Think it - Work from Home (WFH) Challenges and Opportunities

The Internet has made many things possible which were considered impossible or impracticable before and one such thing is working from home (WFH) or working from anywhere (WFA). It is like being a digital nomad. WFH has given employees or solopreneur much desired freedom from a host of activities like commuting to and from office, creating a niche for entrepreneurs i-e solopreneurship, working at your own time settings, avoiding distraction etc. Every process has its pros and cons. This is also true for WFH or WFA. While there are benefits for the employees and employers, there are also some disadvantages for the both. Let’s look at the WFH in depth to understand what is going to work and how?

Some companies were practicing WFH well before the Covid-19 pandemic such as Automattic - owner of Wordpress, a blogging platform. But the pandemic brought this concept to mainstream and now there is a good number of employees who don't want to go back to office and that has created a problem for the employers who want them back in the office, hence a tide of great resignations. Employers are offering incentives to employees to go back to office and on the other hand employees are ready to sacrifice some part of wage to enjoy the comfort of working from home (WFH). 

Professor Norihiko Takeuchi of Graduate School of Business and Finance, Waseda University, Japan has defined WFH “it is a form of work in which employees engage in mutual communication by using information and communication technology (ICT) and so forth, in a space away from the workplace (e.g., at home) without having physical contact with other colleagues. It is also referred to as telework, telecommuting, distributed work, or flexible work arrangements. 

The challenges facing the WFH environment are for the employers supervision of their remote workers and for the employees their work routine. This has been thrusted upon both the employers and employees for which they were not prepared and now they are facing difficulties in adjusting to this new reality. It was quite easy for the supervisors to monitor their subordinates in the physical environment and also was easy for the employees to interact with each other and with their superiors. Now this physical environment has been turned on its head and has made all these relationships difficult. This change has also impacted relations with customers and suppliers as well. There is a communication gap and lag as well. Professor Norihiko Takeuchi has outlined these challenges (1) the marketing issues such as difficulty in acquiring potential customers, prolonged lead-time before receiving orders from the customers, and lower closing rates and (2) administrative issues such as the increase in inter- and intra-departmental communication problems, the rise in difficulty in motivation management, and the emergence of issues in subordinates’ evaluation and training. 

For everyone, it is out of sight and out of sync and telecommuting is too much of a tech headache. It involves choosing the right technology, timing, dealing with unstable internet, distractions at home and on top of that steep learning curve to effectively use the technology to best serve the purpose e.g. adjusting to online meetings rules & etiquettes , choosing a quiet corner at home for that purpose, setting up the equipment and getting into the “Work from Home” routine to replicate the office routine. Another issue that creeps in is that when you are Working From Home without in-person contact, you feel isolated and questions arise of colleagues’ trust and alignment.

This remote work has also brought many opportunities. Commute times have been slashed. Operational costs are down because of low use of utilities in the office, rent savings from office space vacated, no more travel allowance. Hiring and retaining employees without asking them to relocate is another benefit resolving the travel barriers. Working from Home brings in additional free time as there is no commuting to office, flexible working hours to adjust to domestic needs, more time with family.

Since office jobs are more or less a team work. You depend on the work of some to do your job and some depend on you to do their work. So, to capitalise on these apparent benefits of remote work, all members of the team need tight coordination keeping in view the timing of each member. It needs explicit planning for each task, breaking tasks into subtasks and creating dependency of subtasks, clear subtask assignment with deadline, a reporting mechanism to see at a glance the bottleneck. Micromanaging will not do the job rather trusting the team and aligning them to a shared goal will. Collaboration among team members is important for the success of remote work. Tsedal Neeley - Harvard Professor has elucidated the following four essential elements for the teams to work effectively.

1. Shared goals that make plain and clear the aims that the team is pursuing.

2. Shared understanding about each member’s roles, functions, and constraints.

3. Shared understanding of available resources ranging from budgets to information.

4. Shared norms that map out how teammates will collaborate effectively.

She advises team launch for positive results. She says “While the “prework” determines what shape the team will take—its function, composition, design, etc.—and thus happens even before the team itself exists, the launch takes place at the moment the team comes together. As Hackman puts it, the team launch is what “breathes life” into the team by ensuring that every member understands and agrees on how they can work together most effectively. If teams skip this step, or brush past it in an effort to start work immediately, they often lose direction and falter down the road. Leaders need to be proactive about more, not less, periodic relaunches. The typical length for a launch is an hour or an hour and a half, and that time can be spread across two sessions. Every member needs to be present for an open discussion to share opinions and contribute perspectives on the best ways to work together as a team. When working remotely, launches should be video meetings where people can be as connected as digital technology allows.”

Bosses are concerned with monitoring of the dispersed employees and their productivity. While workers are concerned with focus, effectiveness of working remotely, and coping with loneliness. According to Tsedal Neeley’s research many companies tried to monitor the working of their employees by installing a software in their PCs that would track their keyboard strokes and the websites they visited and some even went beyond this in addition to software it was required for the employees to download a GPS tracker on their personal phones. The measures were intended to ensure the company’s productivity by trailing employee work behaviours all day. Bosses must recognize the risks associated with digital supervision. Even if implemented with good intentions, digital surveillance by definition conveys a lack of trust between employers and employees—especially if these tools are an attempt to establish control. When you signal mistrust in employees, you are eradicating the bedrock of effective teamwork. What good are “awareness technologies”—or any attempt to enhance productivity, for that matter—if the most basic conditions - trust and empathy -  for a productive team don’t exist? Management scholars studied the effects of remote working on productivity and the answer is remote workers loved their logistical conveniences. No more anxiety about getting to the office on time. No more back pain from a long commute on a crowded bus. The study found that remote employees who could get to work in the time it took to walk from their kitchen to their desk had 30 percent higher productivity than their commuting colleagues.The success of remote work depends on the ability to self-direct and manage your own work processes. In fact, success of remote work is identified with autonomy as pivotal to job satisfaction and performance. By autonomy, means the ability to self-govern. In remote work, this translates into flexibility in the timing and location of work. With the exception of periods that call for coordinated efforts with teammates, having control over where, when, and how you work matters a great deal—and for good reason. It signals trust and reliability (which in turn boosts self-confidence), it allows ownership over projects (which in turn boosts personal investment in the project’s success), and it allows the tailoring of your workday according to individual schedules (which in turn makes for more efficiency).

Remote Workers need to follow a disciplined routine to be effective. Carolyn O’Hara points out five Ways to Work from Home More Effectively. 

1. Maintain a regular schedule - “Without supervision, even the most conscientious of us can slack off,” says Hallowell. Setting a schedule not only provides structure to the day, it also helps you stay motivated. Start the day as you would if you worked in an office: Get up early, get dressed, and try to avoid online distractions once you sit down to work.

2. Set clear boundaries - When you work at home, it’s easy to let your work life blur into your home life. “Unless you are careful to maintain boundaries, you may start to feel you’re always at work and lose a place to come home to,” Hallowell says. That’s why it’s important to keep the two distinct. One way to do that is to set aside a separate space in your home for work. You also want to make sure your friends and loved ones understand that even though you are at home, you are off limits during your scheduled work hours.

3. Take regular breaks - It may be tempting to work flat out, especially if you’re trying to prove that you’re productive at home. But it’s vital to “take regular ‘brain breaks,’” says Hallowell. How often is best? Researchers at a social media company recently tracked the habits of their most productive employees. They discovered that the best workers typically worked intently for around 52 minutes and then took a 17-minute break.

4. Stay connected - Prolonged isolation can lead to weakened productivity and motivation. So if you don’t have a job that requires face-time with others on a daily basis, you need to put in the extra effort to stay connected. Make a point of scheduling regular coffees and meetings with colleagues, clients, and work peers. Get involved with professional organisations.

5. Celebrate your wins - When you’re working on your own at home, staying motivated can be difficult, especially when distractions like netsurfing on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter etc. One smart way to maintain momentum is to spend a moment or two acknowledging what you have been able to accomplish that day, rather than fixating on what you still need to do. “Take some time at the end of the day to attend to the things that you got done instead of the things you didn’t get done,” says Kramer.

Everything in this world has its advantages and disadvantages. It is up to us how we enjoy the benefits while avoiding the harm.