Teleworks effect on job-related relocation decisions : A study of the Swedish workforce

Abstract: With teleworking becoming an increasingly normalized work arrangement after the Covid-19 pandemic, it opens up possibilities for workers to be located elsewhere than their workplace. This indicates that work-related relocation may not be a necessity anymore for parts of the workforce, because they can choose to work remotely instead of relocating. The overall purpose of the thesis has been to investigate whether the normalization of telework as a part of the employee value proposition’s benefits will make people in the workforce less likely to relocate for work. The employee value proposition theory was used to understand the current role telework has as a part of the benefit component, and how telework may affect the employees' likelihood to relocate for work. Two research questions were used to answer the overall purpose:  Has telework resulted in the benefit component having a greater influence than other components for the workforce? Has telework offered as a benefit made people in the workforce less likely to relocate for work? The research purpose for the study was exploratory and the research approach was a deductive, qualitative study approach. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect the data and the sampling were selected by both the purposive and snowball sampling method. The sample for the interviews were employees who have a job where it is possible to do teleworking and were between 25-35 years old. After the interviews were conducted, the data was analyzed by using thematic analysis. The finding of the study indicates that the influence of the benefit component did not change compared to previous research and still had a mid-level of importance. It is not likely that telework has made the benefit component to have an overall greater influence compared to other components, but there were components such as affiliation that were very influential when making relocation decisions. It was also found that family members, especially partners and children, were a big influence on relocation decisions. The participants were more likely to consider teleworking instead of relocating when they had partners and children. Several of them could not see themselves only doing teleworking long-term though, because the connection with the colleagues and team at their workplace were also important. The findings of the study indicate that human connection and relationships have become increasingly important for the employees, and this affects both their teleworking and relocation decisions.