Advancing Sustainability in the Future of Work through the Design of Post-Pandemic Work-from-Home Systems

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated and solidified the adoption of work-from-home systems (WFHSs) across all economic sectors, and finding ways to incorporate sustainability into these systems is a fundamental aspect of a sustainable future of work. Designing sustainable WFHSs requires an innovative approach capable of understanding complex interrelationships between multiple systems. This paper applies the sustainable system-of-systems (SSoSs) framework to find innovative design solutions for post-pandemic/endemic WFHSs. First, the SSoSs framework is depicted using examples of applications in systems to clarify its main ideas and concepts. Then, the literature on WFHSs is considered to discuss the impacts of COVID-19 on work from a systemic perspective. This provides inputs for the factors to be considered at each level of the SSoSs analysis. Finally, the SSoSs framework is applied to analyze the WFHSs' requirements in the context of COVID-19. The nature of the application of this framework is theoretical, facilitating the provision of a multi-layered perspective on sustainability in work systems that are increasingly prevalent across various economic sectors. This study contributes to research and practice by characterizing the various relevant systems and their impact on the design of sustainable WFHSs and identifies multiple intervention points to make predictions about how they might influence other systems.