Is work from home the new normal?

When can we get back to our everyday lives? That is a question that has been lingering in most people’s minds for the past six to eight months. The answer is that it will not be the same, and humans’ ability to adapt to change will be tested. The post-COVID era, or as has been the word around the market- ‘the new normal’ has begun settling in our lives. The earlier ways of working of activities from shopping for groceries, watching movies to working at our job now have undergone a significant transformation. As the world unlocks itself, businesses and governments are still developing procedures that will ensure a safe working environment along with a streamlined process flow that will help in coping up with the productivity loss of the past few months. As a consequence of these changes, many organizations have switched to the ‘work from home’ way, and top-ranked firms like Twitter and Facebook have gone one step ahead and declared that they would allow employees to work from home forever. In this article, we analyze and give a brief glimpse into how have people responded to the Work from Home economy that may be the way forward for many industries and businesses.

A research done by Gallup in January ’20 found out that 54% of office workers were willing to quit their job for one which would allow them to Work from home. Future work from home will be different from what it was in the pre — COVID times. Companies are now more prepared; they have invested in setting up home office spaces. Managers are trained to handle the remote teams, motivate better, train effectively, and collaborate with their team. Deloitte’s research has confirmed that 72% of employees surveyed feel more or equally productive while working at home and have a better work-life balance. Few working parents say that things would be better when their children will soon start going back to school. Allowing work from home offers several other benefits like reduced travel time, office costs, access to a bigger talent pool for employers, flexible working hours for employees, etc. The most important thing is that the stigma attached to the concept of working from home has reduced, if not entirely non-existent, now.

However, if we perform an in-depth analysis of the so-called Work-From-Home culture, we will find several fallacies in the superficial arguments put forth by its proponents. To start with, the prospect of managing our schedule and time may sound attractive at the onset. The apparent freedom of not setting the alarm, sitting in a cubicle, or escaping for a lunch hour may seem tempting, but it doesn’t work that way in a practical setting. “Business Hours” continues to be in use worldwide as they serve as an essential time management tool. When employees have specified hours, they know when they are expected to work and when they have free time on hand to manage their personal life. People consider it a boon to be surrounded by their personal belongings, family members, and objects of interest like books. However, it has been found that it becomes hard to focus on the task at hand in such cases. Whether it be interruption by spouse or children or TV and books, people have been found wanting in terms of concentration and dedication in a home setting. Research in Switzerland confirms this whereby more than 16% of WFH respondents raised the issue of distraction and disturbance in a home setting. A virtual environment often leads to performance metrics becoming blurred and managers finding it difficult to track the work done by their employees. This was substantiated in a survey conducted by Deloitte, where about 20% of respondents stated their anxiety about the lack of interactions between them and their colleagues and bosses.

Recent research has shown that only fifty percent of employees could maintain a 10-hour workday, whereas 80% could do it during remote settings. Apart from a decrease in productivity, managers found a reduction in team coordination during the virtual setup. Virtual work makes it troublesome, if certainly feasible, for managers to notice and encourage connections among their employees that will probably create benefits for the association later on. The building of Pixar Animation Studio by Steve Jobs showcases the importance of unplanned interactions in the business world. Employees reported a significant decline in such exchanges and accepted its negative effect on innovation and collaboration. It gets hard for the managers to expose new workers to “how things are done around here” by instilling them into the organization’s vision, history, cycles, and culture and permitting them to apply their unique qualities and express their authentic selves. These setbacks indicate a negative effect at personal, organizational as well as societal level.

When the government restrictions are lifted, the management will have to be very careful about onboarding employees to the office floor. The complex task of how and when to bring the employees to the floor lies in the hand of management. Sanitization and cleanliness of the workplace would be the utmost priority. It will also include moving work stations and limiting the number of employees who can work on a particular day to maintain the social distancing protocol. Leaders can use this to strengthen corporate culture by communicating well with the employees about their concerns about returning to the workplace and acting accordingly. But at the same time, the increase of social distancing protocol at the workplace might affect collaboration and coordination. The main reason for its success right now in work from the home situation may be that it is viewed as a temporary and not permanent solution.

While the end of the pandemic is nowhere in sight, the show must go on, as some visionary once said. As corporations worldwide embrace work from home and realize the immediate benefits, potential long term problems cannot be ruled out. When these problems, if any, are found, it might be late and the damage too significant for a simple solution. A change was forced upon us, and we responded, but how well only time can tell.

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