Research proposal assignment on the negative effects of working remotely

Question

Task: Can research proposal assignment methodologies be used to determine the negative effects of working remotely?

Answer

Introduction
This research proposal assignment will investigate the negatiative effects of working remotely. During the entire COVID-19 crisis, various healthcare workers had to work long hours in high-pressured circumstances fulfilled with moral dilemmas and trauma. They have exposed to the risk of infections, infecting their families, and working remotely while handling different challenges (Greenberg, et al., 2020). The stay-at-home message from governments stimulated interest in the work from home concept. This was mainly undertaken for curbing the spread of the disease. WFH concept has further been extended towards social and health care workers post this pandemic (Green, Tappinand Bentley, 2020). It has generated various benefits and challenges for these workers, thereby either increasing or decreasing their productivity.

Research Question
The fundamental aim of the research proposal assignment is to analyse the impact of working remotely on health and social care staff post COVID-19 pandemic. In this regard, the main research question that this research study aims to answer is:
'Has the proliferation of remote working increased overall productivity in health and social care?'
For this purpose, the research objectives that will be addressed in the dissertation are:
• To explore the impact of remote working on health and social care staff,
• To identify benefits and challenges of remote working facing these health and social care workers,
• To analyse how remote working has increased productivity in health and social care

Brief Literature Review
Working From Home
The research proposal assignment research shows, In the early 2000s, telecommunication technologies were being developed in the market, which led to the rise of employees working from home. They were keen on undertaking this approach to avoid commuting, gain better work-life balance and achieve flexibility in work schedules (Xiao, et al., 2021). It has been observed that employers have paid fixed costs for setting up remote work systems for their employees.

Benefits and Challenges
Companies gain various benefits from telework and working from home structure including cost savings, reducing employee turnover and planning their skill improvement. This motivates them to increase WFH, which further results in flexibility, increased family time, and possibility of working from home during sickness and saving travel expenses for the employees (Diab-Bahmanand Al-Enzi, 2020). However the research proposal assignment also identifies that employees also face challenges and difficulties of professional isolation, changing nature of communication and relationship with managers and reduced employee relationship.

Impact on Productivity
Employees often perceive WFH as an organizational approach that helps in generating a positive and strong impact on their creativity and productivity at work. They ensure realignment of their personal values for adjusting to WFH (George, et al., 2022). Both creativity and productivity increase when these employees find deeper meaning in their lives and identify their work by striking a balance through WFH.

research proposal assignment Methodology
Research Philosophy
Research philosophy is essential for gaining adequate knowledge about the research topic based on a set of beliefs, assumptions and perceptions of the researcher. The researcher will undertake a positivism research philosophy by focusing on data collection and interpretation in an objective way (Park, Kongeand Artino, 2020). This will help in acquiring factual knowledge through observations to understand how remote working can increase overall productivity in health and social care. Here, the research findings will be generally observable and quantifiable, thereby leading the researcher to conduct statistical analysis. Thus, theresearch proposal assignment researcher will remain independent from the study by concentrating only on facts and figures.

Research Approach
An appropriate research approach will be selected for developing a clear plan and procedure for collecting data and analysing it. Here, a deductive approach will be adopted for remaining in accordance with the positivism research philosophy. It will enable the research proposal assignment researcher in developing a hypothesis based on the existing theories and accordingly develop a research strategy for testing it (Tjora, 2018). This approach will begin from particular observations about the sample respondents to arrive at generalized propositions. It will help the researcher to test the causal relationship about some particular samples to verify whether it can be true for larger populations.

Research Design
A suitable research design will be selected for developing an overall strategy to undertake the research study. Here, the researcher will use an explanatory research design for gathering relevant data to explain the phenomenon of the impact of remote working on health and social care staff post COVID-19. It can enable the researcher to develop a deeper understanding about how proliferation of remote working has increased overall productivity in health and social care (Rahi, 2017). It will be undertaken for testing the hypothesis or causal relationship between two variables based on which data collection and analysis processes will be completed.

research proposal assignmentData Collection
The researcher will collect both qualitative and quantitative data from primary sources. In this regard, the data collection tool of survey questionnaire will be considered. The researcher will formulate the questionnaire by including both open-ended and close-ended questions to gain information about the health and social care staff. These research proposal assignment questions will ask some demographic details, professional work and their productivity and motivation. Here, the primary sources of data will be considered for acquiring authentic and first-hand data about the research topic to understand the impact of remote working post COVID-19.

Sampling
The researcher will consider non-probabilistic sampling method for choosing the sample respondents. Here, convenience sampling method will be followed for the sake of researcher’s convenience (Etikan, Musaand Alkassim, 2016). Data will be collected from sample respondents who are readily available and accessible for the researcher. A sample size of 30 respondents will be selected by the researcher, to whom the survey questionnaires will either me mailed or handed over. These research proposal assignment sample respondents will be selected between the age group of 25 to 45 years and working as a health or social care staff for more than one year.

Data Analysis
The researcher will consider the method of hypothesis testing at first for analysing the causal relationship between two variables. Here, the independent variable will be remote working while the dependent variable will be productivity of health and social care staff. The two hypothesis statements will be as follows: Null hypothesis (H0)- Remote working does not increase overall productivity of health and social care workers. Alternative Hypothesis (H1)-Remote working increases overall productivity of health and social care workers. Furthermore, the data will be analysed with the help of statistical analysis method SPSS.

Conclusion
From the above sections, it has been observed that a research proposal has been provided for analysing the impact of remote working on health and social care staff post COVID-19. For this purpose, brief background of the research topic was provided along with the research question that will be addressed in the dissertation. It has further reviewed existing literature based on the research topic. Theresearch proposal assignment proposal has further proposed various research methods for analysing how remote working can enhance overall productivity of health and social care workers by collecting mixed data and performing hypothesis testing with the help of SPSS.

Reference List
Diab-Bahman, R. and Al-Enzi, A., 2020. The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on conventional work settings. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, research proposal assignment40(9/10), pp. 909-927.

Etikan, I., Musa, S.A. and Alkassim, R.S., 2016. Comparison of convenience sampling and purposive sampling. American journal of theoretical and applied statistics, 5(1), pp.1-4.
George, T.J., Atwater, L.E., Maneethai, D. and Madera, J.M., 2022. Supporting the productivity and wellbeing of remote workers: Lessons from COVID-19. Organizational Dynamics, 51(2), p.100869.
Green, N., Tappin, D. and Bentley, T., 2020. Working from home before, during and after the Covid-19 pandemic: implications for workers and organisations. New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations,research proposal assignment 45(2), pp.5-16.
Greenberg, N., Brooks, S.K., Wessely, S. and Tracy, D.K., 2020. How might the NHS protect the mental health of health-care workers after the COVID-19 crisis. The Lancet Psychiatry, 7(9), pp.733-734.
Park, Y.S., Konge, L. and Artino, A.R., 2020. The positivism paradigm of research. Academic Medicine, 95(5), pp.690-694. Rahi, S., 2017. Research design and methods: A systematic review of research paradigms, sampling issues and instruments development. International Journal of Economics & Management Sciences,research proposal assignment 6(2), pp.1-5. Tjora, A., 2018. Qualitative research as stepwise-deductive induction. Routledge.

Xiao, Y., Becerik-Gerber, B., Lucas, G. and Roll, S.C., 2021. Impacts of working from home during COVID-19 pandemic on physical and mental well-being of office workstation users. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine,research proposal assignment 63(3), p.181.