What Makes Some Workplaces More Favorable to Remote Work? Unpacking Employee Experiences During COVID-19 Via Glassdoor

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has altered the working culture at various organizations; what began as a public health safety measure, remote work is continuing to reshape work in America and beyond. However, remote work has fared differently for different workers and for different organizations, contributing to better work-life balance for some, while increased burnout for others. What aspects of an organization's culture make it less or more favorable to remote work? We answer this question by creating, analyzing, and subsequently releasing a large dataset of employee reviews shared anonymously on Glassdoor. Adopting a worker-centered approach grounded in organizational culture theory, we extract organizational cultural factors salient in the language of employee reviews of 52 Fortune 500 companies. Through a prediction task, we identify what distinguishes companies perceived to be desirable for remote work versus others, noted in company rankings following the pandemic. Our dataset and findings can serve to be valuable evidence-base and resources for efforts to define a new future of work post-pandemic.