Coronavirus, Teleworking and its Effect on The Saudi Labor Market

Since the Coronavirus has gone Pandemic, Many countries have issued a partial or a total curfew which forced many entities to shift to Teleworking in order to avoid an inevitable health & economical collapse.

After couple of months of observing Teleworking and its effect on the Saudi Labor Market and listening to various experiences from employees on Entry, Mid and Managerial levels, There are many successful stories for entities in both Governmental & Private sectors in Saudi Arabia, Especially entities which have already utilized technology for their benefit such as digitalizing the internal communication, internal & external workflow with other sister Companies/Ministries (e.g ELM, Najiz etc,,) or third parties (e.g Vendors/Delivery apps etc,,).

But, Since this is a new experience for many entities to physically shift almost 40-90% of their workforce to Teleworking, Several issues have appeared to the surface which we would like to approach from three different aspects: Employees, Management and Entity.

In this article we would like to highlight these issues, the reason of its happening and the possible solutions.

Employees

As much fun & sense of freedom Teleworking has given to employees, as much as such feelings were significantly declining due to the following:

“Yeah,, i can see your laptop at your bed”

Meaning there isn’t a specified working space at home which gives a false sense of flexibility at start but that feeling declines very quickly.

Lack of discipline to working hours

Treating work hours as same as post-work hours shall harm both the Entity & the Employee at the same level.

24/7 on-call

This is a major factor of employees‘ performance decline due to their managers/management not complying to the agreed working hours (Shall be explained in management aspect).

Management

We believe that Managers/Directors can be defined into two types: “On-Office Managers” and “Teleworking Managers” which we will be showcasing each type and the impact on their reportees:

1- On-Office Managers: Having On-Office Managers might have resulted a good sense of leadership for some managers, But it might developed an unhealthy managerial behavior for others due to the following:

• Feeling unjust by seeing other successful examples of managers working from home. If the manager doesn’t overcome this idea it will affect him, his reportees & the entity negatively.
• No actual reason or need for attending office.

2- Teleworking Managers:  We believe this type of managers are feeling content, But being at home might affect their work if the work requires physical attendance and might affect their team due to the reasons which will be mentioned shortly.

That being said, There are many positivities for having managers on office or Teleworking but since this article is all about highlighting the issues & fixing it. It has resulted some unhealthy behavior on how managers are managing their teams which we have highlighted below:

Making team on-call 24/7

This is a major factor of Team/Department/Entity Performance, Culture, Workflow failure. And we believe this is because of several reasons which are:

• False sense of employees absence.
• False sense that working hours are only in the working place.
• Curfew: Managers/Directors who are using curfew as an excuse to make their reportees work more hours will result a sense of work-under-force in reportees minds which will surely backfires heavily on the manager & the entity as soon as the curfew ends and this is because job opportunities will be more available.

Entity

As the Arabic saying “This is the Horse stall!”.

As we mentioned, as many successful stories out there, There are entities who have struggled or still struggling since they have shifted to Teleworking and we would like to highlight some of those reasons:

DRC/Contingency Plan

When your understanding about Disaster Recovery or contingency plan concept as an entity is all about Fire, Flood or Earthquakes then it sounds pretty in-comprehensive.

Entity Awareness

Entities who had no awareness nor any communication with the regulators or respective ministries on the possible precautionary measures might be taken lead those entities directly into struggling by their own hands.

Teleworking = Call Center Myth

We believe prior to this global pandemic, most of the entities in this world were convinced that teleworking is only for call center staff. Well, Surprise! It is not so much exclusive to call centers now isn’t it?.

?Conclusion

The conclusion is, this global pandemic have thrown many traditional ideas under the bus. The problem is not in the Teleworking methodology but rather in us and how we are dealing with it.

We believe that all the issues employees, managers and entities experiencing are normal since this is new to almost everyone, But it is not normal not to point at the issues and fix it.

Employees must have a specified workplace at their homes, Have more discipline to their working hours and manage their managers creatively.

Managers must overcome the negative ideas they might experience in such situations and look at the bright side, In addition to maintain the positive morale of their team and prepare a team workflow plan & coordinate with other managers to have a solid SLA in order for them to protect their teams from any extra or unnecessary work.

Entities must have a comprehensive Disaster Recovery Plan (DRC), Proper awareness & communication with the respective regulators, Specified working hours depending on the type of the situation and re-evaluate the necessity of workforce attendance & work space accordingly which will help them cut a significant amount of cost in maintaining offices/buildings/towers.

Let us all pray & work together to overcome ourselves in order to become a stronger workforce which will result in having a stronger economy!.