Commentary: Please don’t end work from home. It’s not that bad
BRISBANE: Every bit COVID-19 lockdown eases across the earth, many employees are returning to the office, some eagerly, others less so.
In Commonwealth of australia where I live, a contempo Qualtrics Render to Work & Back to Business concern report revealed that while a majority (threescore per cent) of Australians surveyed expected to render to the workplace, more than one-half (52 per cent) felt uncomfortable most returning to their offices.
In Singapore, the same survey of over 500 Singaporeans showed a like trend where 59 per cent of those surveyed were not comfortable returning to their offices.
For all the talk about the challenges of remote working, information technology seems odd there is now a sense of reluctance to head dorsum to our workplaces.
LISTEN: Unfair firing and hiring practices under scrutiny during Singapore's worst recession
READ: Commentary: Practice you really want to work from home forever similar some Twitter employees can?
In fact, many surveys conducted but 3 to vi months into the pandemic prove that most workers now desire remote working to be a regular feature of their lives going forward.
Take the "woes" of remote working miraculously vanished?
BENEFITS OF REMOTE WORKING ARE Commencement TO MATERIALISE
Equally the pandemic unfolded, at that place was a sudden, mass adoption of remote working across organisations and industries around the world.
What was initially viewed as a shock or redundancy solution shortly became a gold opportunity for employers and employees to transcend boundaries and experiment with new ways of working.
Although employees, especially those with immature children, go on to struggle with remote working, their prospects look brighter every bit schools and childcare centres reopen.
In fact, many workers take gotten into the rhythm of working from dwelling house, reporting increased productivity, more quality time with loved ones, and reduced commute stress.
According to a written report by Microsoft, employees have also crafted and adapted to new daily routines, such as attention to familial responsibilities when they need to, signing into work earlier, or signing off later on.
Remote working will continue to accept sceptics and is certainly not suitable for everyone, but it's foolish to put an stop to information technology just as both organisations and employees are beginning to reap its benefits.
READ: Commentary: The biggest work-from-home exercise may have merely begun. How ready is Singapore?
READ: Commentary: Almanac performance reviews - an archaic Hour do nosotros must disrupt
REMOTE WORKING PRESENTS NEW OPPORTUNITIES
With sufficient passage of fourth dimension to make critical adjustments, employers and employees accept made huge strides and undertaken big steps in adapting to the realities of work-from-home, making such arrangements now more efficient than ever.
Employees have upgraded their home computers, enhanced their broadband connexion, and built dedicated workspaces equipped with noise-cancelling headphones, standing desks and ergonomic chairs at home.
Although we hear stories complaining of endless Zoom meetings, workers are now more likely to keep meetings short and efficient, based on Microsoft's analysis of their Mod Workplace Transformation team'due south collaboration patterns during the COVID-19 lockdown in the U.s.a..
Organisations are likewise stepping upward their cybersecurity and privacy engineering to protect their data infrastructure, investing more than in digital transformation, and improving their business organization operations, according to a recent PwC survey.
COVID-19 has sped up digital transformation for Australian businesses by around six years, equally the sudden shift to piece of work-from-home swiftly eroded barriers such as the lack of a clear strategy, layers of decision-making, and reluctance to supersede legacy software, according to inquiry by cloud communications firm Twilio.
These combined changes have enhanced organisational resiliency in a short span of time.
A Composite WORKFORCE IS THE FUTURE OF WORK
With tech companies Twitter, Facebook, Shopify and Atlassian all announcing that employees tin choose to work wherever they desire after the pandemic, we should await a growing number of employees who will need more control over work arrangements.
Forward-thinking organisations should take this opportunity to experiment with a composite model of remote and in-person role piece of work, keeping their workforce nimble while at the same fourth dimension preparing for subsequent waves of COVID-19 that could emerge.
Virtually chiefly, a composite workforce addresses most of the workplace bug that take plagued companies in the past two decades apropos work-life balance and talent acquisition.
READ: Commentary: I've been career oriented my whole life, until the COVID-19 pandemic took my ambition
READ: Commentary: Burned out while working from home? Yous should check your work-life boundaries
The COVID-19 lockdown has shown that virtually job tasks can be completed remotely, hence employers are no longer restricted to hiring in locations where they take offices. This in turn brings in more than diversity and innovation to organisations.
Employee stress and distraction caused by commuting, presenteeism, open up-plan offices and part politics have mostly been reduced as employees at present go to choose when, where and how they work.
This autonomy enables them to carve out personal time and space to engage in creative and productive work, or reach out to co-workers or friends equally and when they want to bounce ideas and gather feedback.
Yet, whatever employer that adopts this blended arroyo will need to ensure clear communication then that employees are aware of their responsibilities and understand the expected part they must play in the wider system.
It is not that remote working issues have entirely disappeared. Rather, almost employees have managed to overcome some of the earlier social and technological challenges posed past COVID-19 remote working.
Over time, with further evolution and mastery of the task crafting skills caused in this COVID-nineteen lockdown, the new normal of a blended work environment is probably a adept organization organisations should retain.
Heed: The COVID-19 vaccine will be the biggest product launch in history. Tin we pull it off?
BOOKMARK THIS: Our comprehensive coverage of the coronavirus outbreak and its developments
Download our app or subscribe to our Telegram channel for the latest updates on the COVID-19 outbreak: https://cna.asia/telegram
Carys Chan is a Lecturer in Organisational Psychology at Griffith University's School of Applied Psychology and a research member at the Centre for Piece of work, Organisation and Wellbeing.
Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/commentary/commentary-please-dont-end-work-home-its-not-bad-298481
Post a Comment for "Commentary: Please don’t end work from home. It’s not that bad"