If you had asked business owners and their employees in January 2020 whether they think remote working would work for them, I think you will find mixed responses and a majority who would still be in support of in-person interactions and collaboration in the office. While some companies had been planning for some form of remote working within their organizations, many others have never put any thought to it until last year. The global pandemic that has affected all businesses this past year has sped up the agenda on remote working for most businesses.
With many countries rolling out vaccines on a large scale and the number of cases slowly dropping, will we be seeing a large shift of workers back into the office, or will businesses continue with remote working that has proven to work in this experiment we just had this past year? And if we were to ask the same question to the same group of business owners and their employees again, after more than one year of being forced to work from home due to COVID-19, what are they now saying about remote working?
1) Myth Busted
For a very long time, the ability to be productive and work effectively from home was said to be impossible. Many employers have said that their workers will not be able to perform as well without direct supervision and that there are just too many distractions at home making the idea of remote working impractical. Then came COVID-19 which forced businesses to either adapt or get left behind, and most businesses have adapted. This one year of a forced experiment has shown that businesses were still able to operate with many of their staff working from home and it now gives workers more leverage to say so.
2) Flexibility and a hybrid working model
Now working from home may not be for everyone, and even those who enjoy remote working, may not want to do it all the time. Therefore, the flexibility of a hybrid working model where workers spend some time in the week in the office and some time working from home may be the ideal option for most. The flexibility still allows from some in-person collaboration when needed, cuts back on time and costs of the daily commute and allows workers to figure out what works best for them.
3) Productivity
It is true that with remote working, it makes it harder for employers to monitor and track employee productivity and there may be more distractions at home. However, if businesses are worried about having to watch their employees while they work, they need to be reassessing their recruitment and selection process instead so that they can hire workers they can trust. People perform their best when they are in a comfortable working situation and they enjoy the work that they do.
4) Work-life balance and mental health
And while it is good to improve productivity, we cannot forget the importance of work-life balance and the effects that remote working has on a worker’s mental health. When you work from home, the line between when it is time to work and when it is personal time can be blurred. Workers find that they just cannot seem to get away from work when their workstation is set up either in their living room, kitchen, or bedroom and work is always in their line of sight. Many reports have shown that workers find themselves working more hours in a week than before when they simply drop everything at 5PM each day.
Employers must recognize that the times are changing and workers have experienced the same level effectiveness with remote working. It can no longer be said that working from home does not work and employers must actively engage their workers in conversations about remote working and figure out what is best for the business and their staff. A business is only as successful as their employees and workers are at their best when they are happy with their working situation. It seems like some form of remote working will be here to stay and those companies that cannot accept this may not.
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