Pros and Cons of Working From Home during COVID19 Lockdown – Part 1

The changes that have occurred in the lives of people all around us since the pandemic of COVID ’19 shook the world are so drastic that we can clearly differentiate our times as pre-COVID and pro-COVID era.

Barring just a handful of industries (like video conferencing tools, OTT platforms, pharma, gaming, e-commerce), every other industry had to bear the brunt of it. Loss of business, livelihood, jobs have created a big dent in the economy of individuals, companies and countries to such a massive scale that no one would ever wish such crisis to befall upon anyone at any time in the future.

The IT industry is not isolated from the effect of this catastrophic event. There have been remarkable changes in the way IT companies function. They have started finding new ways to maintain BAU while the employees are confined to their homes due to lockdown and fear of getting infected while commuting to work, interacting with teammates etc. Owing to government guidelines on physical distancing, companies have started focusing on having the least possible number of employees reporting to work by attending the office physically. Thanks to COVID19; all top-notch companies are taking steps to make remote work more feasible. Not all measures been taken are makeshift basis. Every other day, we hear some other company planning to reduce its infrastructure costs and withhold its further expansion plans till the current pandemic dies down. Also, long term plans are being chalked out simultaneously to make WFH option more reliable for the managers to trust upon.

Few of the monumental decisions taken by IT companies:

• Twitter, Square announce WFH forever option for their employees:

• Google, Facebook employees can return to offices only after 2020

• TCS wants to have 75% of its employees to work from home by 2025

It’s a well-known thing that remote working would have never got such a boost at least in the next 5-10 years if not for this situation. Those companies which had archaic management policies that depended on ‘seeing is believing’ when it comes to work; such companies are finding it difficult to accept the new normal. Picture this. A manager who never let any of his employees to work from home as he/she strongly felt that employees just don’t work but relax at home. The same manager now conducts online meetings and suggests ways to improve their productivity while staying at home. At times, things change so dramatically.

But is remote working all that good? Does it really help the IT professionals if they stay at home and do the work? Are all those who have been longing to get this opportunity of WFH finding it useful, comfortable and joyful? Are there any unforeseen pitfalls if one opts for ‘forever WFH’? Is it possible that employees themselves would prefer working from office once this pandemic gets over? Are companies being hasty while deciding to do away with the requirement of employees having to be present in the office during the working hours? What about the Swipe-in swipe-out policy and logging the daily hours or work?

Perhaps looking at the pros and cons would provide a better understanding on it:

For most of the employees, ‘Work from home’ seems like a dream (at least till this extended ‘work from home’ became a reality). It always looked more fancy than fearful. Coming to the advantages of Work from Home:

No commute

Other advantages may or may not be applicable for many, but this one’s an outright winner in terms of best benefit of working from home. With ever increasing traffic (especially in peak hours) in the metro cities, traveling to and form the office is everyone’s nightmare. There are situations wherein almost 3-4 hrs or more go off in just traveling for work for the IT employees. So, when the company comes up with an option to skip this traveling, employees would wholeheartedly grab such an opportunity.

Apart from the time saved, it also helps in avoiding the effects of Air and Noise pollution that one is subjected to during the travel. Isn’t that something like two strokes of luck?

You can also claim to have become a green warrior as you create lesser carbon footprint on the environment as you no longer use that fuel-guzzling cars/bikes to travel 30-40 kms daily to reach office and get back home

Flexible working hours

You can bid goodbye to punching the clock if you work from home. Even if there’s a standup call at 9AM daily, you can attend the call and have your breakfast later.  Those with kids can perhaps plan dropping their kids at schools and resume work regularly. Those who could not squeeze in time for some physical exercise or meditation can now plan to include this health benefiting rituals in their daily routine. The hurry burry nature of mornings in the homes of working couple with school kids to be readied up takes a new form altogether. Things can be done with more ease and comfort.

More time with family

The last time when I had to spend time with my relatives who had come over to my home after a gap of 5 years; I had no other option than to apply 2 days of leave from my work. At times, when family time & work time clashes, most of us reluctantly sacrifice our family time. A friend of mine had to opt for child-care service (which cost a bomb nowadays) whenever the schools were off while the office (of his and his wife’s) still treated those days as workdays. With WFH, he’s saving money while spending time with his kids.

Similarly helping the kids with homework and assignments, having a siesta in the afternoons (was that supposed to be a secret :O), spending time on our hobbies and still having time to spare after all these is what makes ‘work from home’ such an attractive proposition.

Attend few personal and family needs without the hassle of forgoing leaves

Few months back, I had some bank related work which meant that I had to apply half-a-day leave multiple times within 2 weeks. Just an hour of non-official work on a weekday meant having to apply leave at work. The other time, I had to collect health reports of my parents on a specific day (a weekday to be specific), I had to take a leave again. Some minor festivals, having appointment with the doctor, having to attend PTA meetings and lot such personal and family related events which demand the employee’s time of just 2-3 hours in the weekday mornings meant that the employee has to apply half or full day leave and attend those. With ‘work from home’, it gets easy to push the work schedule a little and handle both office and family work efficiently.

Lighter on the pocket

Working from office doesn’t come easy. Travel to office is a cost. Having lunch at food courts is a cost. Having those chai-sutta is a cost. With work from home, all these have come to a naught. That friend of yours who always pinched pennies has all the more reason to be happy now 😀

No more formal wear

Quite a lot of companies follow the dress code policy which dictates what can/cannot be worn to office. That doesn’t make any difference in the current times. As long as you can pull up a formal shirt (yup, trousers and shoes not needed to match at all with your shirt) within seconds before that dreaded video call, you are good to go. There’s no wonder if the entire formal wear industry finds very less takers worldwide even after the current pandemic ends. There’s just not much need of dressing up so frequently and so elegantly as was needed earlier.

Lesser micro-management

Yet another big breather for many of those working under nosy managers who need hourly updates on the progress of the work done. Hardly can a manager follow up with every employee multiple times per day which can eventually lead to a scenario wherein the micro manager would start focusing on more pressing issues related to project deliverables rather than useless focus on whether an employee is seated at his/her desk or missing or not.

Office politics meets a dead-end

If work from home becomes more of a new normal, it would hit them harder who carve their career path through sycophancy and backbiting. It sounds a death knell to all those plans of rising up the career ladder by pulling down others in the eyes of the manager while praising the manager to the sky to get into his/her good books.

More productivity

Enough of talking from employee’s perspective. How about talk about advantages of Work from home for the employers for a change?

In complete contrast to what was feared about, almost all the companies have stated a spike in productivity levels of their employees. Well, I would have considered that as a joke if I hadn’t got shoved with all those new articles confirming it.

Impress employees by offering ‘work from home’ option as well as get more work done from them. Can it get better than this for any CEO?

Lesser need for office infrastructure, security, food court, cleaning services

If on no given day, 100% of the workforce of a company is going to be physically present in the office, why don’t we do away with a major part of physical infrastructure (cubicles, meeting rooms, office spaces, conference related equipment, desktops at office)? Why should there still be monthly expenses borne of the entire rented office spaces? Can’t that be reduced in a big way?

Why is there a need of so many food courts in the office premises? Can the security staff also be reduced as the work needed to be done by them has gone down? Cleaning staff can also be cut down similarly. Every such action reduces the operational costs enormously for the company. When was the last time that a company reduced its monthly expenditure to a great extent without having to consider about how it would negatively impact the employees? From coffee vending machines to water cans to office supplies, printers, landlines, chairs and much more – there would be reduction in the need of all of these along with lesser electrical consumption, and bandwidth usage. I can already visualize a big dip in the operational expenditure for the companies.

If there had been any plans of opening new offices, then all such plans would surely be re-considered. New plans would have to drawn out to identify revenue per square feet of office space (which would show a huge rise anyway) and the needed space decided accordingly

More availability of talent

Work location played a very big role in one’s life. Where does the employee decide to buy or rent a house, how much time does he/she travel to office, how much of monthly earnings go towards accommodation costs – all these were determined by the location of the office. Similarly, companies based out of Tier-2 cities found difficult to retain employees who were always in search of greener pastures. Now when working from home has become so hugely followed, companies have also realized the potential of hiring employees from different locations as long as the talent and hard work are duly valued. Working remote is the new mantra.

Increase in employee loyalty

Work from home sounds as one of the best perks that a company can provide its employees. At least on paper. If one were to select a company out of two to join; with the first one offering Work from home while the second doesn’t (with all other parameters remaining the same), most of the times, the former company would have been chosen. Now, we are in the times where the employers can use this as a perk while actually deriving more productivity per employee – a clear win-win situation for all.

---

Now that we have seen all the advantages that the employees and employers are experiencing due to the ‘work from home’ option, it would be good to take a look at the other side of the coin too.

Refer to the Part-2 of this article which focuses on the issues that have cropped up due to ‘work from home’ in the IT industry