Baguio City, was on General Community Quarantine (GCQ) for the past months. This Pandemic really change everyone's life. Protocols are imposed by the government to lessen the spread of the virus. Wearing of facemask, face shield, and social distancing are our everyday life.
Many places have been adopting different means to deal and defend themselves against the COVID-19 pandemic, and Baguio City is no exception.In response to the epidemic, Baguio City has taken quite a different approach compared to its counterparts. The city has not enforced a complete lockdown; instead, a series of measures have been implemented, which include public-gathering limits, suspended schools, special work arrangements including WFH and remote working for civil servants and appeal to private sector organizations to make similar arrangements as far as practicable, etc.
WFH, is currently known as an alternative working to minimize the risk of COVID-19 infection.A recent study by Dingel and Neiman (2020) uncovered that 37% of the job could be completed at home during the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S., such as financial work, business management, professional and scientific services. Some jobs, especially those related to healthcare, farming and hospitality cannot be performed at home. Although the acceptance of WFH has increased worldwide, academics argue regarding its pros and cons.
WFH has beneficial effects for both employers and employees. The advantages, include and are not limited to reduced commuting time, avoiding office politics, using less office space, increased motivation, improved gender diversity (e.g. women and careers), healthier workforces with less absenteeism and turnover, higher talent retention, job satisfaction, and better productivity (Mello 2007; Robertson, Maynard, and McDevitt 2003). Studies indicated evidence for these benefits; for example, the research in the Greater Dublin Area by Caulfield (2015) found employees saving travel time and value of travel time. Some studies point out that telework can reduce turnover rate and increase employees’ productivity, job engagement, and job performance (Collins and Moschler 2009; Delanoeije and Verbruggen 2020). Similarly, e–working can increase productivity, flexibility, job satisfaction, WLB, including reducing work-life conflict and commuting (Grant et al. 2019). Additionally, Purwanto et al. (2020) argued that WFH could support employees in terms of flexible time to complete the work and save money for commuting to work.