1. Work from home benefits employees: It provides a better work-life balance, reduces commuting stress, improves personal finances, and enhances productivity and performance.
2. Advantages for employers: Organizations save on overhead costs, ensure employee safety, maintain business continuity, enhance employee retention, and access a larger talent pool.
3. Increased popularity post-COVID: Both employees and employers recognize the long-term benefits, making work from home likely to continue as a new normal even after the pandemic.
4. Addressing productivity concerns: Organizations need structured approaches, including providing infrastructure, digital tools, and training for supervisors, to manage remote teams effectively and maintain productivity.
Work from home may likely continue for a long time post-COVID for a significant workforce segment. Many experts think ‘Work from Home’ might be the new normal post-COVID.
Organizations implemented the work-from-home concept long before the advent of COVID-19, albeit on a relatively small scale, usually to meet the temporary personal needs of employees.
However, with COVID-19, businesses were forced to make work from home the mainstay of their business continuity plans.
Neither employers nor employees had any choice in this matter if they had to keep the businesses running.
However, work from home is unlikely to end even after the pandemic has been controlled.
We see it still being popular with the employees going forward for the following reasons:
Working from home enables employees to schedule their tasks flexibly so that they have time for their chores.
They can start work early or late, or work flexibly to balance time with family and other activities.
Also, the time saved from commuting can be utilized as personal time or even for work.
Employees may even relocate to their hometowns to be close to their families.
Working from home can help employees save money to commute (if not sponsored by the company), eat outside while at work (if not sponsored by the company), or stay close to the office (where rents might be higher).
Some of them might operate from their hometowns where the savings might be substantial.
Work-from-home employees are less likely to feel the stress of commuting and of being away from their loved ones especially if someone at home needs care.
Employees can save a significant amount of time every day that would have been spent normally commuting. This can make them more productive.
They can also devote this time to learning and development to hone the professional skills required for career growth.
Balancing between professional and personal responsibilities reduces stress and improves productivity.
So, overall, working from home might result in better employee performance and faster career progression.
Despite its advantages, many organizations were skeptical about allowing employees to work from home before COVID-19.
The COVID pandemic was a rude wake-up call for many such organizations.
Having tested the concept, many organizations may consider continuing with work-from-home arrangements even after the crisis subsides.
They have seen work-from-home in action for several months and understood its benefits and risks.
Corporates such as TCS and Infosys have already announced plans to allow employees to continue working from home even afterward.
Organizations see several advantages of ‘Work from Home.’ The key ones are as follows:
It reduces the need for organizations to invest in or maintain physical workplace infrastructure and facilities.
They can considerably reduce energy costs and save on other expenses such as transportation, canteen, housekeeping, etc.
Moreover, organizations must provide several employee benefits at a dedicated workplace.
Even if organizations provide allowances to ‘work from home’ employees for high-speed internet and power backup at home, they can still save significantly.
Even if the current crisis of the COVID pandemic subsides, social distancing norms might remain in place for much longer. It might become the new normal.
Hence working from home will enable organizations to implement social distancing norms quite easily and ensure employee health and safety.
Also, commuting during rush hours carries a high risk of road accidents, crime, and pollution. Thus, working from home ensures better health and safety of employees.
Though the COVID-19 crisis was a one-off, cities experience many natural calamities and man-made disasters from time to time, such as heavy rains and floods, smog and bushfires, and incidents like protests and riots.
Working from home’ can become an integral part of the business continuity plans of most organizations.
It reduces the risk of losing the best performers if they cannot visit the workplace daily for health or family reasons.
By enabling remote working for them, organizations enable them to take care of their personal needs and responsibilities without leaving.
This also deepens their sense of belonging and loyalty to the organization. Such employees will likely be more committed, dedicated, and loyal to the organization.
One significant benefit of remote working is that it provides organizations with a broader pool of talent from which to hire.
From freelancers to professionals who cannot follow a typical 9-to-5 work schedule, or even new mothers who need to take care of young children.
Organizations can pick from a much larger pool of professionals with the right expertise and experience.
There are distinct and quantifiable advantages of remote working for the employees as well as for the organizations.
However, organizations are still concerned about its impact on employee and team productivity.
Organizations need to address these concerns in a planned and structured way to consider large-scale work from home.
These measures would include providing the necessary infrastructure at home, digital tools, technical support, and proper training for supervisors to manage remote teams.
Implemented in the right way, work from home has the potential to become one of the biggest wins for organizations and integral to their business strategies.
Read about how to implement Work from Home effectively.
Lead author: Sagar Chaudhuri, the Co-Founder and CEO of HiFives. He is an HR Tech Evangelist with over 25 years of corporate and entrepreneurship experience. In the past, Sagar has worked in leadership roles at companies such as Genpact, Infosys, and ICICI Bank. He has an engineering degree from IIT Kharagpur and an MBA from IIM Lucknow. Connect on LinkedIn
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