Staying In Or Out? A Post-Pandemic World
The world stopped spinning in the last few weeks of March. It hasn’t budged even slightly since.
Over half a year passed by in the span of a few days.
People moved out of their homes and into their offices. No, wait. Out of their offices and into their homes.
As changes happen one after the other, we struggle to get a grasp of ourselves and to get a grasp over the future.
Work. From. Home.
The new way of life that everyone has become accustomed to, a little bit, day by day. It’s undeniable that almost every employee in every industry is in the same boat, whether they love it or hate it.
This change has profoundly impacted minds and opened their eyes to a new perspective of the traditional work environment unlike before.
So, thereby the question follows, what happens when we have (hopefully) moved past this pandemic? Do we just revert and retreat back to the offices? Or has the way been paved for a new permanent work-from-home norm?
This article seeks to explore these questions and attempt to understand what happens next.
So off we go.
- What are the obvious advantages of working from home?
Instead of going the traditonal way and listing a bunch of bullet points, I am just going to weave them into a paragraph about Edward, the abstract man.
Thanks to work-from-home, Edward now has a more flexible schedule and can start and end his day at his whims, provided his work is complete, of course. He doesn’t have to commute to work and back every day, saving him a ton of time, allowing him to be much more productive. What if Edward gets fired one day, because the boss hates how he keeps whistling to himself on the job and just dislikes him generally? He has to search for a new job. And now thanks to the possibilities of work-from-home, Edward isn’t bound by geographic location, doesn’t have to shift and yet has access to a wide range of job options which would conventionally be too far for him to apply at. He finally gets to repair the plumbing in his apartment and buy a puppy with all the surplus money he has been saving from not having to worry about gas, parking fees, buying lunches from out, formal clothing and more. Unwittingly, Edward has also been helping out the environment with all of his coworkers, as well as every other person working from home, by staying off the road, reducing greenhouse emissions by a whole lot, leaving the planet a better place.
Other advantages of work-from-home undeniably include more inclusion of diversity into the workplace, less maintenance costs and less real estate issues for employers which leads to major economic benefits and flexible home offices for employees.
Crunching numbers, an average working professional in India is saving Rs 5,520 per month and 1.47 hours of travel time everyday while working from home, according to a survey by leading co-working space provider Awfis.
But every coin has two sides, and therefore the question follows,
2. What are the disadvantages of working from home?
Tyler is done with all of it. Work from home has left him completely demotivated to keep going on about his job and less inclination to complete his goals on time. Tyler misses his co-workers who crack jokes as well as the optimistic ones who get everyone pumped to keep going. The lack of social contact has left him with slight depression and anxiety. No one is around to monitor Tyler or remind him his name is actually Edward or regulate his work externally. As a whole, seven months into work-from-home, Tyler is an absolute mess and distracted every once in a while.
Now, moving on from abstract people to real hard-hitting statistics, buckle up for the numbers,
3. How many people in real life like/dislike working from home? (Aside from my mother who is absolutely loving it.)
A study by Standford of 16,000 workers over 9 months found that working from home increased productivity by 13%. This increase in performance was due to more calls per minute attributed to a quieter more convenient working environment and working more minutes per shift because of fewer breaks and sick days.
In this same study workers also reported improved work satisfaction, and attrition rates were cut by 50%.
In the survey held by Awfis mentioned a few paragraphs above, about 74% of the respondents were willing to work remotely.
Another survey by SAP Concur, an expense management firm, sampled 300 respondents in India and 2012 in Asia Pacific, across manufacturing, financial services, retail, technology and health.
69% of respondents believed their productivity had increased while working remotely.
Some employees phrased things a bit differently. They cited the loss of productivity due to distractions as a key challenge. About 34% of those surveyed were less than satisfied with the current amount of time spent on finance matters.
(source:timesofindia.indiatimes.com)
Yet another study that focused on mental health by offices.co.uk posted the following,
28% — suffered from loneliness and anxiety caused by separation from colleagues
69% — felt they missed out on opportunities when working from home
54% — missed routine
83% — get stressed trying to cope with juggling home and work life
73% — wanted a mix of routine with home working
(source:onrec.com)
As a whole, the studies and surveys conducted earlier generally in the first few months of the pandemic tend to show how productivity increases as well as employee satisfaction, whilst the studies that follow in the last recent months take a darker turn, such as dips in output, rises in anxiety and offer a bleak outlook.
This is where the last result of the last study I mentioned comes into play.
Now what we want to do of course, is figure out how to get the coin to land on the edge, or to phrase the question formally,
4. What is the optimal solution?
Before getting into the post-pandemic part, I would like to discuss a few simple measures that can be taken during this pandemic that can effectively deal with mental health issues that are naturally posed by remote working.
Tyler’s boss has begun to start appreciating work done on time and given him a spot bonus for working on a particularly difficult project very sincerely. This sudden validation has boosted Tyler’s enthusiasm and sparked his motivation. The company he works at has begun to implement creative ways to deal with the situation such as virtual water cooler breaks where Tyler can catch up with his friends online, talk about things both related and not related to work. In the end, thanks to the shift on employee engagement, Tyler is back to being a star employee and has reverted back to Edward.
Now, as we near the end of this article as well as the core of what it is about, what lies ahead for Tyler in the near post-pandemic future?
Naturally like every coin, work from home has its demerits and merits, some outweigh what the office environment provides and some stay below.
The answer is of course, as most things aren’t, simple and in a sense, straight out of a movie where the two opposing forces combine to fight the larger villain.
The hybrid work environment.
Teams of people working multiple shifts throughout the week, switching between their homes and the office to work effectively, saving considerable amounts of money whilst spending adequate time with other coworkers to relax and socialize and get group work done efficiently and choosing to do focused individual work at home amidst spending beloved time with their friends and family.
And Tyler is a happy man yet again.
In the end, in a nutshell, this was quite simply a direction that the future of work was always headed towards. The pandemic went ahead and compressed change of over a decade into less than half a year.
As we have seen through the article, the near future post-Covid-19 is probably going to be a hybrid work atmosphere, partly in the office and partly at home, with multiple teams working shifts.
With significant advancements in technology however, I feel we may slowly transform into a pure work-from-home era, where people spend more time with their families and friends, interact with diverse team members around the globe effortlessly, building up stronger relations and bonds for a more happier, more unified tomorrow.
Fingers crossed for a social utopia!
(Provided we take care of the numerous other issues ravaging the planet, of course.)
I will leave you with a short 44-second video to brighten up your day.
Stay safe, stay home!
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