Triggered by the recent COVID-19 catastrophe, working from home has suddenly become the new normal of work practice, particularly for employees. Although the practice of working from home has started long ago during pre-COVID-19, the forceful nature of post-COVID-19 has brought mixed reactions. While some employees smile to being near their family members with similar amount of paycheck, others experience shock, fear, trauma, loneliness, and distraction working from home during the uncertain period of the pandemic lockdown. However, little is known and explored about their new work reality, which had drastically shifted from their leisure office setting to unsettled home office. Deriving from these unprecedented challenges, an issue on working from home is gaining deep interests from a large number of contemporary scholars, university students, researchers, academicians, human resource practitioners, employees, public sectors, policy makers, and consultants. Fulfilling their interests, the author took the initiative to fill the gap by bringing a fresh insight that is greatly useful for all the stakeholders. For those who are still puzzled about the next normal of working from home after the pandemic, this book provides a practical solution. The opening section of this book brings the readers to understand the current reality and future work landscape of working from home, COVID-19 disease trajectory, and global reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic. Subsequently, the author discusses the different nature of working from home between the era of pre-COVID-19 and post-COVID-19. The more serious discussion, however, circumferences on challenges that both employees and employer might face in realizing the new working-from-home procedures. Toward the end of the book, the author offers some practical guideline to HR managers on how to prepare a working-from-home policy that is tailor-made for the COVID-19 pandemic situation.
About the Author: Dr. Sulaiman Baputey (PhD) is a human resource specialist by academics and practice. He has acknowledged interests and profound expertise in multiple domains of talent management such as talent attraction, selection, rewards, assessment, compensation, development, work engagement, and retention. In recent development, the author has written a number of articles on working from home and has become a resource person in drafting working-from-home policy, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. Academically, the author has almost thirty-seven years of experience lecturing in multiple domains of human resource disciplines with MARA Poly-Tech University College, a quasi-governmental entity under the patronage of MARA, Malaysia. At global level, the author is a member of Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), a professional body that gathers all the top mind from human resource specialists. In addition, the author is also an ordinary member of the Malaysian Institute of Human Resource Management (MIHRM) since 2010. The author also has presented and published several journal articles in the areas of talent management and work engagement and retention. The author can be contacted at sulaiman256@gmail.com.