Flexible Work. Trends And Perspectives Based On Literature Investigation

The study on flexible work has received increasing interest from researchers since 2000, but especially over the last years, when the coronavirus pandemic turned many people into remote workers overnight. The COVID-19 crisis has forced many employers to let their employees work from home. But what at first was a necessity becomes now a preferred way of working. Remote work allows employees to maintain a good work-life balance. This is essential to being more satisfied at work, and therefore to performing higher quality work. Commuting is not only mentally and physically stressful, but it also takes time, which is a valuable resource for people with busy schedules. Flexible working arrangements also have financial benefits, both for employers and employees; telecommuting allows employees to work from less expensive locations. COVID-19 has been the biggest engine of digital transformation, proving to businesses around the world that employees do not need to be in an office to get their work done. As flexible working becomes more popular due to its benefits, also the research on the topic grows swiftly. This study aims to explore the interest of specialists in investigating topics related to flexible work using bibliometric analysis. We conducted the study based on the investigation of the literature in this field from the Scopus database using the PRISMA methodology. The applications used in the data analysis process are VOSviewer and Microsoft Excel. The study involved the investigation of articles published in the period between 2000 and 2023. The major objective of the bibliometric analysis is the research of the scientific productivity of the literature focused on the subject under investigation.