Workplace impact on employees: A Lifelines Corona Research Initiative on the return to work

Mark P. Mobach; Lifelines Corona Research Initiative

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0279902

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionOctober 7, 2022
15 Nov 2022 Decision Letter - Helen Onyeaka, Editor PONE-D-22-27095Workplace impact on employees: a Lifelines Corona Research Initiative upon a return to workPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Mobach, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. ACADEMIC EDITOR: Write a structured abstract with justification of the rationale behind the research The introduction should be structured also see revieviwer 1 comment A justification of your methodology is needed and a finally a thorough language editing is needed for spellings and grammer etc . Please submit your revised manuscript by Dec 30 2022 11:59PM. 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Upon re-submitting your revised manuscript, please upload your study’s minimal underlying data set as either Supporting Information files or to a stable, public repository and include the relevant URLs, DOIs, or accession numbers within your revised cover letter. For a list of acceptable repositories, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-recommended-repositories. Any potentially identifying patient information must be fully anonymized. Important: If there are ethical or legal restrictions to sharing your data publicly, please explain these restrictions in detail. Please see our guidelines for more information on what we consider unacceptable restrictions to publicly sharing data: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-unacceptable-data-access-restrictions. Note that it is not acceptable for the authors to be the sole named individuals responsible for ensuring data access. We will update your Data Availability statement to reflect the information you provide in your cover letter. 5. One of the noted authors is a group or consortium Lifelines Corona Research Initiative. In addition to naming the author group, please list the individual authors and affiliations within this group in the acknowledgments section of your manuscript. Please also indicate clearly a lead author for this group along with a contact email address. 6. Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 5. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: “Workplace impact on employees: a Lifelines Corona Research Initiative upon a return to work” This is a very interesting study, it investigates whether employees working from home had less favourable scores for concern and facilities upon return to work, but better scores for work quality and health than non-home workers. The results show that home workers had less favourable scores for concern and on-site facilities upon return to work, but better scores for work quality and health than non-home workers. The paper employed a Mann-Whitney U, logistic regression, and Wilcoxon matched-pairs . General Comments: The paper has some errors regarding tenses, and grammar. Please consider editing the language thoroughly. Abstract: The abstract lacks a sentence or two setting the background or the rationale for this study. Why should you carry out the study? Why should the reader be interested in reading the paper? Introduction: - The introduction should be restructured to capture the background, statement of the problem, current literature, existing gaps, the aim of the study and peculiar contributions of this study. - Please also include the last paragraph in the introduction which explains the structure of the paper. As it is difficult to know what to expect in the paper. Methodology: - Please provide a thorough justification of the method used. The authors state the methods used, however, they do not provide a justification for the choice of method. Please prove a paragraph of method justification. Overall, this paper is important and very interesting. However, the paper is not publishable in its current state. The paper needs to be well structured, especially the introduction. A thorough language editing should also be carried out. Subject to making the necessary adjustments I recommend its publication. PLEASE SEND IN THE DATA SET IN A USER FRIENDLY FORMAT AND THE DO FILE, OR R FILE OR PYTHON FILE. I NEED TO VERIFY THE VALIDITY/TRUTHFULNESS OF THE RESULTS TABULATED IN THE PAPER Reviewer #2: The manuscript is well written and the topic is relevant in understanding workers preferences between remote and onsite types of works following the pandemic. Also, the author has done well in attempting to show the correlation between workplace concern, workplace facilities, workplace quality, and workers health, as well as how these factors influence the workers. ****** 6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: No ******** [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Review_01_11_2022.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0279902.r001
Revision 1
2 Dec 2022 Author Response Response to Reviewers PONE-D-22-27095 Academic editor (Ae): Comment Ae1. Write a structured abstract with justification of the rationale behind the research Response Ae1. Thank you for this useful suggestion. The abstract was revised accordingly. Comment Ae2. The introduction should be structured also see revieviwer 1 comment Response Ae2. The introduction was restructured, also in alignment with the advice of reviewer 1. Comment Ae3. A justification of your methodology is needed and a finally a thorough language editing is needed for spellings and grammer etc . Response Ae3. A justification of the methodology was added in a separate paragraph, also in alignment with the comments of reviewer 1. Moreover, language editing was carried out. Comment Ae4. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. Response Ae4. The manuscript (MS) now meets the PLOS ONE style requirements. Comment A5. Please provide additional details regarding participant consent. In the ethics statement in the Methods and online submission information, please ensure that you have specified what type you obtained (for instance, written or verbal, and if verbal, how it was documented and witnessed). If your study included minors, state whether you obtained consent from parents or guardians. If the need for consent was waived by the ethics committee, please include this information. Response Ae5. Thank you. Although it was expected that the initial text in the methods section (“Before entering the study, all participants signed the informed consent.”) was clear on this issue, the text was adapted to make it more explicit that written consent was obtained. It was changed into: “Before entering the study, written informed consent was obtained from all participants.” These changes were also made in the text of the online submission information. Comment Ae6. We note that the grant information you provided in the ‘Funding Information’ and ‘Financial Disclosure’ sections do not match. When you resubmit, please ensure that you provide the correct grant numbers for the awards you received for your study in the ‘Funding Information’ section. Response Ae6. The ‘Funding Information’ and ‘Financial Disclosure’ sections of the MS are now consistent. Moreover, grant numbers are not applicable. Comment Ae7. In your Data Availability statement, you have not specified where the minimal data set underlying the results described in your manuscript can be found. PLOS defines a study's minimal data set as the underlying data used to reach the conclusions drawn in the manuscript and any additional data required to replicate the reported study findings in their entirety. All PLOS journals require that the minimal data set be made fully available. Response Ae7. The MS is based on data from the Lifelines Cohort Study, Study OV20_00070. Lifelines adheres to standards for data availability. Due to ethical restrictions imposed by the Lifelines Scientific Board and the Medical Ethical Committee of the University Medical Center Groningen related to protecting patient privacy, the data are not publicly available. The data catalogue of Lifelines is publicly accessible on https://www.lifelines.nl/researcher/data-and-biobank/$6102/$6104. All international researchers can obtain data at the Lifelines research office (research@lifelines.nl), for which a fee is required. The Lifelines system allows access for reproducibility of the study results. This information is also given in the Data Availability statement. Comment Ae8. Upon re-submitting your revised manuscript, please upload your study’s minimal underlying data set as either Supporting Information files or to a stable, public repository and include the relevant URLs, DOIs, or accession numbers within your revised cover letter. Important: If there are ethical or legal restrictions to sharing your data publicly, please explain these restrictions in detail. Response Ae8. Please see the above Response Ae7. Comment Ae9. We will update your Data Availability statement to reflect the information you provide in your cover letter. Response Ae9. Thank you. Comment Ae10. One of the noted authors is a group or consortium Lifelines Corona Research Initiative. In addition to naming the author group, please list the individual authors and affiliations within this group in the acknowledgments section of your manuscript. Please also indicate clearly a lead author for this group along with a contact email address. Response Ae10. Consortium authors’ names and affiliations as well as lead author’s name and contact email address were added to the acknowledgments section of the MS. Comment Ae11. Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. Response Ae11. The initial MS was double-checked and additional references in new text fragments were added to the reference list and mentioned in the rebuttal letter. Reviewers' comments (Rc): Comment Rc1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes Response Rc1. Thank you. Comment Rc2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes Response Rc2. Thank you. Comment Rc3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: Yes Response Rc3. Please see the above Response Ae7. Comment Rc4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes Response Rc4. Thank you. Comment Rc5. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: No Review Comments to the Author Reviewer #1 (R1): Comment R1.1. This is a very interesting study, it investigates whether employees working from home had less favourable scores for concern and facilities upon return to work, but better scores for work quality and health than non-home workers. The results show that home workers had less favourable scores for concern and on-site facilities upon return to work, but better scores for work quality and health than non-home workers. The paper employed a Mann-Whitney U, logistic regression, and Wilcoxon matched-pairs . Response R.1.1 Thank you for your positive evaluation of the article and for your helpful suggestions for how to improve it further. Comment R1.2. The paper has some errors regarding tenses, and grammar. Please consider editing the language thoroughly. Response R.1.2. Language editing was carried out. Abstract: Comment R1.3. The abstract lacks a sentence or two setting the background or the rationale for this study. Why should you carry out the study? Why should the reader be interested in reading the paper? Response R.1.3. Thank you for this advice. As suggested, in the abstract some sentences were added to explain the study’s rationale. Introduction: Comment R1.4. The introduction should be restructured to capture the background, statement of the problem, current literature, existing gaps, the aim of the study and peculiar contributions of this study. Response R.1.4. Thank you for this valuable advice. The introduction was revised and your suggestions were included. Comment R1.5. Please also include the last paragraph in the introduction which explains the structure of the paper. As it is difficult to know what to expect in the paper. Response R.1.5. In the last paragraph of the introduction, a text fragment was added to explain the structure of the paper. Methodology: Comment R1.6. Please provide a thorough justification of the method used. The authors state the methods used, however, they do not provide a justification for the choice of method. Please prove a paragraph of method justification. Response R.1.6. A paragraph of method justification was added. Comment R1.7. Overall, this paper is important and very interesting. However, the paper is not publishable in its current state. The paper needs to be well structured, especially the introduction. Response R.1.7. Thank you. Your above suggestions with respect to abstract, introduction, and method justification have been included in this revision. Comment R1.8. A thorough language editing should also be carried out. Response R.1.8. Language editing was carried out. Comment R1.9. Subject to making the necessary adjustments I recommend its publication. Response R.1.9. Thank you. Comment R1.10. Please send in the data set in a user friendly format and the DO file, or R file, or Python file. I need to verify the validity/ truthfulness of the results tabulated in the paper. Response R.1.10. The MS is based on data from the Lifelines Cohort Study, Study OV20_00070. Lifelines adheres to standards for data availability. Due to ethical restrictions imposed by the Lifelines Scientific Board and the Medical Ethical Committee of the University Medical Center Groningen related to protecting patient privacy, the data are not publicly available. The data catalogue of Lifelines is publicly accessible on https://www.lifelines.nl/researcher/data-and-biobank/$6102/$6104. All international researchers can obtain data at the Lifelines research office (research@lifelines.nl), for which a fee is required. The Lifelines system allows access for reproducibility of the study results. Reviewer #2 (R2): Comment R2.1. The manuscript is well written and the topic is relevant in understanding workers preferences between remote and onsite types of works following the pandemic. Also, the author has done well in attempting to show the correlation between workplace concern, workplace facilities, workplace quality, and workers health, as well as how these factors influence the workers. Response R.2.1. Thank you for your compliments, highly appreciated. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0279902.r002
19 Dec 2022 Decision Letter - Helen Onyeaka, Editor Workplace impact on employees: A Lifelines Corona Research Initiative on the return to work PONE-D-22-27095R1 Dear Dr. Mobach, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Helen Onyeaka, PhD Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0279902.r003
Formally Accepted
22 Dec 2022 Acceptance Letter - Helen Onyeaka, Editor PONE-D-22-27095R1 Workplace impact on employees: A Lifelines Corona Research Initiative on the return to work Dear Dr. Mobach: I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Helen Onyeaka Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0279902.r004

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