The COVID-19 pandemic has affected every walk of human life across the globe, unlike other pandemics which were more region-specific (a country or a continent or few). It has triggered an unpredicted change in economic, social, cultural, spiritual, and traditional behaviour. It has altered workplace behaviour drastically, the extent of which may be preceded only by that of the industrial revolution.
Workplace
Large and luxurious dedicated office spaces may soon be a thing of the past, with the new normal of offices calling for space reduction and evolving workplaces that are driven by Hot Seat Mechanism, Digitization and Automation, Technology adoption, Work From Home, Coworking, etc. Offices will slowly but steadily migrate from Metros / Class A cities to Class B / Class C cities.
Digitization and Automation
It is a common misconception that mobile and digital employees are strictly “Millennials.” The reality is most business personnel are quite familiar with mobile and digital technology, for both personal and professional use. Such an experienced workforce appreciates the benefits of these tools more because they know what it was like before.
Organizations need to create practical use cases for digital tools that improve daily work activities, not add more complexity or stress to a workday. This requires a focus on not just the capabilities, but also on employee-mindset and alignment across the organization.
Automation and Technology adoption, especially of those like workplace automation has seen a marked increase since the shift to WFH. This can be attributed to the need for organizations to have their workforce function remotely without deterring productivity.
Co-working
The concept and its acceptance among employees are fast-growing across the globe. The arrangement in which workers of different companies share an office space, allowing cost savings and convenience through the use of common infrastructure – such as equipment, utilities, and receptionist and custodial services, and in some cases refreshments and parcel acceptance services. Co-working helps employees avoid the feeling of isolation they may experience while telecommuting, travelling, or working from home alone, and eliminate distractions. More and more organizations, especially, MSMEs, Start-ups, Small & Medium Enterprises, Small Branches of large corporates, etc., wherein a dedicated office is not mandatory from a statutory requirement point-of-view, would adopt to co-working culture easily.
Work-From-Home (WFH)
WFH has now become essential to businesses, unlike earlier days when it was an uncommon yet desirable (good to have) practice for employee-convenience under certain circumstances. WFH will remain inapplicable to workplaces wherein the physical presence of a workman/employees is a must, like shop floors, retail shops, packing and forwarding, site services, etc. WFH will certainly give some leeway to overcrowded roads and public transport but it has possibly irreversibly altered the idea of work and working.
Firms are even looking into hiring executives who specialize in ‘virtual HR’ so to speak. An international publication had cited that the title of ‘Head of Remote Work’ handling virtual work experience management may become commonplace soon.
According to Tech Billionaire Bill Gates, companies will require employees to spend less than 50% of work time in the office even after the pandemic. The extreme shift to remote working has yielded promising results so we will see companies going for a combination of onsite and WFH in the future. ‘Office’ hours will shrivel yet work hours will rise. The ‘Workplace’ and the ‘Office’ will no longer be synonymous with one another.
So, we can safely assume that although WFH may not be the entirety of the future of work, it will not be a remnant of the pandemic either.
Work timings
Work timings that were fixed in offices have become more flexible, thanks to the WFH scenario. Although this does not affect most work profiles it can however have a negative impact on 24×7 support functions. Fixed time office hours have become flexible. The same goes for weekdays and weekends. Reviews during odd hours will be common. Working hours will undergo a conceptual change. The 8-hour concept will work only for those job roles where physical presence is a must.
Office Equipment
Own your Device will take a front seat rather than company-owned assets. This will reduce physical-load and cost of IT Assets and office furniture/equipment to organizations. But this has raised concerns of an increase in susceptibility to security breaches and subsequently, IT Products and Solutions that provide security on personal devices have carved out a new niche in the market.
Productivity vs Connectivity
To say companies were ill-prepared to face an abrupt transfer of their functions to the confines of the employee’s homes, would be an understatement.
Managing employee availability and coordinating at specified times was a major challenge for Managers, initially. Physical meetings became Virtual. The effectiveness of such cybernetic meetups is still in question. Although most firms have gone with the flow and acclimatised to this by now, connectivity issues and the general lack of digital facilities in certain areas, not to mention the sudden spike in internet usage has sometimes slowed down efficiency and even increased the communication gap among teams.
HR teams have also had to hold off on productivity mapping and data compilation for the same. This was especially difficult as never before had remote productivity been analysed on such a large scale. Automation became paramount for such activities to be implemented efficiently.
Employment
Talent acquisition pattern will undergo a major change in line with the evolving workplace conditions – techno-savvy employees will become more prominent, employability in Class B and smaller cities will undergo a positive change.
Future Workplace evolvement will take a longer time to settle down. This process will have major negatives like, low commercial space demand in major cities, employee communication, availability management, time management, work-life balance, mental health of the employees, building up organization culture, employee socialization within an organization, training and so on. The gains from the new workplace evolvement may not set-off the negatives right away. The picture will become clearer over time, well after the pandemic situation has subsided.
Varghise K, VP & Head Human Resources, CMS IT Services is a Post Graduate in PM&IR and has successfully set up HR Shared Services and implemented statutory compliance process, HR automation, defining & designing policies & processes, etc., over his career as an HR professional. He was earlier associated in varied roles with HCL Infosystems Limited. Varghise also was part of HCL Ethics Committee and Nodal officer for diversity and inclusion across HCLI group.