DEPARTMENT OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

BUS 250 – Organizational Behavior

Individual Assignment (IA)

In-depth Interview on “Working From Home (WFH)”

Reported with a Reflective Essay (500-800 words)

1. BACKGROUND INFORMATION

The attempts to increase social distancing and address the coronavirus pandemic has led
to businesses all over the world shifting to remote working. Some big tech companies and
banks have announced a work from home (WFH) forever policy. People are abruptly
having to adjust to new ways of not only operating, leading and connecting by working
from home, but also companioning and parenting in family. Although far from conclusive,
there is evidence that employees themselves value the flexibility of being able to work
from home, they also suffer from many challenges and conflicts in various aspects (e.g.
work-family conflicts at home…) Do you agree with my observation? What is your
observation?
Maybe we have different point of views on this topic, and different observations. Why
don’t we go to talk with the ones who experience it at workplace? There are plenty of
questions calling for exploration …
• How do the employees think about WFH?
• What are their motivations to follow the rules or latent rules of WFH?
• How does WFH affect their attitudes and/or behaviors?
• How is WFH affecting their working effectiveness and work stress?
• What causes behind the efficiency and effectiveness of WFH, personality,
emotions, leadership, stress management, or anything else?
• In what ways, employees could adopt to improve and benefit the efficiency
and effectiveness of WFH?
………………
2. GUIDELINES IN THE INTERVIEW(s)

➢ Interviewer – YOU .
➢ Interviewee – your friend, family members, relatives, or your part-time colleagues
who should have a full-time job with formal contact at all levels (say, managers or
non-managers; front-line manager or top managers).
- The interviewee should invite at least 2 persons, and you can decide the
number of interviewees that you need. The criterion of the judgment is that
YOU think the collected information is enough for supporting the conclusion
you may make.
➢ Interview format – a structural interview should be conducted, the questions should
be drafted by your own (structural interview means you need make up a standard set
of interview questions, which should be equally applied to each interviewee).
➢ Perspective – please select a perspective by your own to explain what you find from
the interview, which should be covered by our course (say, leadership or job
satisfaction, or et. al.).
➢ Background of Interviewees should be record, including WFH hours (per week),
gender, age, education, Marital status, religion, working tenure, tenure in the present
organization, position, and present industry.

3. GUIDELINES ON THE REFLECTIVE ESSAY

✓ Length – around 500-800 words (excluding appendix – interview questions and

interview record scripts).
✓ Format – Please use APA format as:
o Use 12 pt Times New Roman; 1 inch page margins.; double line spacing;
insert a running head on every page; indent every new paragraph ½ inch.

4. SUBMISSION OF IA

The reflective essay (file name: IA_your stu ID – e.g. IA_193000)

should be submitted on

Week 6
11:59 pm, Feb 30, 2021
5. EVALUATION CRITERIA:
⚫ The coverage and clarity of content
⚫ Logical arguments
⚫ Appropriate supporting evidence
⚫ Writings
⚫ Feasible suggestions
⚫ Powerful conclusion