Corona, Work from Home and the World

One can easily guess the boring life patterns of a typical mid-tier corporate slave during normal times in this modern age. Their boredom is to the extent that any extra ordinary development - be it positive or negative, for example even if it is coming from a news of Indian Air strike at Balakot in the wake of Pulwama attacks or a news of spread of Corona virus - provides them a sense of being alive and enables them to divert their mind, albeit momentarily, from zombie styled daily routines and utterly boring lives.

Initially when we read and heard about the spread of Corona virus in China during December 2019, we were not bothered at all and thought that this is happening so far in China and will not come to us for sure. We thought China is anyway an expert in discovering and containing such novel diseases at regular intervals. Then the first case was reported in India on 30th January in Kerala and even this didn't make us worried with the granted notion that the spread will be contained and it won't come to our city, locality, neighborhood or work place.

Came March and there were serious signs of the possibility of a contagion in the wake of worrying reports from Italy, Iran, US and wider Europe. However, we did not take the possibility of virus spreading through incoming international passengers to India seriously early enough and there were delays in implementation of effective measures to test and quarantine these travelers and keep a track of them. This slight delay proved costly and we later witnessed number of positive cases rising astronomically high despite strict measures such as lockdown in place for several weeks. Though it would have definitely checked the free spread of the virus, lockdown proved to be an unbridled curse for souls from low strata of society. We have been witnessing heart wrenching stories of troubles of migrant labourers and underprivileged sections of our society.

Now I must revert to our topic at hand i.e. work from home (WFH). Till recently, WFH was considered a privileged option for just a few sectors such as IT or may be few true blood MNCs. During Mid-March no ordinary souls such as bankers ever thought even in their wildest of dreams that soon they will be asked not to come to offices and will be allowed working from home for an elongated period of time. Most of these people fulfilled this new responsibility of working from home successfully albeit with associated issues such as lack of proper work corner, connectivity issues, mindset issues of employees as well as bosses etc. Today, the toughest part of the problem i.e. fixed mindsets, is solved largely and now the employees, their supervisors, the senior management, all stakeholders have accepted WFH as an viable alternative which is going to be integral and mainstream part of work culture in this new world transformed by Covid19.

Now let us discuss the different phases of this transformation from different angles.

The initial phase was excitement of something different happening in the life and opportunity to stay at home full day without stressful experience of daily commute. We thought now will be that blissful chance and time to finish watching all those long series on Netflix and Amazon prime which we always wanted to watch but had no free time. Then there were few who had such operational roles that they were still asked to come to office as the decisions were not taken to allow entire staff to work from home. Ultimately managements were still hesitant for a scenario of empty offices, it never ever happened earlier, no? These people's hearts were burning so profusely that they loathed their roles which earlier made them feel more important. Nevertheless, in a matter of few days most of them got the permission to stay at home. Hurrah!

However, the excitement melted away in couple of days as fast as it was built up as people realised they were not trusted upon. Bosses always talked in such a tone as if WFH was a favour given to them almost equivalent to paid leaves. Employees found that they were asked to provide detailed reports of what they did during the day. In some cases the efforts involved in providing these reports were more than the work itself. Then there was this mistrust in the supervisors, they were imagining their team members binging on TV series with homemade popcorns and pakodas in hand. During afternoons, you had to be extra careful picking up the phone of your boss before the second ring else you may be considered napping having enjoyed hot served home cooked meal.

As the month of April progressed, bosses’ attitude gradually changed as they saw results coming out of people's efforts and realised employees are not watching TV or sleeping at home but working hard struggling to maintain a balance between professional duties and running the household without domestic help with lockdown challenges. You were in an important call and the building security guard informs on the intercom that delivery of essential grocery has come and you need to come down. Dharam Sankat!

As times passed, most of us badly missed going to office and working normally before Corona hit us. We terribly longed for the same traffic and commuting which we cursed daily earlier. We realised how difficult it was to draw a line between professional and personal times on daily basis. During not so distant past, once you left from office, you could feel the energy and excitement to be back home looking forward to spending time with family and enjoy a personal time where you could detach yourself from daily grind of boring work and relax to recharge yourself for the next day psychologically and physically. In this era now, the professional time was a continuum and you found yourself always in working mode, there was no detachment even during the late evenings as the expectations from you were mounting. The timelines to submit new data which earlier were couple of days now were expected to be the same day or early next day at best. You couldn't avoid taking a work related undesired call as earlier you could do during your personal time without any worry to spoil your image. The etiquettes had new definitions. A client could call you at 8 in the morning and you could call them 9.30 at night without any perceived encroachments over personal time. A silent disquiet always lingered on your mind. During this mandatory stay at home period, you were advised strongly from all quarters to maintain your daily routine and do meditation, yoga and exercise to calm yourself but you found it increasingly difficult to maintain the routine because of this human tendency to flow the way water flows where the slope is.

It is hardly debatable that there is a positive side to working from home from productivity perspective. In cities such as Mumbai, most people commute long distances to and fro under difficult conditions which not only consumes anywhere between 2 and 5 hours daily but also puts one under tremendous mental and physical stress. Imagine saving on that time and energy which itself enhances productivity to a great extent. Then there are minor factors such as getting ready in a formal way which take more time compared to when you working from home. Obviously there is a vast difference between working from home in current abnormal situations with restrictions and in a perfectly normal environment as before Corona.

Not everyone is happy about this new found national zeal for WFH. Commercial Real Estate industry which was thriving earlier in major commercial hubs such as Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Ahmedabad etc. is now staring at possible huge drop in new demands for office spaces amidst announcement by many corporate giants such as TCS to allow majority of their staff work from home. Few organisations such as Banks which hitherto had never considered WFH as a viable option for their type of work now realizing the potential of WFH and pledged to explore it as a normal way of working for a large proportion of their staff. The revolution has just started!

Now, as we are on our way to open up the economy again and offices are being filled up with the people gradually, this is a time for exercising greater caution than ever. We should not lower our guards and need to keep in mind firmly that the semblance of normalcy is just a compulsion to keep the fire of economy burning as it is not possible to be in a lockdown situation forever though the virus is still lurking out there claiming many more souls than before. We ought to maintain the vigil at least till the vaccine is discovered and available for the masses.

We hope that the lessons forced upon us by Corona virus onslaught will be very useful to help us live our lives by a disciplined code in a finer way once Corona is tamed. The world will be a different place with realisations and mindsets which hopefully will make this world a better place.

This may be a hint to us that this planet is mighty enough to wipe us all out from its face before we may realise it. The tagline by the environmentalists should not be “Save the Planet” but rather it should be “Save Yourselves”!