Remote work, a reality that is here to stay — João Pedro Silva

Covid-19 will continue to have an impact that is still difficult to quantify in society. From Public Health to Education through restoration, many sectors have felt the impact of confinement and had to adapt to this new reality and challenges. People and companies had to reinvent themselves in the face of this new normality that seems to have come to last.

Regarding working conditions and the way we perform our professions, the imposition by World Health Organization of social detachment and prophylactic confinement, forced a part of the population to pass their professional activity into the home on a teleworking.

Although this is a common practice in some sectors, the application of this work profile in people homes was not homogeneous. Known are the reports of parents with young children, namely at preschool age, who saw their productive capacity significantly reduced in this new work regime during the period of confinement. At the same time, for others, this was an opportunity to find the harmony between personal and professional life that they had longed for.

In companies, as in homes, adaptation also took place with different degrees of difficulty and entropy. Not so long ago it seemed impossible that, for example, a primary school teacher could teach his classes by videoconference, or that a banker or a psychologist could serve his clients remotely.

In Portugal we have this saying “the need sharpens the ingenuity”.

This new reality broadened the horizons of companies that understood that their teams remain operational, even outside their comfort zone, and those who were forced to work from home quickly adapted. We are at a stage where companies have less room for maneuver and we are constantly being put to the test. The positive response to these challenges allowed many teams to maintain themselves, not only with their usual performance, but many of them had the capacity to overcome themselves.

This has been the recent reality for many of us, and for many, it will remain for a long time. Teleworking appears as a temporary solution for a temporary problem, as long as the number of Covid-19 cases are out of control.

We will therefore continue to talk about teleworking, videoconferencing platforms or a telescope for a while longer, so we need to understand how we can make the most of this reality so that teleworking is not an obstacle to our productivity but an opportunity for us to grow and grow. reinvent.

A final, positive note, which I hope will be inspiring. Keep in mind the Monty Python song “Always look at the bright side of life”.

João Pedro Silva — CEO & Founder @ Digito Solutions Originally published at https://medium.com on July 27, 2020.