The reality of working from home

Working from home (WFH) sounds like a concept dreamt up by kids who preferred more holidays during their life at school. What could be better than to report to work in your pyjamas, have a cup of hot tea while sitting on your bed, using your digital devices, and then getting paid to do so? However, as is the case with everything else, working from home isn’t as simple as it sounds, and definitely does not equate to working the way described above. 

Conforming to the requirements of social distancing and taking advantage of using my phone, I decided to get in touch with a colleague of mine who I knew was utilising the WFH concept to the fullest. After the initial pleasantries, I get to learn that not only does he work from the comfort of wherever he is at the moment, but he’s employed by a company 13 timezones away.

His life working for a company specialising in developing new animation format was an interesting one to learn about, and he helped describe the parameters that would define what working from home really meant. It wasn’t as simple as just being at home and conducting ‘work-like’ activities. It starts off with having the ability to work remotely from anywhere instead of a fixed location such as an office. 

This could include libraries, cafés, and even pleasant public parks. It also doesn’t mean one would be working all hours of the day; working from home in its truer methodology would allow the individual to set working hours at their convenience, another very important factor. Disregarding this would lead to fatal consequences, my friend helpfully pointed out.

I was then curious as to the workload and productivity. His response was that the workload actually doesn’t, and should not, change, just because the employee is working remotely. One had to, however, commit to the working hours, with the benefit of energy being saved from not having to commute or be distracted at the workplace. Productivity, he said from his experience, did increase once a lot of the distractions were minimised. Additionally, he pointed out that different people benefit differently too.

He was living on his own, with the freedom to set his working hours and minimal responsibilities, while there obviously would be people with immense familial responsibilities who are working from home as well. Working parents, or those with elderly family members, would then be able to not constantly be worried about sacrificing any aspect of their life just to ensure the pay check.

Additionally, its the geography of the Maldives that gives us such a huge advantage in adopting a more work from home concept on a country-wide perspective. He noted, as we all have, that a lot of workers are forced to relocate to the central region to secure worthwhile employment. This concentration of workers in the capital creates localised brain-drain all over the nation. He was quite insistent that a lot of these jobs can be done remotely, ergo allowing people to work in their islands, and the benefits could be incredible.

It would allow these individuals to commit to their normal lives without being forced to pay 60-75% of their income on extortionate rents. By staying with their families, allowing them to spend that unspent rent on stimulating their local economies and businesses, working from home would benefit the Maldivian population. The key point, my colleague pointed out, was that people would now be happier employees, and that this too would promote productivity.

The pandemic has taught us many lessons, and the effectiveness of remote working is one major aspect as well. The data suggests as much, yet as the precautions are eased, a lot of companies are currently recalling their workers back to their offices, here in the Maldives. The rest of the world has begun to move towards a more hybrid concept, where certain work related activities can be done on site, while the rest can be done remotely, and by utilising the internet and the vast array of tools already present and working, this concept could revolutionise entire industries.

However, the question that came to mind was regarding higher competition for job opportunities. If more local companies were open to employing remote workers, does that not increase the pressure on the local applicants? It does, he agreed, yet the competition actually goes both ways too. More opportunities would open up for local, junior, inexperienced workers, to secure employment. They would also then get to meet (albeit remotely) and work with others in their field, others who may well be at the pinnacle of their skills. This allows these juniors to grow and improve at a much higher rate than with working in cubicles alongside other local employees. 

Another positive aspect is how the brain drain from the local communities can be reversed. By allowing skilled labour to be situated in their hometowns, their knowledge can then be utilised and shared within the community, allowing more employment opportunities for their neighbours and peers. At the same time, the economy, as mentioned above, would be stimulated, fostering more entrepreneurship in other fields of work and the like.

This would be most visible in the education sector, by allowing certified and highly qualified professionals to practice their craft within their communities in addition to being employed remotely. By restructuring the emigration system, and allowing skilled workers to remain in their islands would ensure their children are housed and schooled at those islands too, which would be an incentive for the administrations to further enhance the education system across the board.

However, the one way work from home can be done wrong, is by employing office-like structures to work times and reporting. Some companies currently require their employees to virtually report in on messenger applications, and then be available during the pre-set timings, rather than have the autonomy to decide their working hours. While some service jobs would require this approach to an extent, this does not apply in the general sense, and causes more detriment than good. Workers are still restricted except by location, and their productivity cannot be expected to improve as much as when remote working is applied properly.

There is still much to be studied with regard to working from home and the effectiveness in comparison, and the Maldives, given our unique geography, needs to a use similarly unique benchmark. As I bid my friend a good day and hung up the phone, thoughts were numerous and my curiosity was alight. Education is already being done as remotely as possible to safeguard the health of our children, yet if parents were still forced to brave the pandemic and work on site, then once they return home to their children, it surely defeats the purpose. 

With the new year looking a lot more hopeful than the last, there is still hope that the more entrepreneurial and modernistic employers would try to achieve a true Maldivian version of the hybrid working system. Recent announcements by BML regarding newer loan schemes and further empowerment of SMEs does shed some positive light upon this fork in the metaphorical road of the Maldivian employment culture, and only time will tell where we will go. 

In the meantime though, I am happy to say this piece was written remotely as well. What a time to be alive!