Work From Home: What it means in 2020

The Corona outbreak surely caught us all by surprise. A "force majeure" in a microscopic package! With most people closest to epicenters of infection, shutting themselves in and others relatively far but within reach of the pandemic taking preventive measures, we see us in this new era where "work" had to be taken home. The markets are crashing, which loosely translates to the shareholders' changing perceptions of brand value amalgamated by impending gloom and doom. Both the employer and employee need to quickly adapt in order to make it through this event. This WFH situation isn't like before, when we have the entire team available onsite, with only a few working remotely, this situation is truly taking the workforce to the virtual world! For organisations operating in the IT/ITeS sector, the situation compels a mobile workforce and most of these employers have taken their data centers to the cloud. For employees in this sector, mobility and timely delivery could be the key to sustained operations, and revenue generation.

Now that we've stated the obvious, let's look at how each of us deal with this situation as an individual. Humans will revert Down Maslow's Hierarchy of needs, where the importance of shelter, safety and security takes precedence over self actualisation or self esteem, in times of crises. A crisis triggers deep emotional responses in an individual which corresponds to negatively impacting change. The Kubler-Ross grief cycle is extremely apt in capturing these deep emotional responses. The stages broadly fall into the list below;

1. Denial - No way, this isn't happening!
2. Anger - Why didn't they control the spread of the virus?! Why can't people just stay indoors?!
3. Bargaining - Maybe if we just hunker down for a few weeks, all this will blow away!
4. Depression - Life will never return to normal. I'm doomed!
5. Acceptance - OK, this is really happening. What can I do to minimise uncertainty?

Every person today, will go through all these phases in their own pace, without exception. The most interesting part of this cycle is the 5th stage, as our mind is wired to give us solutions, but only once we've accepted the situation. The 5th stage is where solutions turn into actions that can have quantifiable results.

We do not have the luxury of being near our colleagues right now, there might be virtual support but the allowance of collective work is limited to video/voice calls. The list below seems to be the most relevant steps in terms of dealing with this situation;

1. Allow yourself to absorb the situation. This need not necessarily be rushed.
2. Express your fears and worries to your confidant, let it out!
3. Adopt a positive mindset! These events are out of control, the only thing one can take charge of is his/her responses to the situation.
4. Minimise the media/news to two times a day. We only need to know what counter measures are being taken, and how it will impact us. We really don't need political dogma right now.
5. Stay busy! We have to keep ourselves occupied intellectually and physically. Maybe it's time to start those home workouts we've been procrastinating about, or learn a new skill. E-learning really does have some good content these days.

When all of this settles down, (and it eventually will) we're going to be OK.