Well as has been said before , we live in interesting times. Who would have thought even in January 2020 that these new ways of working together now would be so different, but also perhaps surprisingly, so effective.
As an IT Consultant I talk to a range business leaders and senior managers and one common thread is how quickly the ones that can, have adapted to remote working.
The Elephant in the corner of WFH (Working from Home) though can be the fear by the managers that the remote staff are less productive, harder to control and that discipline will be eroded. There may also be some technical issues to be overcome depending on the nature of the business.
Generally the most successful implementations of WFH have been with managers and staff that have an existing good relationship, particularly in terms of trust in both directions. A good IT department that also can support the online security that is required (VPN access and email/Cloud security), and collaborative software such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom meetings. It helps to have motivated staff that are engaged with the business and lastly working practices that support remote working such as daily morning briefings and chat software. With these factors the whole WFH can be rewarding for all concerned.
The benefits for the business, apart from Business continuity, can be naturally longer business hours ( with the removal of the commute, staff are more willing to start earlier and finish later), arguably meetings are more productive as the limitations on long remote meetings tend to focus the mind. On a more long term basis large expensive office space could be reduced.
So what are the disadvantages? So if managers feel that productivity is suffering agile tools such as Jira can be used to scope out pieces of work, in agreement with the staff member initially.If this still doesn’t work work then perhaps there was an underlying issue before that has now been exposed.
From the remote workers perspective , there can be a feeling of isolation,particularly with the lock down culture. A home office office helps with the discipline of working from home. The benefits of the lack of commute, better food also help with isolation, and eventually when cafe’s open a daily visit can also break up the day.
So to sum up there are a lot positives for the business in having staff WFH, as long as there is a supportive culture in the team. The McKinsey Digital report gives a useful overview for medium to large enterprises of how the landscape is changing. Interesting times indeed…