue their self-development and learning journeyindividually. However, due to their positive attitude towards autonomy, they ex-perience this as self-determined. Thus, as a result of the increased autonomythat can either be interpreted as forced or voluntary, their competence and self-development have also increased.

A recurring assumption throughout this thesis is that most employees belong tothe top level of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs if not all employees. This assump-tion can partly explain why several interviewees have experienced the same levelof self-development and competence. As mentioned before, both Fred and Juliahave experienced a degree of less self-development but acknowledge that theirroles still continuously contribute to self-development. If we consider the rolesof those who experience the same level of self-development, such as Greta, whois a project leader for innovation projects, or David who has a very similar rolebut leads development projects instead, their roles all contribute to fulfilling theneeds at the highest level of the hierarchy. Their roles all contribute to fulfillingone’s full potential, creativity and feel valued by others. If it is true that your mo-tivation increase once your reach that top level and fulfil those needs, and startto feel the need to fulfil these even further, it is easy to understand why the needfor self-development among some interviewees has remained the same. Sincethese interviewees’ roles have remained virtually the same, they still satisfy theneeds at the top level due to the nature of their roles even though they have beenforced to work remotely. However, this does not take anything away from the factthat many of their tasks have become more complicated or more difficult to com-plete due to the disadvantages of remote work, such as lacking communication,procrastination to name a few. But from a self-development and competence per-spective, as long as their roles are maintained as they are today, one can expectto see steady levels of self-development and competence. Furthermore, due tothe connection between competence and intrinsic motivational factors, it is notsurprising that many feel the same level of competence and motivation towardsself-developing. Consider Greta’s statement about her motivation towards beinginnovative and helping others:

”My motivation to learn and be innovative is just as high as before, if nothigher. But my motivation towards helping others is definitely lower.”

5.2 Conditions influencing motivation

This section highlights how remote work’s effect on motivation is dependent oncertain conditions.

5.2.1 Work environment

As mentioned in the theoretical chapter, rewards and feedback that contributetoward feelings of competence as a result of an action can enhance intrinsic mo-

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tivation toward that action (Ryan & Deci 2015). This is in line with the empiricalresults found in this research. When the interviewees were asked about whatmotivates them at work, a majority said that they were motivated by feeling ca-pable, needed, or responsible. However, the interviewees also added that in mostcases, feeling this internally is more important than receiving external confirma-tion that they are competent. According to most interviewees, they became moti-vated when they felt that they were on the path to doing something good. Whenthey received external confirmation, it added to the total motivation. In thosecases when the interviewees saw external confirmation as more important, it waswhen the interviewee did not really know whether they had done a good job ornot. For instance, Julia said that since she started working in her new role, shehas gotten more dependent on external confirmation to know that she is on theright path. She added that it is essential to receive explicit feedback when work-ing remotely since it is harder to pick up social queues that you are performing inyour job.

Regardless of whether the feeling of competence is generated from within or fromexternal stimuli, what seemed to be a common denominator among the answersis that the action performed is initiated by themselves. For instance, none of theinterviewees said that following explicit instructions given by the manager addsto their feeling of competence. Eric expressed himself this way:

”I like being independent, but I have no problem if someone tells me whatto do. However, you want to be given a frame to work within. You don’twant to be controlled in detail. I want to be given a mission and thendeliver the results on my own, not get a full set of detailed tasks that tellsme what to do.”

This feeling seemed to be shared by the other interviewees, which is in line withthe literature, which says that a sense of autonomy must accompany feelings ofcompetence to maintain or enhance intrinsic motivation (Ryan & Deci 2015).

Thus, with support from the empirical results and the literature, it can be arguedthat ensuring a work environment where positive communication, feedback, andrewards, which enhances the feel of competence, is important to foster motiva-tion. Additionally, it is essential that the work environment also allows employeesto manage their own time and feel responsible for delivering good results, inother words, allowing autonomy. Relating this to remote work, the empirical re-sults have shown that the overall autonomy has increased since the intervieweesstarted to work from home. In contrast, social interactions and the feeling ofcompetence have decreased. This implies that it is more important to focus on es-tablishing good communication- and feedback channels than to focus on creatingautonomy when working remotely.

Increased feelings of competence and autonomy are anticipated to increase mo-tivation and are thus part of what Herzberg defined as motivation factors in histwo-factor theory (Alshmemri et al. 2017). On the other hand, hygiene factorsmust also be satisfied to reduce job dissatisfaction and allow motivation factorsto have their full effects (Alshmemri et al. 2017). The hygiene factor that seemed

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to be the biggest problem among the interviewees was the interrelationship withtheir colleagues. This is a factor that all interviewees said were well satisfiedbefore the pandemic hit, which has gotten worse since then. SDT highlights afeeling of relatedness as one of three basic psychological needs essential to de-veloping autonomous motivation (Ryan & Deci 2015), and Maslow’s hierarchy ofneeds says that developing belongingness and love needs to be satisfied beforea person achieves self-actualization (McLeod 2018). Thus, one can argue thatestablishing good communication channels and a culture where everyone feelsincluded and connected is an important step when trying to motivate employ-ees. An argument that partly proves that employees at The Company feel lessconnected today than before can be seen in the interviewees’ answers since mostdo not feel that interacting with their colleagues virtually is not the same thing.However, a less obvious explanation for the decreased connection is that manyemployees feel that the threshold to ask colleagues questions has become higherand thus chooses to continue working independently. It is not possible to deter-mine if this is the case by looking at the results. However, one can argue thatworking more by themselves has harmed the social connection.

The interviewees mentioned that one reason for the increased threshold of ask-ing questions is that you do not know whether your colleague is busy with othertasks, which you could easily see before looking towards their desk in the office.Additionally, there was a consensus among the interviewees that collaborationwas not as fun or efficient in digital meetings. The interviewees did not explicitlysay that this has affected why they choose not to ask as many questions today, butit may be a part of the explanation. Additionally, Eric mentioned that he some-times gets the feeling of competence by helping his colleagues. Thus, improvingcommunication challenges where employees can help each other by finding solu-tions that lower the threshold of asking short questions in a digital environmentis anticipated to have a positive impact on the feeling of relatedness and, in somecases, also the feeling of competence, which in turn increases the motivation.

The authors could find other hygiene factors in the interviewees’ answers regard-ing both disadvantages with remote work and what could have done better by TheCompany. For instance, multiple interviewees mentioned that it took a long timefor them to get office equipment like computer screens, chairs, and desks. Thisresulted in ergonomically bad workstations in their homes that in turn resultedin increased job dissatisfaction. Another prominent hygiene factor among the in-terviewees was the use of technical solutions. At the beginning of the pandemic,the internet capacity through The Company’s VPN connection was limited, andemployees could not use the camera during meetings. Additionally, Fred men-tioned that when things do not go as smoothly during digital meetings comparedto physical meetings, his motivation drops resulting from increased job dissatisfac-tion. Another hygiene factor that Beatrice mentioned was her salary; she said thatshe believed many people would be more motivated if they received a monetarybonus for keeping up the good work during times like this. Interestingly, it canbe seen as though she believed the work she performed today is more demandingthan the work she performed pre-covid, and thus she deserves higher monetary

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compensation. As a result, this hygiene factor is no longer satisfied with the salaryshe had before the pandemic. Another way to look at it is that she thought that ahigher satisfaction of this hygiene factor today will compensate for the decreasedsatisfaction of other hygiene factors like an ergonomic workstation.

5.2.2 Type of work

One conclusion from the interviewees’ answers is that remote work’s effect onmotivation depends on the type of work the interviewee is facing. The commonconception seemed that individual work tasks become more motivating to exe-cute since some interviewees felt that they could do them more efficiently andfocused. On the other hand, collaborating on innovative tasks seemed less moti-vating today compared to before the pandemic. According to Alex, this is partlybecause you do not have the same tools as earlier, for instance, whiteboard andpost-it notes. Some interviewees said that it is because the quality of the socialinteraction is not as good as when everyone is in a physical conference room.

One possible explanation as to why the motivation towards these two types ofwork is affected differently by remote work is how remote work has affected theefficiency of different work tasks. A majority of the interviewees expressed that ef-ficiency has increased in individual tasks and decreased when collaborating withothers when switching to working remotely. If efficiency is interpreted as outputin relation to input and assuming the interviewees work the same amount of timeas before the pandemic, the interviewees’ performance has increased when work-ing independently. At the same time, it has decreased when collaborating withothers. Since the empirical results showed a correlation between performanceand motivation, both in Table 6 and in the interviewees’ answers, one can arguethis explanation to be valid. Relating this to the psychological needs expectedto influence motivation, one can argue that performance is closely linked to feel-ings of competence. An increased performance thus results in increased feelingsof competence. Thus, both the empirical findings and the literature on motiva-tion support the hypothesis that whether remote work has a positive or negativeimpact on the motivation towards certain work tasks is dependent on whetheremployees can perform these tasks more or less efficiently. In other words, theeffect remote work has is dependent on whether the tasks become easier or moredifficult to perform.

Depending on the level of creativity of certain tasks, one’s motivation might im-prove for the better or the worse. Carl mentioned that before the pandemic, hewas invited to more projects compared to today. This required him to learn withinnew areas and boosted his creativity. But due to the limited project, most of thistasks are today perceived as repetitive. Therefore, to maintain motivation amongemployees’, it is important, according to the authors, to stimulate employees’ withvarying tasks.

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5.2.3 Life situation

The effect that working remotely has had on the interviewees’ motivation alsoseemed to be dependent on the life situation of the interviewee. For instance,the interviewees that generally seemed to enjoy being home all day were theones that had children and enjoyed spending more time with them. In otherwords, they got their ”dose” of social interaction by spending time with theirfamily. David specifically said that he today eats lunch with his two sons whostudy from home instead of having lunch with his colleagues at the office likehe normally does. He expressed that he appreciates the opportunity to spendmore time with his sons, and these advantages outweigh the disadvantages of notbeing able to spend time with his colleagues. It is not hard to imagine that thefeeling of relatedness will be affected differently for people who live by themselvesand do not have the same opportunity to have lunch or take breaks togetherwith others, especially during a pandemic when the population is told to keepsocial interactions to a minimum. Among the interviewees, Carl was one of twopeople who currently lived alone, and he said that he felt isolated when he firststarted working from home. He added that this affected his motivation negatively.He then started to prioritize meeting his friends in his spare time, restoring hisfeeling of relatedness and increasing his motivation again. Thus, one can concludethat the effect remote work has is not dependent on whether you live togetherwith someone or live by yourself; it depends on whether you can spend timewith people who give you a feeling of relatedness. It is worth mentioning thatindividuals need a different amount of social interaction to fulfil their social needs.In other words, the amount of time that a person wants to spend with othersdiffers depending on who you ask.

Additionally, the attitude towards working at home also seemed to correlate withhow many pieces the interviewees had in their life puzzle. The more pieces,the more positive outlook they had since working from home gave them moreflexibility and ability to make it work. For instance, Fred said that coordinatinghis work schedule with his spouse allows them to take care of their newborn child.Beatrice said she had colleagues who were happy about the increased flexibilityand easiness of dropping off and picking up their kids at school. Similarly, whetherthe interviewee saved a lot of time by not commuting or if the interviewee livedclose to the office seemed to impact the interviewee’s attitude toward remotework.

Putting this in relation to Herzberg’s two-factor theory, it can be seen as thoughthe interviewees’ life situation mainly, if not only, affects hygiene factors and notmotivation factors. The argument is that high flexibility and high relatednessdo not necessarily make the interviewee motivated to work. However, a lowlevel of these variables creates job dissatisfaction that decreases job motivation.Conclusively, the interviews showed both many benefits and disadvantages withremote work. It seems as though both the ability to utilize the benefits and thenegative effects from the disadvantages depends on the employee’s current lifesituation. This will affect whether the benefits are perceived to outweigh thedisadvantages or the other way around, which ultimately affects the employee’s

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attitude toward remote working and total work motivation.

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6 Discussion

6.1 Remote work’s effect on motivation

This section indirectly answers the main research question by answering the threesub-questions. Note that this section can be seen as a summary of the results sec-tion and analysis section. Please see those sections for a more thorough explana-tion of how remote work affects employee motivation.

6.1.1 Advantages and disadvantages with remote work

The interviewees expressed that they had experienced various advantages whileworking remotely. The biggest benefit seemed to concern the increased flexibil-ity regarding both place and time. For instance, the empirical results showedthat not being bound up to work in the office has reduced commuting time andallowed employees to take meetings outside in their gardens or while taking awalk, something greatly appreciated. Additionally, planning the day by decid-ing when to perform certain work tasks was also perceived as a great advantagesince it allowed the interviewees to coordinate their work schedule with shoppinggroceries, working out, taking care of their kids, among other things. However,this increased flexibility also has some drawbacks, according to the interviewees.Working within the same walls as you spend your free time and not establishingwork routines blurs the line between work and private life. Additionally, sinceeveryone does not decide to work exactly at the same time, the interviewees hadexperienced increased pressure to be available during a longer period of the day.For instance, interviewees who had decided to stick to working office hours didnot feel they could relax in the evening if they received an e-mail from someonethat had decided to work in the evening. Increased flexibility to do other thingsalso puts pressure on the employee to not do those things. For instance, refrainingfrom taking a walk outside if it is nice weather can be both energy-draining anddecrease the motivation toward performing work tasks, especially if the tasks arenot intrinsically interesting.

Another double-sided effect of remote work is that it makes some tasks easierwhile some tasks get more difficult. In general, it can be concluded that individualtasks have become easier to do because of not being disturbed by colleagues in theoffice. On the other hand, collaborative tasks have become more difficult becausethe social interaction is not as efficient in a digital meeting as it is in a physicalmeeting and because employees do not have access to the same tools as they used

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to. More specifically, it seemed as though creative tasks were more difficult sinceyou do not have access to a whiteboard to draw and put up post-it notes.

The empirical results show that remote work has harmed the social aspects ofwork, with reduced quality in social interactions and connections. The intervie-wees mainly accredited this to the decreased quality and/or quantity of informalmeetings. Informal meetings previously occurred next to the coffee machine, inthe break room, or more naturally during physical meetings. However, anotherreason for the decreased social connection can be argued to be the increasedthreshold of asking colleagues work-related questions. The interviewees said thatthe threshold has increased since it is either more cumbersome to e-mail a col-league and schedule a meeting or because calling might interrupt the colleagueif he is busy doing something else. They continued to say that they would rathercontinue working independently if the problem were not big or important enough.The effect of this is more time working alone and less insight into others’ work,which likely affects the social connection. Less insight into others’ work is not onlybad for social connection; the interviewees also expressed that being involved intheir colleagues’ work could be fun and interesting while adding variation to theirown workday, resulting in competence-development.

The advantages and disadvantages mentioned above are the major ones identifiedin the empirical results. However, there were additional minor ones. Additionalbenefits associated with remote work are increased learning because of increasedautonomy, more time with family, less segmentation between geographical re-gions, increased accessibility/availability, increased comfort and convenience, andless stress. Additional disadvantages are less ergonomic workstation, harder toprint out documents or look through folders, and increased difficulty for newhires.

Something that was not explicitly mentioned by the interviewees, but was identi-fied by comparing the interviewees’ answers, is an uneven workload. Whether thisis a problem that has been created as a result of working remotely or if it alreadywas a problem is unclear. It is also unclear whether the workload differs withinand/or between departments of The Company since the number of intervieweeswas limited. Thus, it can be argued that this is not a problem. However, consid-ering that the interviewees expressed they have less insight into their colleagues’work and workload together with the increased flexibility to do something elseonce they are done with their own work, it can be argued that the risk of unevenworkload is increased when working remotely compared to working in the office.

Conclusively, to the authors of this paper, it was unclear whether the intervieweesthought the advantages outweighed the disadvantages or if it was the other wayaround, both on an individual and group level. Maybe they did not know them-selves. However, when asked about the optimal way of working in the future,it seemed to be a cohesiveness that around 50/50 would be to prefer. This im-plies that they thought this would allow them to maximize the advantages whileminimizing the disadvantages.

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6.1.2 Remote work’s effect on psychological needs

It is clear that that the level of satisfaction of certain psychological needs haschanged during the pandemic. How much the satisfaction has changed amongthe different interviewees varies. However, it is obvious to see that the need forrelatedness, belonging, and social interaction are the needs that have been mostaffected, and for the worse. All interviewees expect one experienced that theseneeds have either remained satisfied or become less satisfied. Given that thesedisadvantages were mentioned in the existing literature, and some intervieweesalso confirmed them, it does not come as a surprise. Especially when consideringthat the recommendations imposed by the government are to keep socially dis-tanced. Furthermore, only one of three interviewees who experienced a decreasein motivation attributed it to a decrease in relatedness and feeling of belonging.However, all but one interviewees agreed that it has a negative effect on one’swell-being and requires more effort and energy to maintain motivation when re-latedness is lacking. The primary reason why the motivation has decreased for theother two interviewees is the decrease in self-development and competence. How-ever, an increased level of self-development is also why the only interviewee whoexperienced an increase in motivation did so. To put this in contrast to autonomy,all the interviewees experienced either the same or higher level of autonomy. Theauthors of this report argue that this could explain why most interviewees havenot experienced a decrease in motivation.

It is easy to understand why a lack of relatedness generally affected the intervie-wees negatively, given that it is one of the prerequisites to experience extrinsicmotivational factors intrinsically. Relatedness, in combination with competence,is also the pillar to begin internalize certain processes and tasks. Based on thenotion that the need for relatedness and competence can either enhance or di-minish the internalization of processes and tasks, it is also clear why they wouldnegatively affect motivation. However, it does still arise uncertainties regardingwhy there were not further interviewees that shared the experiences of thosewho have a decreased level of motivation due to the lack of relatedness and self-development.

This can partly be explained by the increased or same level of autonomy that all in-terviewees have experienced. Although relatedness and competence can enhanceinternalization, it is only autonomy that can fully internalize processes. There-fore, it is reasonable to assume that the high level of autonomy the intervieweeshad before the pandemic, which has increased for some, have contributed to analready high level of internalization or enhanced the internalization. Additionally,in order for competence to enhance internalization and change the perception ofextrinsic motivational factors, it needs to be accompanied by a feeling of self-determination. For instance, those who felt a decrease of motivation due to thelack of competence attribute it to not being able to self-develop based on one’sinterest but still required to self-develop based on what is required by their tasksand roles. Hence, these individuals lack autonomous self-development comparedto other interviewees who are still experiencing self-development due to theirroles and personal goals and needs. This connection becomes clearer once you

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consider Helena, the only interviewee that has experienced an increase in moti-vation. Since she cannot ask for the same help as before, she is forced to do moreresearch on her own. Therefore, one can argue that her self-development is nowmore accompanied by the feeling of self-determination.

Another explanation for how autonomy has prevented a decrease in motivationcan be attributed to the interviewees positioning in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.The authors of this report argue that all the employees can be categorized intothe top level of the hierarchy because of their general goals and what motivatesthem at their workplaces, such as self-development, innovation, problem-solvingand realizing their full potential. Many of these needs are driven by having a highlevel of autonomy that allows one to act based on one’s self-interests. Therefore,it is reasonable to argue that the high level of autonomy among the intervieweesfacilitates accomplishing their needs and maintaining the same level of motiva-tion. It is also important to consider that the needs at the top level can still beachieved even if the needs at the lower ones become less satisfied since this couldexplain why a decrease in relatedness has not had a bigger impact on the intervie-wees’ motivation. However, this does not take away the disadvantages a lackingrelatedness can potentially have and how it has affected the general well-beingand energy required to remain motivated.

6.1.3 Individual conditions that influence the result

The empirical results showed a variation across many of the interview questions.For instance, the requirements to fulfil each psychological need appeared to de-pend on a person’s preferences. For instance, some interviewees wanted to learna lot to fulfil their competence-need while others were not that interested in de-veloping themselves. Additionally, some interviewees wanted much social inter-action and felt satisfied with 1-2 informal meetings per week, while others didnot think this amount is enough. Having differing preferences regarding the ful-filment of the basic psychological needs related to motivation can be interpretedas though the interviewees were motivated by different things. In fact, althoughsome interviewees mentioned the same motivational factor when asked aboutwhat motivates them in the workplace, they did not say the same mix of motiva-tional factors.

Another difference between the interviewees were the advantages and disadvan-tages associated with remote work. As previously concluded in the analysis, itseemed as though both the ability to utilize the advantages and to avoid negativeeffects from the disadvantages depends on the employee’s current life situation.For instance, social interactions outside of work, an ergonomic workstation athome, and the number of pieces in one’s life puzzle seemed to affect what is per-ceived as advantages and what is perceived as disadvantages. Ultimately, thiswill also affect whether the benefits are perceived to outweigh the disadvantagesor the other way around, which indirectly affects the employee’s attitude towardremote working and total work motivation.

There were also work-related differences that seemed to impact the effect that

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remote work has on motivation. What seemed to have the biggest impact was thetype of work tasks. Collaborative and creative tasks were seen as less efficient andless fun in digital meetings while working on individual tasks was seen as moreefficient and motivating when working from home. Somewhere along the sameline, the results showed that seniority and time at The Company were somewhatcorrelated to how positive the perception of working remotely was. The basisfor this correlation is that both these factors affect the employee’s autonomy, andtime at the company affects whether you know whom to ask when you need help.

All these differences mentioned imply that a one-fit-all solution does not existand that it is important to consider each employee’s individual situation, boththeir situation at work and outside of work.

6.2 Validity of results

The authors only found weaknesses in the external validity of this research. First,there are some aspects of the interview process that are important to considerwhen evaluating the results. To begin with, it was decided by the authors tohave relatively open-ended questions to give room for the interviewees to sharetheir thoughts without guiding them in any direction. If the interviewees insteadwould have been asked more guiding questions like, for instance, ”which of thesebenefits do you associate with remote work?” it may have been a more even distri-bution among the answers. In other words, some interviewees may not have beenable to remember all benefits during the interview and, if given suggestions, theymay have accounted for more benefits. However, the benefits mentioned whenreceiving open-ended questions are probably the most eminent, and it gives a bet-ter picture of what each interviewee prioritizes. Another aspect of the interviewprocess is that the interviewees were not given the questions before the interview,so they could not think about their answers in peace and quiet. The reasoningbehind this approach was similar to choosing open-ended questions; the authorswanted to hear the interviewees’ instinctive and genuine thoughts about the sub-ject. Finally, the last aspect to consider about the interviews is that all people aredifferent and depending on whom you ask, you will receive different answers.Thus, even though the authors did their best to find both a case company andinterviewees that they felt were representative for a majority of remote workersin Sweden, it can be argued that readers of this paper should take the conclusionswith a pinch of salt since interviewing 10 other people, either from the same com-pany or from another company, would likely have yielded a different result. Thisimplies that it is impossible to decide whether these findings will apply to othercompanies and contexts. However, the authors argue that the same methods usedfor this research can be used in other environments but with varying results.

Additionally, it is important to consider that this research was done during thecovid-19 pandemic when additional social restrictions in the society may haveaffected the interviewees’ view on remote work. For instance, the Swedish gov-ernment has said that the entire population should keep social interactions to

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a minimum. There are social restrictions regarding the number of people andopening hours of restaurants and bars. Many of the interviewees mentioned thatreduced social interactions and connection in the workplace is a drawback. It ishard to isolate whether this attitude is affected only by working remotely or ifsocial restrictions in society play a role. Thus, even though this research aims toprovide insights useful after the pandemic has ended, there is a chance that partsof this paper are affected by the pandemic, and whether the results hold up afterthe pandemic can only be decided in the future.

6.3 Future studies

One aspect of remote work that has not been covered in the results of this studyis how to best implement remote work in order to cultivate and maintain moti-vation among employees. As mentioned under the theory chapter, Fujii (2020)suggest different steps to consider when implementing remote work. However,many of these steps had to be neglected since companies were forced to adaptafter recommendations and restrictions imposed by governments. For instance,the first step of identifying the possible jobs to do remotely was not possible toexecute effectively. Many interviewees experienced that collaborative work andinnovation projects have been more difficult to execute during the pandemic andby working remotely. If the company had had the possibility to voluntarily chosewhat jobs can be done remotely, perhaps, they would have decided that projectsinvolving multiple employees should be conducted at the offices. Therefore, aspeople start to get vaccinated and the rate of spread diminishes, companies willhave to reevaluate these steps, which corresponds with the last step to evaluatesuccess by measuring the implementation results. The authors of this researchargue that the results of this study could be used as support in evaluating the re-sults of remote work. One solution that the interviewees advocated was a hybridsolution that allows employees to work remotely while limiting their time at theoffices to a few days each week.

Future studies could also involve how to maximize the benefits and minimize thedisadvantages. This study presents the benefits and disadvantages that have beenexperienced among the employees of the case company. These could be used as abasis when evaluating how to maximize and respectively minimize them. For in-stance, social interactions and communication was a problem that all intervieweesshared. They also stated that the consequences of lacking social interactions haveresulted in difficulties in asking questions and more miss understandings. There-fore, future studies could revolve around how to improve the communicationchannels when working remotely. Today, there have been attempts to scheduleinformal meetings to enhance social interactions. Nevertheless, most intervie-wees experience them not being spontaneous enough, therefore diminishing thepurpose of these informal meetings. Furthermore, it is difficult to evaluate theemployees’ workload due to fewer interactions at the office. In the future, thereneed to be internal systems and channels that can help load the workload of em-ployees that feel the necessity for it. Thus, be incorporating new communication

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channels could help diminish these negative consequences of remote work.

As previously mentioned when discussing the external validity of this research,this research has certain limitations since it was performed during the covid-19pandemic and since it is a case study. Using these limitations as guidance to-wards future studies, the most obvious suggestion is to perform a similar studyafter the pandemic has ended and in another context. It could be interesting tosee any difference between working remotely during a pandemic or when it isnot a pandemic. When deciding on another context or case to study, it is im-portant to decide which company/companies the interviewees should be pickedfrom and what characteristics the interviewees should have. Regarding where toselect interviewees from, suitable parameters to consider could include (1) oneor multiple companies, (2) size of company/companies, (3) operating country ofcompany/companies, (4) type of work at the company/companies, and (5) or-ganizational structure at the company (for instance, flat or hierarchical). Whendeciding upon the characteristics of the interviewees, important parameters toconsider could be argued to be: (1) age of interviewees, (2) gender, (3) life situ-ation, (4) nationality, and (5) role/type of work.

An additional factor that can be argued to have affected the outcomes of thisresearch is the motivational theories used to analyze the result. Thus, a simplesuggestion for a future study is to analyze the results of this research by usingother motivational theories than the ones used in the analysis in this paper.

were

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7 Conclusion

The results showed that the employees share several of the advantages and dis-advantages mentioned in the existing literature. Of these, flexibility, comfort, andconvenience appear to be the most common advantages. At the same time, theauthors recognized the decreased quality of social interaction and connection tobe the most common disadvantages. Among the interviewees, there were only3 that had experienced a decrease in motivation. On the other end, only one ofthe interviewees had experienced an increase in motivation. In contrast, the restof the interviewees have experienced the same motivation levels as before thepandemic.

The decrease in motivation can partly be explained by the lack of relatedness andfeeling of belonging. The majority of the interviewees expressed that the need forrelatedness has not been satisfied or more difficult to satisfy. Even though onlyone of the interviewees attributed their decrease of motivation to the lack of re-latedness, several expressed that due to the lack of relatedness, they require moreenergy to remain motivated and affect their general well-being. The lack of self-development and competence was the main driver for a decrease in motivation.It can partly be explained by the interviewees’ limitations to learn and developout of their self-interest. Due to the nature of their roles, they are constantlyrequired to develop and learn. However, due to the lack of social interactions,they are not included in as many projects, which prevents them from further de-veloping. A common denominator is that all interviewees had either experiencethe same or higher level of autonomy. The authors of this report argue that thisis the main reason why most interviewees have experienced the same amountof motivation. Autonomy is also crucial for individuals to be able to experienceextrinsic motivational factors intrinsically. If we consider the interviewees thatexperienced a decrease in motivation, the decrease can be explained by how theirself-development today is not accompanied by a sense of self-determination. Thereason is that their motivation to learn is not based on their self-interests; it isbased on what is expected from their role and The Company. Although they haveexperienced an increase of autonomy in some areas, their self-development is notautonomous today.

Therefore, it is important to consider individuals’ backgrounds and roles sincemotivation can be considered a construct of one’s environment and past experi-ences. For instance, the authors argue that all the interviewees could be placed atthe top levels of Maslow’s pyramid. Therefore, to increase their motivation, theyneed to satisfy needs that correlate to increased autonomy and competence. Fur-

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thermore, depending on the individuals’ life situation, they might be either moreor less receptive to the advantages and disadvantages of remote work. Someonewho does not have children or live without a partner might experience the needfor relatedness to be more decisive in terms of motivation. Someone with a new-born kid might find it easier to work remotely since they can be a part of theirdevelopment. Every individual will experience the change of needs differently,and thus, their motivation will change accordingly.

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Appendices

A Interview questions

Introduction

• Could you describe your role and how long you have been working at TheCompany?

• What does a typical workday look like, and what type of tasks do you have?

• How has your workload changed since the beginning of the pandemic?

• What does your living situation look like?

Remote work

• What do you experience has been positive and negative with working re-motely?

• What are the advantages and disadvantages of working remotely com-pared to being at the office?

• How would you like to work in the future?

• Do you have any formal meetings today?

Motivation

• What are your goals and priorities at a workplace or in a role?

• What motivates and drives you at a workplace?

• What do you think The company has done and currently does in order tocultivate motivation?

• How important is it for you to be motivated in order to perform?

Needs

• How would you describe how your autonomy has changed during the pan-demic?

• How would you describe how your competence and self-development haschanged during the pandemic?

• How would you describe that your relatedness and feeling of belonging haschanged during the pandemic?

• Which of these three needs is the most important for you?

• How satisfied do you experience that these needs have been since the startof the pandemic?

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B Thematic analysis themes

Motivational factors

• 9 themes in this sub-layer were created after data-familiarization and canbe seen in the results-section

Benefits with remote work

• 7 themes in this sub-layer were created after data-familiarization and canbe seen in the results-section

Disadvantages with remote work

• 9 themes in this sub-layer were created after data-familiarization and canbe seen in the results-section

Optimal way of working in the future

Informal meetings

Actions by the company

• What has been done well

• What could have been done better

• What should be done in the future

Psychological needs

• Autonomy

• Competence

• Relatedness

Remote work’s effect on motivation

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