Employers and their HR teams need to be proactive, strategic, and thoughtful in their approach so they may create cultures of certainty, confidence, and safety amidst the current uncertainty.
Covid-19 pandemic practically started mid-March ’20, and India, along with many other countries, adopted an approach of imposing lockdowns – with the hope that this would bring cases down. But this has not played out the way it should have been. In a lot of countries, there are fresh outbreaks; the Covid-19 infection rate has not come down in India either. The longer the virus lasts, the more damage it will do to the economy. Hence, economies across the world are forced to slowly open, which essentially means that the employees will be expected to return to their offices though as per the new normal.
Here are five aspects about the transition and its impact on the employees that would be important to consider.
- What are Employees Missing?
- Concerns about returning to the office
- Employers Dilemma
- Challenges of 100% Remote Working
- Hybrid : The Future of Office
What are Employees Missing?
While home is where the heart is, office is where collaboration is. And this is what, in my opinion, employees continue to miss the most. It is evident that we cannot work in isolation for long, and while digital collaboration tools have been a great enabler, they cannot really replace the in-person meetings and water cooler conversations. (Click to read my article on how apps are changing workplace in 2020 https://www.itrainconsultants.com/planet-of-the-apps-how-apps-will-change-workplace-post-2020/)-
As per a recent LinkedIn global survey, ‘missing social interactions at offices’ has got 54 percent of the votes, making it the biggest factor of all for people to miss office. In India, the absence of a professional environment has got the maximum vote of 41 percent against the global score of 31 percent.
On the flip side of it a new study commissioned by Slack, a majority of skilled office workers have no interest in returning to working fully at the office. Data from the survey found that only 12% want to go back to working entirely in an office. The majority of workers—a whopping 72%—want to continue with a hybrid work style, a mixture of office work and remote work.
With so many workers not looking forward to a return to the Old Normal, there are huge implications regarding workforce management or capital investments in a physical office versus digital infrastructure that organisations will have to think about for their future workforce.
Concerns about returning to the office
It is not that the workforce prefers completely staying at home. Another survey by LinkedIn shows that the major concerns are poor workplace sanitation and lack of cleanliness that would increase the exposure risk to COVID-19.
While one may follow guidelines completely, many employees aren’t confident that their colleagues will do the same. Exposure to those not taking such safety measures seriously is another worry that can’t be undermined.
More than people who work at large companies and multinationals, the workers at small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are worried about keeping their jobs, according to LinkedIn’s Workforce Confidence Index.
Source: LinkedIn, 5,553 professionals across India were surveyed over the last two months and asked what they were the most concerned about when ‘returning to the physical workspace’.
Employers Dilemma
An employer’s responsibility should not be restricted to safe physical spaces in the offices alone. The infection may happen anytime, anywhere. From stepping outside the home till reaching one’s office, an individual encounters several scenarios where he/ she may come in contact with the contagion. The organisation will have to think hard about guarding this travel cycle against the possibilities that may aid the spread of the infection. As it will only need 1 positive at workplace to push an organisation 6 months back in time.
Also a big challenge for organisations is ensuring the psychological and emotional stability at the workplace. Leadership needs to recognize that this pandemic has huge impact on employees, mainly economical or physiological. Many employees may have been either traumatized or significantly economically burdened by this COVID-19 ordeal. These wounds will be slow to heal, especially with prospects of a widely available effective vaccine still some time away.
Challenges of 100% Remote Working
Slack’s study shows concerns about isolation from colleagues and difficulties maintaining relationships, and employers need to address such issues. But the takeaway is clear. Companies that give employees a choice about where and when they work will succeed and define the norm, and what we are calling the New Normal will soon become merely normal.
Hybrid : The Future of Office
Rolling things back and returning to how we used to work pre-coronavirus is one of the worst choices that a company can make. Even before the pandemic, losing the remote work option was a dealbreaker for many remote workers. A 2019 study by Owl Labs showed that 55% of remote workers would change jobs if no longer allowed to work remotely, yet they are 12% more likely to stay at a company that offers remote work as an option.
Even with remote working, there remains a strong case for office spaces. There is definitely a need of repurposing and redesigning work spaces to provide infrastructure for collaboration among those working from home and those in offices.
This also essentially means that companies will have to establish long-term Work from Home policies (WFHP) and create the requisite IT infrastructure for a seamless work-from-home experience. The discussions over WFH strategies also involve identifying roles that can be shifted to WFH format starting from the first day of a job. Many companies already have a long term work from home policy. They have extended the policy to a larger employee base for the short term. In the long term, this could mean office space and location requirements may change to accommodate physical distancing norms and staggered working models.
“With a greater portion of the workforce having now experienced remote work, forcing employees back to working only from the office means that many will vote with their feet and go work for companies that can provide them with a choice. Companies that provide a hybrid working style will win the talent race, giving them another edge over their competitors who are stuck in the old ways of work.” -Darren Menabney (Forbes Inc.)
Companies that offer the option of remote work for 3 or 4 days per week—that employee engagement sweet spot—and companies that can provide products and services to support the New Normal will thrive and prosper.
In the last four decades of our history, this is probably the worst that has hit us. But it also means that that the recovery from the pandemic is offering us a chance to bring a new revolution. We can now start fresh, build systems and processes to anticipate, and withstand the unforeseen crisis. Our preparations will help us tide over and succeed challenges of epic proportions in the future.
Feel free to get in touch with us for our inputs in planning WFHP and communication plan for your organisation.
Author: Vishal Punetha
Corporate Training Consultant
I Train Consultants India Pvt. Ltd.
