Remote “Helicopter Bosses”: Employee Perceptions of the Effects of Supervisory Controls and Remote Work During the COVID-19 Pandemic*

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic precipitated an extensive involuntary shift to remote work and has since dramatically reshaped work and its supervision. We examine how employees' perceived productivity is associated with remote work during the pandemic, how supervisory controls moderate this relationship, and how remote work and perceived productivity impact employee preference for post-pandemic remote work. We survey 589 workers in June 2020 via Mechanical Turk and find a directionally positive but nonsignificant association between remote work and perceived productivity. Additional analysis, however, indicates an indirect positive effect of remote work on perceived productivity through more hours worked. We further find supervisory monitoring intensity (SMI) is positively associated with perceived productivity, and the association between remote work and perceived productivity is more negative with more intense supervisory monitoring. Outcome-based evaluation is also positively associated with perceived productivity, but it does not moderate the relationship between remote work and perceived productivity. Supervisor-based evaluation has no significant association with perceived productivity, nor does it moderate the relationship between remote work and perceived productivity. Overall, our results suggest the main effect of remote work on perceived productivity during the pandemic is weak at best, and SMI is less compatible with remote work supervision than outcome-based evaluation. Finally, we find increased remote work and perceived productivity improvement during the pandemic are positively associated with preference for post-pandemic remote work, and we find a marginal positive interaction effect between them. These findings provide empirical evidence of the pandemic's repercussions on the post-pandemic work environment.