Daily Times

Ronald Heifetz, Founding Director of the Center for Public Leadership at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, and co-founder of Cambridge Leadership Associates said “Yesterday’s adaptations are today’s routines.” Over 120 years we have learned how to make our employees more productive working in a traditional office environment, writes Derek Thompson in his recent article in The Atlantic. He says that over the years a hierarchy of managers, middle managers, supervisors have been developed and lots of strategies have been devised to boost productivity of workers, working in an office. But work from home came as an adaptation, to reduce commute and get more productivity out of remote workers by allowing them to work from ease of their home. And now a days it has become a routine for millions of workers round the globe.

Current COVID 19 pandemic has given a big push to increase in the number of employees working from home. Although for many companies, its just a temporary venture to keep things rolling but this might change the way employers look at the productivity for the time to come. Mere attendance and punctuality might get replaced by meeting the given targets in smartest ways and formal face to face meetings might take the form of meeting the thumbnails on WhatsApp groups or coffee breaks with teams on zoom or Microsoft teams. But of course, a once in a century Pandemic is not the right case scenario to predict the future trends.

Work from home employees were more vigilant and less distracted. Amazingly employee attrition decreased by 50 percent, they worked literally for full shifts and took less days off

Right now, when Pakistan is faced with all the psychological and economic challenges associated with a lurking fear of getting infected by the novel corona virus, educational institutes and businesses are also struggling to explore options where work can be made possible while all are in this lock down phase. A major challenge, in a country like ours is finding best possible technological options which are accessible by most of the members of a team. According to Max Bailey, an Online Acquisition Specialist at Aircall, there are a variety of smart solutions available which can make online communication with remote workers convenient and effective. Some such tools include slake, skype, Microsoft teams, zoom and aircall. Once appropriate forums are selected, access to a good speed internet and noise-cancelling headphones can get a worker going for working remotely.

But working from home is not that simple. Laura Delizonna PhD, a Stanford University instructor, international speaker, author, and executive coach with an expertise in optimal performance, team effectiveness and inspirational leadership, wrote and interesting article in 2017 which was published in Harvard Business Review. According to her article, psychological safety is one of the most important factors which contributes to the productivity of a team. A research on Google teams indicated that a member feels psychologically safer when he knows that he will not be hurt or humiliated by his team on making a mistake. Communication is the key to developing this trust between team members. A down side of working from home over a longer period might be a slack bonding within team and increased feeling of loneliness in members. Effective managers can counter this challenge by scheduling video conferencing more often, making personal calls to the employees to kick start the day and joining in informal chats while having tea at own places. These virtual tea or coffee breaks can help in creating a psychologically safe and engaging environment.

No doubt working from home is a convenience but it might decrease productivity for novice workers, especially in current scenario when there are pressing responsibilities of home-schooling kids, doing the laundry, dishes, cooking and going out for panic shopping. Bryan Lufkin, a BBC Work life’s features writer, shares that its’ not a good idea to keep running around in your pajamas. In order to make the best of this work from home experience, you should get ready for work, as if you were going to the office, create a separate quite place for work and let your family know, by shutting a door or hanging at work sign outside your door, that you are working. Both parents can switch turns to take care of kids to facilitate each other.

Nicholas Bloom, a professor at Standord, did a two year long extensive research on employees of Ctrip, China’s largest travel agency. His research showed that telecommuters performed far better than those working in the head office. Work from home employees were more vigilant and less distracted. Amazingly employee attrition decreased by 50 percent, they worked literally for full shifts and took less days off. During a TEDx talk, Bloom said that in order to psychologically switch from home to work and back to home life you should plan activities which symbolize the shift. For example you can start your work from home after breakfast and once work hours are over, you can have a play with kids session. According to him, you do not work more hours while working from home, but the amount of concentrated time increases as you get acquainted with this work from home regime.

I will once again quote Ronald Heifetz who said “Yesterday’s adaptations are today’s routines.” So, take this work from home scenario as an opportunity which might become a part of our work life in future. Stay Home, Stay Safe.

The writer is Director Programs and Projects at Rising Sun Education and Welfare Society