Exploring Work from Home Experiences: A Study of Information Technology-Business Process Outsourcing Employees in Makati City during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically changed how companies operated. Among the changes introduced to the workplace is the Work from Home (WFH) arrangement. Although many industries have long practiced WFH, it is not commonly considered in the Information Technology (IT) sector because of its high-level IT requirement. This paper explored the experiences of employees in the Business Process Outsourcing – IT sector in Makati through a phenomenological qualitative approach. The results revealed that the employees’ experiences relate to the following: 1) initial impression about working from home, 2) readiness to work from home, 3) gains from working from home, 4) lessons from remote work set-up for communication, 5) adequacy of company support, 6) employees’ mental well-being, and 7) conduciveness of home as the new workplace. These experiences are useful information in crafting interventions to consider WFH as an arrangement that can be considered postpandemic.