Hello, Please expand the research questions in the "research focus" document based on the "literature review" document. The professor wants 60-85 words as advised in the "final paper requirements" do

Literature Review

COVID-19 is currently a world health crisis and a global economic threat. Businesses and the industry were forced to shut down across the globe to fight against the spread of the Corona Virus. This mandatory shutdown brought a vast formation of incomparable changes and challenges for employers and employees. One of the leading changes is COVID-19, forcing firms worldwide to conform to and accept remote work. This has led many experts and researchers to research remote work and develop several findings on this subject.

According to research conducted by Batik et al. (2020) to examine remote work during COVID-19, the researchers found out that, even though working from home has become an enormous event during this coronavirus crisis, many firms are still not permitting remote working. Their analysis showed that the categorization of suitability for working remotely at the industry level is a significant factor for remote work. Therefore, industries with more educated employees have a higher level of working remotely and its anticipated production loss is lower. On the other hand, hospitality and leisure work or capital-intensive work in factories turns out difficult to perform remotely.

According to their research, Tinder & Intel (2020) concluded that companies worldwide have gone through a massive digital transformation utilizing online conferencing software like Go To Meeting, Zoom and Skype to retain the face-to-face interaction aspect of their daily routine. According to the authors, about 63% of companies working remotely have testified that they have seen a significant increase in productivity. This has made some giant companies such as Twitter and Facebook permanently accepted remote working employees.

Also, Gallacher & Hossain (2020) also found out in their research on employment and remote work dynamics under the coronavirus that about 41% of Canadian jobs can be done from home, with a significant difference across cities, provinces, and industries. In addition to these findings, the authors' findings suggested that male workers, poorer employees, private-sector workers, small firm workers, and non-immigrants are usually employed in firms where remote work is less suitable.

However, Thompson (2020) also found that remote work harms teamwork productivity since it impedes the bond between employees and creativity. He added that psychological safety was significant for teams, according to Google's research on teams. According to the researcher, Google's former engineer confirmed that online interaction is not suitable for psychological safety. In contrast, the DuckDuckGo search engine's founder claimed that remote work helps employees worldwide remain in their communities and encourages employee diversification.

On the other hand, Burell (2020) researched the challenges that the sudden shift to remote work caused by COVID-19 pandemic has brought on businesses. Burell mentioned that one of the main challenges of remote work is the risk of managing cybersecurity. Therefore, as a result, firms are spending vast sums of money to manage this risk. The author also stated that many managers lack the experience and skills to manage their remote teams effectively (Burell, 2020).

Furthermore, Beland, Brodeur & Wright (2020) researched the impact of COVID-19 on a few areas. One of the areas the researchers investigated was determining whether COVID-19 has less effect on workers in occupations that can efficiently work from home. Their investigations found out that jobs required to be performed in proximity to others are affected negatively than workers who can efficiently work from home.

Concerning COVID-19 and remote work, Ozimek (2020) also embarked on research investigating the future of remote work after the COVID-19 crisis. He wanted to know whether managers will still allow remote work after the pandemic or not. After the investigation, the researcher found that most hiring managers have planned to allow 21.8% of their workforce to work remotely after the COVID-19 crisis entirely.

According to a study by the American College of Occupational and Environment Medicine on occupational challenges and work productivity in remote work, they found a decrease in productivity due to physical and psychological disturbances. Also, they mentioned some of the challenges remote workers face are cybersecurity, decreased motivation and increased stressed, additional costs of internet and electricity, and little communication with managers and colleagues (Abigail et al., 2020).

Another research was also conducted by DeFilippis et al. (2020) on the impact of communication on remote work and the nature of work. It was ascertained that employees working remotely have now changed their communication activities significantly. They have increased the number of emails they sent, and the number of meetings attended. Not only that, but the researchers also found out that there was an increase in the number of attendees per meeting and the number of email recipients per email on average. Meaning, remote workers have widen both the scope and the frequency of their communications.

Furthermore, Angelucci et al. (2020) conducted a study to investigate the coronavirus's impact on respiratory health and employment for non-remote workers and remote workers in the U.S.A. Their study found out that the job losses for non-remote workers were three times higher than remote workers in this pandemic era. Additionally, non-remote workers suffered comparably worse respiratory health than remote workers due to the difficultness’ for non-remote workers to protect themselves.