"I have no idea
what's awaiting me,
or what will happen when this all ends.”
or what will happen when this all ends.”
(Albert Camus, The
Plague)
The COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked
havoc across the globe. The storm of death did not stop at Wuhan, after inflicting
debilitating devastation in the commercial city it rose again and flew across
the oceans and mountain ranges to unleash the horror in the dazzling cities of
Milan, Madrid, New York, London and many more.
The powerful and brazen political
empires are on their knees against an invisible and invincible enemy with no
room for negotiation. The global economy
is crawling under the deadweight of lock down, finding means and methods to
break away from the iron clutches of today’s gloom.
Notwithstanding the prevailing
crisis and uncertainty, the business organisations are rapidly evolving and adopting smart technology to keep the ball rolling. Many
services and technology organisations have enabled and empowered employees to work from their home. The experts and consultants are waiting for the work data generated during
this period to comprehend and analyse the impact on productivity together with
other key performance indicators. Perhaps, the result would shape he evolution of an alternate
workplace “Home Office” and the paradigm of work culture will be
redefined forever.
What
will happen when this all ends
The crystal ball gazing to predict the economic growth curve may not be the
best choice at this point of time. When the storm settles down, when the demon
is defeated, when the employees return back to vibrant and bustling offices,
when the office grapevine and gossips make you giggle with glee, the debate
would commence about the practicality,
suitability, applicability and acceptability of
the Work from Home (Home Office) model as a viable alternative.
Much before this catastrophe hit the planet earth, many organisations
had extended this facility to select group of employees subject to their job profile
in the organisation. The consulting and services organisations are also
experimenting, hitherto it remains an exception with limited usage.
Many traditional organisations who loathed the idea of virtual meetings
and preferred to have in-person conversation have been accidentally pushed into virtual meeting rooms. The feedback of
the reluctant participants and naysayers would help to fine tune the model.
Work
from Home -Business Drivers and Challenges
The Work from Home (Home Office) model will evolve over a period of time to offer multiple variants based on the industry sector,
organisation culture and job profile of the individual employee. Amid the
wrenching changes, it is imperative for the organisations to clearly understand, analyse and compare business
drivers and possible challenges for adopting the Work from Home (Home Office)
model. Below is the summary of key business drivers and challenges.
Business Drivers :
·
Enhanced Talent Pool – The talent pool for hiring skilled
employees will multiply many fold as the work location would not be constraint
any more.
·
May attract
younger workers who prefer the gig economy with flexible hours, and autonomy.
·
Enhanced
productivity and better utilisation of employee time as the time to commute to
work will be significantly reduced.
·
Work Life
Integration – It will create more
synergies between all areas that define 'life': work, home/family, community,
personal well-being, and health etc.
·
Cost reduction – It will help organisations to reduce the
facility cost (Office Space etc.)
Challenges :
·
Coordination and collaboration between team members
operating from different locations may
be a difficult task for the project managers.
·
The productivity for certain functions, work group or
employees may decrease due to either nature of job or personal challenges at
home.
·
Internet and mobile connectivity may not be robust to
attend online meetings or access application for performing required tasks.
·
Confidentiality and Information Security –Many service
organisations have access to confidential information of the large customers
and are in legal agreement to protect the same. The implementation of security
control framework to avoid, detect, counteract, or minimize security risks to
physical property, information, computer systems in order to protect the
confidentiality would be mammoth task for the organisations.
·
Work Culture and Organisation Values- The office
represents the organisation culture and values enshrined in it. The question of
sustaining and carrying forward the
value system in new work model where sizeable number of employees are working from home would require momentous changes in the
current approach.
Every cloud has a silver lining
These dark clouds of woes and worries will recede with the passage of
time. The calamity has created an ideal opportunity for the business organisations to revisit their existing
policies and redesign their strategy vis-à-vis employee work location options. The
acceptance and transition to new model would be an onerous tasks for the
management of the organisations. The critical checking points for the smooth
and seamless adoption journey is elucidated below. It is not a comprehensive
list but an indicative list that may be expanded based on the organisation need
and requirements.
·
Job Profile assessment to determine the fitment for the
WFH (Home Office) model
·
One size doesn’t fit all- Design Work from Home(Home
Office) model that is aligned with the organistaion core values and vision.
·
IT application – Deploy robust IT application to track,
monitor & control Work from Home (Home
Office). The implementation of IT application would be a crucial step to pave
the way for new model.
Times change and
we with time - Who knows, that the time would come, when “Work from Home” would
not be an exception but an expectation
from employee.
