Remote Work in Post-Pandemic Reality—Multi-Criteria Evaluation of Teleconferencing Software

Abstract

The pandemic period has made remote work a reality in many organizations. Despite the possible negative aspects of this form of work, many employers and employees appreciate its flexibility and effectiveness. Therefore, employers are looking for the most optimal tools to support this form of work. However, this may be difficult due to their complexity, different functionality, or different conditions of the company’s operations. Decisions on the choice of a given solution are usually made in a group of decision makers. Often their subjective assessments differ from each other, making it even more difficult to make a decision. The aim of this article is to propose a methodological solution supporting the assessment of the most popular teleconferencing systems and generating their ranking. The feature of this solutions is the combination of two important methodological aspects facilitating the selection process. The first one concerns the possibility of taking into account quantitative and qualitative criteria expressed linguistically and of an uncertain nature in the assessment (NEAT F-PROMETHEE method). The second one is related to the possibility of taking into account the assessments of many experts, including the consensus study between them (PROSA GDSS method). The use of these combined methods to assess teleconferencing platforms made it possible to create their ranking and indicate the solution that best meets the adopted criteria (based on experts’ opinions). The Microsoft Teams system turned out to be this solution, whose functionality, usability, multi-platform aspect and other elements turned out to be crucial in the context of the overall assessment. The results obtained may be a guideline for managers and decision makers facing the choice of a tool supporting remote work.