Work and the 'new normal'

The concept of working from home is not a recent development. In fact, it predates the introduction of personal computers. With the rapid advancements in telecommunications, the possibility of freeing work from fixed locations has always been an aspiration. More so with recent digitalisation and stronger connectivity. Despite the choice of telecommuting being a reality, it has long been left underutilised. The structure of work institutions seemed untouchable and unchangeable. Breaking out of these unwritten traditions seemed unorthodox to many, thus immune to any major changes in work culture. 

Telecommuting depends on internet connections, exchanges through emails and phone calls to execute work functions in a location of convenience, which in most cases would be one's home.

Although, the work from home philosophy has gained some minor momentum in recent years, it was not enough to radically change the status quo. However, the advent of COVID-19 unexpectedly forced entire populations indoors for longer durations. With the uncertainty of ascertaining when the cloud of Covid-19 would pass, employees were left with little choice. This forced the labour force to adapt to a paradigm of minimum human contact. Of people working by themselves from the confines of their own homes.

Covid-19, shockingly, became the tipping point and the unlikely catalyst for pushing telecommuting into the mainstream, effectively normalising working from home. The labor force of over 181,144 employees have now spent a huge chunk of their time sheltering from the pandemic yet still working from home.

A much more efficient compromise of telecommuting is seeing increasing momentum at the same time. Hybrid working means that employees can choose to divide their work life between office and home as necessary. They have the choice of showing up at the office, two to three days a week and to continue work at home on other days.

The stifling bureaucracy of office environments are absent in homes. The employees enjoy a greater autonomy and the freedom of dictating their own schedule, outside the norms of eight hour shifts. This allows the employees to work with their strengths, in their element and decide when it is most productive for them to work.

The liberation from work schedules also lets employees spend time on leisure unlike before. Quality time on self, family and loved ones is more abundant with the option of telecommuting. The work life balance seems to be in greater equilibrium when left to the devices of the employees themselves. It also provides the opportunity for much needed bonding time, especially for families dependent on single, and double, employed parents who would would otherwise not get such an opportunity. 

That being said, the notion of work from home is still foreign to many. Unsurprisingly some employees thrive, while others are unable to rise to the occasion — due to environmental factors, resource factors or both. The obligations of the household can be unavoidable during prolonged periods of quarantine, and tight living conditions can also hinder the quality and quantity of time an employee can devote to their tasks. There is also the possibility of many workers spending more time, contrary to initial assumptions, on tasks. The quality of their output may stagnate and tasks may take much longer to be completed.

The level of delivery of digital services from state institutions leave much to be desired. Most services still require the physical presence of the citizen and, all too frequently, still require physical copies to be submitted. For some institutions still, providing digital services requires submissions of scanned copies of forms to be submitted to their portals. Civil servants have largely missed out on vacating their spaces to take refuge from the COVID-19 — they have largely been denied the choice of working from home.

Nonetheless, COVID-19 has forced the largest number of people to experience telecommuting, whether they like it or not, leading many to question the status quo of the workplace moving forward. Many companies have already opted to make the temporary work from home arrangements more permanent. The labor force remains deeply impacted by the time spent indoors during a global pandemic and the work environment remains radically changed. Only time will tell whether the world will largely come out of the experiment it finds itself in with better, less exploitative, practices or opt to fall back on the more safer, and restrictive, practices of the past.