Back to Office??

In professional world WFH (Work from Home) was a phenomenon lesser known across all the industries and was never seen as an integral part of operational strategy before March 2020. Till then it was mostly circumstances-based exceptions that organization (Specially IT) used and was neither rewarded nor penalized.

Phase 1: Mid-March 2020 – Last week of April 2020: Companies start seeing govt. announcements and industries start seeing its 1st hand impact. Global cases start rising and the cascading effect pushes all major economies to shut its doors on immediate bases. Panic mode sets in. In matter of 15 days, work takes back seat and personal health, and family safety takes the driving seat. Mindset: This will soon be over. Companies’ readiness for 100% WFH: Next to 0.

Phase 2: May 2020 – Oct 2020: Organizations and Governments realize that this situation is not going to be contained in matter of few weeks or for that matter months, number of cases rise and death toll across the globe multiply every week and professional productivity hits the rock bottom. Organizations were required to innovate and come up with immediate solution for the lockdown (movement wise and workwise). WFH becomes the only saving grace and we as humanity do an amazing job in creating/scaling up our infrastructure in shortest possible time for professionals to start showing their productivity.

Phase 3: Challenges to Start and continue:

1.?Managing your own Time and Schedule

2. Blurred Lines between Personal & Professional lives

3.?Distractions

4.?Reduced Supervision & Direction

5.?Co-ordination & communication challenges

6.?Opaque performance metrics

7.?Professional and Social Isolation

8.?The “DRESS CODE TRAP”

9.??Low Motivation and lack of long-term vision

10.?Technical firewalls and failures

Phase 4: Challenges to Stop and continue: As economies open and start relaxing norms/restrictions at public and workplaces, the world of employees faces a totally new challenge. Almost 2 Years of learning new ways to work, enjoying no commute and long/unlimited family time when workers resume to office, it is a new ball game altogether. Learning -unlearning-learning is a toughest thing when it comes to life/personal skills unlike knowledge/professional skill. The Mt. Everest for majority of workforce is:

1. Losing out on company culture.
2. Communication & Collaboration can be challenging.
3. Sudden feeling of Micro-Management
4. Missing out on me-time
5. Constant fear of team dynamics and how a physical/face-2-face interaction will result.
6. Fear of health risk (self and family)
7. Spoilt by choice
8. Feeling of not getting compensated enough
9. Feeling of disrespect at workplace

These are the issues that were not highlighted in pre-covid era and due to social interaction and better group dynamics found a solution in the process of day-to-day operations. Now because of huge gap and new working style employees are finding it hard to adjust.

The major disadvantage that Covid-19 related WFH brought that is becoming more and more evident is it changed the entire outlook of employer to employee relationship. Pre-covid times employer had the say in deciding who works when and from where, post covid employees realized that they too can be in the driving seat and have started demanding the flexibility that they wish to implement with their working style. This is resulting in what is being called Hybrid Model. Like every story/event this too has its Pro & Cons. Companies are looking at saving huge bill on Infrastructure and Operational expenses, the problem is with the companies who have facilities in place and are under utilizing the assets making it bigger liability to manage. Over and above this companies are finding it more and more difficult to measure performance and productivity of employees in remote work environments.

The results of this situations are as interesting as it can be; Design changes, work culture changes, open floor plans, outdoor workplace and huge array of collaboration tools are just a start to this, mass hysteria in people quitting jobs, huge recruitment drives like never before and steady rise in gig-economy.

To take a leaf out of book and give their workforce a fresh start, companies are engaging in a lot of ILT’s and VILT’s. These trainings are centered around Goal Setting, Delegations, Conflict Resolution, Assertiveness Skills, Managing relationships, Inclusiveness, Emotional Intelligence, and overall Motivation. These trainings can be a day, 2 or even a week long training to bring in new/fresh perspective from a non-industry professional. Effectiveness of these training programs are a make and break in some situations and for this sole reason organizations are opting for repetitive training calendar throughout the year. This will keep resources engaged in something that they too value and help create a new culture that organization looks forward to.

My take on the entire situation: Let things simmer down a bit. Let economies stabilize a bit. Let supply chains normalize a bit. Let mental issues/fears go down a bit.

These are indeed very turbulent times and entire global geopolitics is going through a lot of turmoil. Insecurities in the minds of common people is too high, stock markets are too volatiles, operational cost of businesses in some sectors are taking a bad hit due to various factors, inflations are too high and these things would last for few more months before we come to terms with it. Till then, rely on Hybrid Model, it works. Employer and Employees will both have to learn to think by stepping in each other’s shoes. These will never be a one size fits all type of solution in this scenario but the organizations and talent that accommodates to situations will fare better then others. Companies should engage more with resources on helping them develop some personal & professional skills, helping them in pursuing extracurricular activities, cultivate a culture of empathy and in return employees can use EQ and empathy to understand business pain points and be as contributing to the system as they are expected to be. In no means I want to say, slog yourself but also consider this "doing bare minimum will give you bare minimum". In this age of cutthroat competition, companies expect employees to be in their top game (well not all the time).

We at Harbinger are working on meeting the client needs on ILT's, VILT's, Content Modernization, Nudge Learning and developing different modalities of eLearning that we believe will not only help organizations cope up with changing dynamics but also adapt to L & D consumption pattern of individuals.

Going back to WFH!!!!