WHY THE 9-TO-5 WORK ROUTINE CAN NEVER END

Thanks to the pandemic, we have realized various crucial aspects of our lives, including our well-being, importance of work-life balance and the love-hate relationship between employee and employer

Due to these facts, various companies, thought leaders & workers have realized the useless nature of a 9-to-5 x 5-days-a-week work routine

Extensive work has been published over the last two years, on advocating why this 1926 Henry Ford model of industrial worker productivity is defunct, and why it should be trashed out. The latest trends suggest employees should be given flexibility, freedom, and frankness to determine a working schedule that suits them, while ensuring they perform to their fullest

Below are some fundamental barriers which will hinder this idea's wider acceptance & attempted successful implementation, if a case were to be made in its favor

1) DEFINITION OF PERFORMANCE

Organizations world over would need to adopt to newer, intelligent forms of measuring employee productivity. This would require them to embrace business technology and employee trust. Instead of ensuring physical presence of employees to keep the seats warm inside the office space, companies will have to engage their workers mentally through identifiable set of measures which could lead to deeper accountability.

Are the organizations willing to invest? More importantly, what will be the ROI?

2) BATTLE OF MINDSETS

Even though industrial revolution ended almost 200 years ago, modern corporate mindset has still not accepted its end. Keeping track of attendance records, timely entry & exit punch-ins, penalty on late arrivals / early sign-outs & employee fines (both monetary & non-monetary) are just some of the various indicators of this thought process.

Radical change won't happen as acceptance of status quo and resistance to anything new is universal

3) IS THE EMPLOYEE READY?

Work-from-home during COVID era was both a blessing & a curse for many. It was assumed that since one is working online, availability will be 24x7 and an employee will be bombarded with calls/messages/meeting requests any time of the day. Policies and work ethos to protect employee burnout were non-existent, as after all the employee was "at home" and the application used meant an "Always On" presence.

Can we imagine & implement a 9-to-5 work routine digitally?

?4) ACCOUNTABILITY & DISCIPLINE

Knowing that I can attend the 7.30 AM meeting from my bed half-awake wearing shorts OR enjoy watching "Breaking Bad" as I work on the presentation slides means a breakdown of the official ecosystem that many of us thrive in.

Not saying that productivity is determined by ties and a desk space but removing an employee from his working environment has several demerits. For example, most workers don't have the luxury of having divided office space at home and in doing so, they end up invading their families' space.

Can we accept mixing personal & professional space together while feeling good about it?

To sum it up, as post-COVID era matures globally, the idea of remote work will gradually become an exotic memory for most of us, and it will have limited practical applications for select industries & job types

Unless & until organizations are given a viable alternative, billions of people worldwide will continue to spend unlimited hours each week, inside those cubicles, clicking away their time, which would still be the only measure of their productivity??