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Work from Home Needs a Robust Ecosystem

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BY Chandrasekhar Sripada

After 10 months of work from home (WFH) , countries and companies have found many benefits of this COVID-induced social and work place experiment Many employers see large savings due to reduced real estate costs and many employees like the flexibility of WFH. As more people work away from centralized offices, numerous benefits are evident: urban decongestion, reduction in CO2 emissions, growth of rural economies as skilled people return to the small towns, and access to untapped talent pools, (think of rural women, senior citizens, etc.). As technology advances, smart factories, distributed work hubs, prefab construction, and tech-enabled agriculture and plantation could move many jobs away from ‘centralized’ locations, even for non-IT employees.

However, are nations and corporations ready to harness the benefits of large-scale remote work? Clearly no. WFH has been at best, an emergency response to the COVID-19 crisis. Both our sense of triumph and trepidation over WFH stem from perpetuating and replicating office work at ill-equipped workforce – over painfully long zoom calls. Cramped homes, care giving responsibilities for young kids and old people, patchy internet, etc., are some of the major challenges people face while working from home organizations are equally hassled and poorly prepared to ‘extract’ work (as the popular expression goes) from the discomfort of distance.

All this happens when suddenly millions of people are pushed into WFH – without any thoughtful preparation. This is unsustainable. We need holistic and integrated thinking around making remote work, work.

Remember, it took over 300 years to hone and evolve the present office-based work system. Ever since the first formal office of the western world – the Royal admiralty office in 1726- was set up in London – we have built a whole ecosystem for offices. The current management processes, organization designs, personal and public transportation models, parking lots, ergonomic furniture, food courts, etc., make office work efficient.

What have we done to enable remote work? If we have to give a chance to the new opportunity of working from anywhere: from homes, neighbourhood co-working spaces, or staycation spots, we must build a robust ecosystem with thoughtful and evidence-based interventions around four factors:

ICT infrastructure: Nations and societies across the world, must think of enabling universal access to high-speed and reliable internet, invest in robust ICT infrastructure, and advance the goals of building digital economies not merely to support e-commerce but encourage e-work alias remote work. It is time to push for making access to ‘always- on’ internet a basic right of citizens. Countries must learn to leapfrog and bridge the growing ‘digital divide.’ Sri Lanka’s natural bounty and very attractive ‘staycation’ spots makes it a globally competitive destination for work from anywhere plans . However, this can be leveraged only if the right eco-system is built.

Distributed Offices and Co-working hubs:

Building a remote work ecosystem in small villages and towns will help connect rural youth, women, and underprivileged sections to mainstream employment. It is time provincial and local authorities compete to attract talent to their towns away from the big cities like the Tulsa remote initiative in the US where city workers are incentivized to move back to small towns.

Training and HR Systems:

Employers need to reimagine many of their HR and organization systems to enable remote work. Industry bodies should think of evolving a full-suite of handbooks, tool kits, and training programmes to help employers, especially small firms, adopt and leverage ‘remote work’ not only as a cost-saving device but also as a talent tapping tool. Raised to confuse proximity with control and socialization with collaboration, most Managers do not have the skills or mindsets to manage virtual teams. They need to be trained and re-oriented to appreciate the virtues of virtual work.

Culture and Mindsets:

Remote work can be a powerful transformational tool only if companies can usher in more distributed organization models and bury traditional hierarchies. Managing a remote workforce will demand a massive mindset shift and a trust-based inclusive culture. Firms must not underestimate this tectonic shift. And remember, millennial workforce is waiting for this change and already suffocated by the archaic and often feudal management practices.

It is time to move beyond the speculation of whether WFH will continue. We should seize this moment in history and evolve a robust remote work ecosystem as a societal and national strategy to get future-ready. As they say: ’don’t waste a crisis’.

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Chandrasekhar Sripada is Professor of Practice in Organizational Behaviour and Human Capital at the Indian School of Business (Hyderabad and Mohali, India) and is currently researching on ecosystem factors for effective remote work. Views are personal.

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