An Enterprise Simulation Approach to Predicting and Improving Organizational Performance in an Ontact Work Environment

Abstract

In situations such as the COVID-19 crisis, telecommuting has become one of the most powerful countermeasures against the spread of infections. Companies are unable to effectively implement telecommuting owing to difficulties in predicting organizational performance and responding to them in advance. Furthermore, even in the post-crisis new normal environment, it is expected that the performance of so-called "ontact" jobs involving telecommuting will increase significantly. Predicting organizational performance and potential issues resulting from such rapid changes in the work environment will have a significant impact on the survival, development of companies, and the well-being and safety of employees. Nevertheless, there has been no systematic study on comprehensive approaches that consider factors considering lead time from work interruption in ontact work environment. This study predicts organizational performance by modeling the impact that the ontact work environment has in terms of organizational performance and proposes problem-solving guidelines from three perspectives: business process, organizational structure, and human resource allocation. In addition, this study targeted workers who have experienced remote work and collected survey data to conduct simulations. Several examples were derived, and these were further validated through a re-survey to assess the validity of the study's findings. This study presents a scientific model for predicting organizational performance and solving problems in the on-tact work environment, which is the most important concern for companies today. This facilitates advance decision-making to minimize damage based on predicting the company's performance in a conducive working environment. Therefore, beyond overcoming the damages caused by COVID-19, it is expected that telework can contribute significantly to the survival and development of organizations in a society where it becomes a norm.