The effects of telework on Vietnamese employees in the hospitality and tourism industry under COVID-19

This study contributes to knowledge on the future of work during a pandemic through exploring the impacts of working from home in the COVID-19 (coronavirus) crisis on employees within the Vietnamese hospitality and tourism business. Starting from December 2019, when the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak started sweeping the world, many employees switched to working at home in order to mitigate the negative effects of the virus on health issues and death rates. Due to the serious nature of COVID-19, the Vietnamese government also announced and applied national lockdown policies across the country. Therefore, a large number of companies across all industries have been affected, especially in the hospitality and tourism sectors. By collecting and analysing data from employees about their thoughts and experiences of this crisis and also reviewing and applying the appropriate academic literature, practical contributions proposed in order to support businesses for their future strategies in dealing with similar crisis situations. The author recognizes that research in relation to the topic of telework and employee satisfaction and motivation is not scarce. However, there is a dearth of current research on endeavouring to examine telework in the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis situations. Accordingly, this study concentrates to address the gap by providing insights into what the experience of teleworking during the COVID-19 pandemic may look like, which was an unexplored field, by collecting employees’ opinions. This research study also looks at the unprecedented influences of telework on factors including work-life balance, job satisfaction, motivation and well-being, and also the subsequent push for the digital transformation of the workforce. The results show that there are many different influences of working from home during COVID-19 that have had an impact on employees, and also that digital technology has been one of the key elements in maintaining these influences.