THE IMPACT OF THE PANDEMIC ON CORPORATE OFFICE WORK
WILL REMOTE WORKING BE THE NEW NORMAL?
“The biggest mistake you can make is to believe that you are working for someone else.”
I don’t have first–hand experience working from home for a large company, so I asked my daughter and one of my close relatives who are working long distance via technology driven telecommuting for two different international companies, to share their experiences with me. I asked them to share their thoughts on the advantages and disadvantages of remote working, for both them and for their company in order to prepare this article.
Since the coronavirus pandemic and lockdown started, corporate America had no choice but make all of their non-essential employees work from home, regardless of their misgivings. So far, it appears that remote work has provided some benefits for both the companies and the employees.
From the corporate standpoint, their worries about employees working from home would decrease their productivity and would cause early burnout did not materialize. Actually, productivity increased and no burnout occurred. Companies were able to save a lot of rent money because they didn’t need that much expensive office space any longer. Furthermore, they realized that they can extend their search and their talent pool away from their hometowns to other cities.
Already many expensive office high rises in downtown areas of big cities are empty. Some of them are event being converted into condos for sale or rental for the general public.
These events reminded me what happened to overbuilt luxury shopping malls when Amazon and e- commerce became a dominant force in retail sales. Shopping malls became obsolete, many of them were converted to warehouses or residences or remain empty.
However, not every big corporation is excited about remote office work. While some big companies like Facebook, Twitter, Shopify and Zillow are developing plans to let their employees work remotely on a permanent basis, some other big companies like IBM are not very enthusiastic about this idea of working from a distance. Because of their experience in the past, there has been disappointing failures.
It is very interesting when we look at the long distance office work from the employees’ standpoint, we see the existence of the same dichotomy. Even though all employees like saving time for not commuting, only some of them are very satisfied with working from home, and some of them don’t like it at all.
I believe this is due to their personality, culture and upbringing. Some people like working alone. These people are kind of a loner. They like working alone; they have a build in freelancer mindset and they are self-motivated.
On the other hand, some other people like to be with their colleagues when working. They are bored working at home with the same routine being with their other half, day in and day out. They state that there is no break between work and personal life. They feel like they are living at work. There is no contact with other people, no discussions, no chance meeting of new people to get inspired or motivated. Sooner or later, what is called “Zoom fatigue” sets in. Furthermore, some feel like they are marginalized, they are not part of the real team or that they are second class workers when they are not working in the office.
I believe the same kind of dualism exists in the corporate world for the same reasons. Depending on what a corporation does, their core mission, work culture, and whether or not the meeting of the minds, discussions and brainstorming sessions are important for their mission – this determines how they will for find new ideas and innovations. If this is the case, long – distance virtual work is not for them. They are eager to get back to the office, as soon as a safe and effective vaccine is found.
