The COVID-19 Effect

An old foe become friend for corporate companies

Introduction

I have been worked for corporate companies for an important time of my business life and always have go        ne through the same when it comes to REMOTE OFFICE or HOME OFFICE, both words are hatred and feared as well, un-favored work environment and also a cause to lose your job. But this suddenly change due to the last pandemic situation.

Status COVID-19

Just to give you a last view (for those who not follow), pandemic is spreading like wildfire. Based on the WHO “Situation report 188”, globally almost 15,8 Million people have been affected and the death rolls is over 640.000 worldwide. Most affected are highly developed and crowded regions such as America’s, Europe and South East Asia (clearly where it all started).

CDC estimated death count between 160.000 and 175.000 for August 15th for USA only (today at 144.000).

Some countries in Europe and South East Asia currently facing a second wave of COVID-19 in their countries and need to re-do everything from the beginning. Travel restrictions, controlled lock downs and similar precautions are on the table again.

Based on such information there will be no fast or quick resolution in the pandemic situation.

We need to learn how to live and who to protect ourselves from this incident. Either wait and stay alive till the vaccine have been found or until the human body adopt in a natural way to this live, as the human nature did to the flu.

Good old world of corporate's

For those who have been worked in corporate's understands and knows what is going on in big organizations. To keep control of the workforce, most of such preferred to keep their staff in their “perfectly” and “comfort” office spaces, rather than spend too much time in the field, at the customer or even trying to work remotely. The main reason and word were CONTROL your PERSONAL. This changed due to COVID from the foundations.

New world with COVID-19

COVID-19 show all managers that a crowded office isn’t secure at all (this truth was known by many people, but not considered). Some companies did have less than 10 square meters per employee and even call centers are like small boxes designed to have many operators in the same space available.

One of such companies was my former employee Siemens. Since begin of the pandemic most of the office workers (white collar) moved to remote working spaces aka home offices and a plan to keep them as such is also announced. An article published by Silicon Report from July 24th 2020 mentioned that over 140.000 remote workers will be continuing to be remote. Development of a strategy and how to keep those workers motivated is also on the table as well.

Japan faces a second wave and the government ordered to keep 70% of all office workers at home. Similar announcement form Google hit the news. Google will work from home or remotely until July 2021 and therefore extend the existing working conditions.

Many more like Siemens, Google or Governments will follow that path since they realized that remote working isn’t a foe at all, people keep even working more from home and you get rid of many additional expenditures that you need to consider in an office environment nowadays or before the pandemic.

The world before COVID-19

Let’s keep a short look to the work conditions before the COVID-19 situation.

Normal office hours are 8:00 / 8:30 to 17:00 / 17:30 and to get to work you need to get in public transportation or use you own car (or company car). At office you go for you coffee, spend certain time on your desk, arrange your business by multiple tool such as e-mails or phone calls. On noon you go for lunch, back to office second part of business activities. Between all that you get some refreshments, using office restrooms, electricity and so on.

Roughly saying spending 10 hours for business if not extend your work or been stocked in rush hour traffic. Less time to spend time with friends and family, for your own leisure etc.

Corporate companies paying for all hot and cold rents to keep us in the offices, including supporting services for keep the building and space clean, comfortable and even secure. Rising rents of business spaces etc are nature of such. Even in such areas you will work through tools like Skype, video conferences (vidcons) and others to be connected to people you might need to work together.

That’s changed FINALLY….

Pros of COVID

There are some positive outcomes due to COVID:

·        Less office space usage

·        Wireless connectivity rather than wired and fixed work places

·        Reduction in space will reduce also related necessary services such as electricity, water, heating, beverages, cleaning, cleaning and housekeeping expenditures

·        Less traffic, due to reduced transportation requirements

·        Reduced public transportation expenditures (if any necessary)

·        As seen before, better climatic condition and less greenhouse gas emissions

·        Less communication expenditures at corporate building levels

·        New revenue from space renting at corporate campus or buildings

·        Reduced stress of office workers / reduced conflicts in some cases

But the NEW world isn’t that perfect, there are multiple negative effects as well as new expenditures necessary.

Cons of COVID

Even if we praise that the NEW WORKING conditions will give better opportunities, there are at least more negative impacts created as well.

·        Working remotely or from home will cause a condition for insurance of the workers, at what condition will the insurance valid and when not?

·        Connectivity will be rerouted to the HOME or PUBLIC space, security will be even more important than ever

·        Expenditures must or will be expected to cover from corporate companies rather than use your own home network

·        Since the data direction changed, external connection needs to be increased as well as security measures and IP stacks

·        Data throughput is another issue. More traffic will come from the remote side and the throughput speed needs to be adapted. In worst case additional network investment will be necessary

·        Similar issue will be existing at the Data Center side. The access per port and sharing of network resources gets important. Additional investment might be necessary for such structure.

·        Remote management of users and data traffic control will be another necessary component for such a change in direction.

Even if some of the investment needs to be increase, based on some certain assumptions the savings from remote working will compensate such investment of the network.

The winds of changing….

Even if “Scorpions” (German Rock Band) release this song at 1990 due to the end of the cold war, glasnost and also at Nov 2011 for the fall of the Berlin Wall, it also will give some inspiration to the status and future of COVID-19 conditions.

Most of the corporate companies did heavily invest in the LOCAL and INTERNAL networks, infrastructure, services as well as support. Since a lot of workers will start to work remotely all this investment must be rethink, rerouted and restructured due to REMOTE conditions. Unfortunately, there is no magic ward to restructure the infrastructure and change the direction of such.

Clear is the way of working will change for good and we need to life in such conditions for a long and certain time, may be for several years. Even if this NEW WORLD is a bit strange for people in middle age, it’s reflecting more or less the youth habits and create a certain new employee type that all corporates needs to adapt as well.

Welcome to the new world of working, new world of REMOTE WORKING and DISTRIBUTED OFFICES…

Gokhan Yanmaz

August 2020, Istanbul