Sunday, August 22, 2021

Working From Home in Global Context


During the COVID-19 Pandemic peak days the world suffered a lot and still few countries are keep suffering a lot.  The luckiest people are those who avoided and overcome the effect of the epidemic COVID-19.

Those who lucky enough to have avoided layoffs are the luckiest ever and more likely than ever to be adapting to a working environment that is familiar and alien at the same time.

Yet, not really having to be at the office offers a suppressing work-life balance and it shapes the wonderful working day of most of the individual. Most of this work world started to practice the Work From Home (WFH) concept including ABC Private Limited (ABC) after the pandemic Covid-19 and few of them already doing it which depends on their nature of work. Whatever it is, WFH is likely playing a larger part in daily life, and that of people who are dependent, than it ever has before.

Figure 1 - Benefits of WFH (Source: https://globalworkplaceanalytics.com/work-at-home-after-covid-19-our-forecast)

Further, WFH benefits everyone in all the ways since the employees and ABC remain connected, positive and therefore employees at ABC can work productively while maintaining and fulfilling their home responsibilities without any stress in-between on a daily commute. Also, it avoids rushing to the office and to home in the morning and afternoon which always creates stress in everyone’s life.

Research shows that traveling 10 miles to work each day may lead to Higher cholesterol, Elevated blood sugar and Increased risk of depression as well. In this scenario, WFH concept implemented by ABC Management helps to support its employees’ mental and physical health and the time savings which allows focusing on priorities outside of work, like getting extra sleep in the morning, spending more time with family, getting in a workout or eating a healthy breakfast which ultimately helps the organization to get more productive outcomes from the employees who WFH.

WFH helps to save money for employees and employers in long-run as for employees it reduces fuel cost, vehicle maintenance, transportation, parking fees and lunches bought out etc. The savings aren’t just for employees, either. As companies allow employees to continue WFH, according to Global Workplace Analytics (Lister, 2021), a typical company can save around $11,000 per year for every employee who works from home like Twitter, Square, Shopify, and Facebook, they also see significant long-term cost savings as they manage to avoid the costs like Overhead, Real estate costs, Transit subsidies business travels and conferences etc.

Moreover, during the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. employers are saving over $30 billion per day by allowing employees to work from home. This major economic benefit of remote work could continue as more companies make it a long-term solution.

WFH is leads to fewer interruptions, fewer office politics, a quieter noise level, and less meetings. Add in the lack of a commute, and remote workers typically have more time and fewer distractions, which improves the increase. On the other hand, researchers say, Physical Office environment shows a “Fales Positives” that always leads to bias and favoritism. After all, coming in early and leaving late may look like more work, but actual performance is a much better indicator of productivity. FlexJobs’ 2020 survey found that “workers who thought they might be more productive working from home actually were more productive when working remotely” (Courtney, 2020).

Surprisingly. WFH has some cons as when we try to look at the bigger picture, there are still quite a few disadvantages of WFH as everything in the world has two faces of pros and cons, WFH option is no different. It is a benefit for many, but not for all.

Let us look at a few of the disadvantages of WFH such as lack of Teamwork, lack of motivation, unmonitored performance, frequent breaks, breach of confidentiality, lack of office-work environment and more distractions.

No system in this world is perfect but we have to make the best out of everything. The disadvantages that have been pointed out to be taken into serious care to overcome from such lacking part with suitable mechanisms and various ways of employee engagement, which can help organizations get past these disadvantages.

Video 1 The Remote Working Revolution Has Arrived (Source: TEDxRichlan,2016)

References

Courtney, E., 2020. Flex Jobs. [Online]
Available at: https://www.flexjobs.com/blog/post/benefits-of-remote-work/
[Accessed August 2021].

Ikram, L., 2021. Vantage Circle. [Online]
Available at: https://blog.vantagecircle.com/disadvantages-of-working-from-home/
[Accessed August 2021].

Lister, K., 2021. Global Workplace Analytics. [Online]
Available at: https://globalworkplaceanalytics.com/work-at-home-after-covid-19-our-forecast
[Accessed 08 2021].

 

12 comments:

  1. WFH means that an employee works in a house, apartment, or apartment, rather than in an office. Many companies have a WFH policy, or remote employment policy, that allows their employees to work from home full-time or when it is most convenient for them.

    Several studies over the past few months show productivity while working away from home is better than working in an office environment. On average, those who work at home spend less than 10 minutes a day productive, work one day a week, and produce 47% more productivity.

    as you rightly said Amjad .. No system in the world is said to be perfect. We have seen significant disruption in some areas with regard to this program. Organizations therefore have to follow a unique process to get the most out of this concept. Thanks for sharing this.

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  2. Most firms nowadays provide this choice to their employees.

    Before permitting work from home, a corporation should be set up as a mobile organization.

    1. Ensure that employees may securely work from home.

    2. If work must be done in a secure environment, provide an office laptop and gear.

    3. Have professional video and audio conferencing partners.

    4. Establish an appropriate WFH policy for employees to follow.

    5. Make sure you have internet and mobile bill reimbursement rules in place.

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  3. WFH opens up a whole range of opportunities for how businesses can operate and organize by staff themselves. With the outbreak of covid-19, WFH has given some employers the flexibility they need to continue their business activities while prioritizing employee health and well-being as part of their public health responsibility. However HR division plays crucial role in administrating the remote workforce.

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  4. To Increased staff motivation, by working from home staff will feel more trusted by their employer as the working relationship isn't as closely monitored and employees are allowed a degree of autonomy to get on with their work. Staff will also be happier developing a home working routine that suits them better and this can contribute towards them feeling more motivated to give their best.

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  5. WFH is the best digital and practical solution that we have within this none end pandemic situation. For the companies, it is important to continue the business operation without failed while thinking about well being of their workers and belonginess. The concept created new ways which will continue as new practices in HR point of view also.

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  6. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  7. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  8. The attitudes and policies of organizations toward WFH have an impact on the productivity of their employees. Employee productivity increases when they believe their organization trusts and cares about them and provides them with training, good project management, and adequate resources to complete their tasks on time.It has a positive impact on employee productivity when employees do not have to waste time, money, or energy on transportation between home and office. But this method cant apply to every organization, there has some restrictions.

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  9. At the initial stage of the pandemic, organizations have switched to work from home concept as a contingency plan without having proper tools and experience. However, uncertainty of the pandemic with rapid changers of virus variants, remote working and maintaining social distancing has become core features of new normal working environment. HRM has a vital part to ensure continuation of organization operation under the new normal while looking employee’s health and well-being during the pandemic

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  10. An extremely timely & essential read amjad! Well put the work from home concept has become one of the most interesting & newest expansions of HRM field, the spread of this concept could be mainly attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic. However there is no excuse and all of the organizations in the world had to adopt this method in order to navigate the health guidelines set forward. Great Article overall

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  11. Working from home can help mitigate the public health and economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. Of concern are the implications of working from home for work-life balance, which may be difficult to manage particularly if children or other dependents require attention; it may also potentially lead to discrimination against workers with care responsibilities. The overlap between paid work and personal life can have negative effects for workers but also for enterprises, if it negatively impacts productivity. Managing these possible tensions at the firm level through social dialogue between management and workers’ representatives, but also at the policy level, is critical. So thanks for sharing

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  12. Work from Home means an employee is working from their house, apartment, or place of residence, rather than working from the office. Many companies have a WFH policy, or remote work policy, that allows either their employees to work from home full-time or when it is most convenient for them.
    In addition, 16% of companies globally are fully remote. Although it is still a low number, the fact that nowadays there are companies that have no office or headquarters whatsoever and that operate 100% remotely shows just how much remote work has grown and evolved.

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