WORK-FROM-HOME WORKS: THE FUTURE OF WORKPLACES

 The mode of work where employees, whether self-employed or working for an employer, work from their own premises (or somewhere close by) is commonly referred to as ‘work-from-home (WFH)’ in today’s parlance.  when a person works for an employer away from the specified workplace is also referred to as ‘remote working’ or ‘telecommuting’.

                                                 

 THE WORK-FROM-HOME REVOLUTION 

The practice of working from the comfort of their own homes has been practiced from time immemorial. Artists like painters and skilled workers like blacksmiths often did their work at home workshops or simply at their place of residence. Mostly worked from home till hospitals came into existence. Even now many doctors continue to practice from their homes. In the last thirty years, since the arrival of the computer and the Internet, more people have started to work from their homes, at least part of the time. This is fairly common among the new generation of ‘information technology(IT)’ professionals. In the past ten years, in parallel with WFH developed the idea of shared workspaces where people who either worked for themselves or another employer shared a built-up workspace for the purpose.

 While both these trends have been developing steadily in these modern times, it was not considered mainstream. Employers often allowed their staff to work from home primarily as a favor and often as an exception. Self-employed people chose to work from home primarily as a cost-saving exercise. However, with the arrival of the covid-19 pandemic, there has been a massive disruption of mobility and, as is known, has caused panic over working together in office settings. For this reason, remote working suddenly became a necessity and not an option. Work that could be done remotely has now become, at least for a brief while, the only type of work that can be undertaken without exposing people to the excess risk of catching the infection. International Labor Organization estimated that more than 1.5 billion jobs were disrupted between January and April 2020. Suddenly, the WFH option has become a necessity and not an exception. Without warning or preparation, hundreds of millions of people had to start work from home. This is the biggest workplace revolution that has happened in the history of employment and has happened in a scale and scope that far exceeds that which was brought about by the ‘assembly line manufacturing processes in the early part of the twentieth century. This is the only comparable event in history. 

WORK-FROM-HOME WORK

 When the shift of the workplace from the office to the home just started, most employers (and many employees) were very apprehensive about the efficacy of the arrangement and the fallout of the process. Both employers and employees saw it as an emergency measure only to be reversed as soon as the Covid-19-pandemic-included lockdown was lifted. However, three months into this global workplace revolution, the conclusions are unambiguous. WFH works!

                                        

                                                        

Organizations across the world are questioning the need and wisdom of having massive office premises in expensive cities to accommodate their staff while it has been proven that employees could work, be supervised, and produce outputs without traveling to a commonplace of work. Employees now realize that they can continue to be productive and have more time for themselves and family when working from home. This is a win-win situation and employers like Twitter have already announced that their employees will never return to the office to work Tata Consultancy Services was the first major Indian IT company that announced that by the year 2025, up to working from home. While any quantitative figure did not emerge, it is obvious that other companies will soon follow suit.

ADVANTAGES OF REMOTE WORKING

  There are many advantages of working from home, and these are not limited only to the employee and the employer. Some of the most important advantages are;

1.cost savings for the employer:

    They no longer need to establish and maintain big office spaces, often in the form of expensive urban real estate, to bring people together to work. In addition to buying or renting office space, the employer also has to arrange for office security, lighting, air conditioners, and cafeteria among other expenses. Even if 50 % of the employees choose to work from home or employees start to work 50 % from their own homes, employers can realize significant savings.

2. Reduced travel expenses:

   Official travel used to be another major expenditure item for most employers. Many employers paid both local travel allowances as well as bear the costs of international travel for their employees WFH will significantly reduce these costs.

3. No worries about work permits or visas:

    Even multinational employers have to set up their office spaces within specific national boundaries. One of the major challenges for global employers is obtaining the required work permits for their staff. Almost all countries in the world have some type of restriction on who they will allow working in their countries and how many employees an employer can bring in. This restricted the talent pool from which employers could strains, creating an opportunity for a truly global workforce to be put in place.

4. minimal disruption to personal life:

     Employees who aspired to improve their career potential often had to move between cities (and often countries) as part of mobility in their own organization or when moving to a new employer. This caused significant challenges in their personal lives. Employed spouses often had to leave their jobs (or be separated from their partners), children had disrupted education and the entire family sacrificed their personal and social networks they created at their current work bases.

5. Maximum personal and family time:

    In addition to shifting away from their base to another location to work, most employees also had to undergo the daily commute to their workplaces. Depending on the city, this could be anywhere between a few minutes to a few hours every day. When people opt to work from home this saves the time spent on travel and which is available to be spent for the family, friends or self. 

6. Reduced load on transport in Fra structure:

      When millions of employees are moving around every day commuting to and to and from work, society has to create transport infrastructure to meet this huge demand. This ranges from big road networks to public transport systems. WFH arrangement will reduce this load on the transport infrastructure making roads less congested and saving time for everybody in turn.

7. Reversing ‘brain drain:

     As mobility invariably resulted in economic advantages, there was a global trend for people to migrate from the villages to cities and from developing countries to the developed countries. This denuded village and developing countries of a lot of local talent which also reflected in the quality of governance in these places. When such a situation arises where the best people could continue to stay wherever they are and take full economic advantage of the global workplace, it will enhance the local talent pool in those places that are currently impacted by brain drain.