Work from home is new normal

Disruptions in economies and the labour caused by the COVID-19 pandemic situation have changed the workplace ecosystem across the globe. Work from home has become more of a permanent feature for many employees. Experimentation such as 50 per cent or less attendance to reduce physical proximity to make offices safe during the COVID-19 pandemic has also led to governments and private entities adopting a hybrid work model. The hybrid work model requires splitting time between the office and home. In many states in India, currently grappling with the second wave of the pandemic, work from home has returned as the new normal. In some states, the government has ordered a hybrid work model dividing the weekdays equally for office work and remote work from home. In Assam, the office hours have been reduced till 2 pm even in the hybrid format as the pandemic situation has become critical with the positivity rate almost touching 10 per cent and fatalities increasing. The Supreme Court has urged the Central and State governments to consider imposing lockdown to break the chain. In the event of extreme measure like statewide or nationwide lockdown, work from home becomes new normal for most knowledge workers and employees. For, factories, work from home is possible for employees in managerial roles. However, factory workers do not have the skills to work from home and perform roles they have never learnt if asked to work remotely during pandemic restriction of attendance. In a report titled "The future of work after COVID-19", Mckinsey Global Institute states that "COVID-19 accelerated three trends that could persist to varying degrees after the pandemic with different implications for work." The global institute has predicted that 20 to 25 per cent of workers in advanced economies and about 10 per cent in emerging economies could "work from home three to five days a week, mainly in the computer-based office work arena and this may reduce demand for mass transit, restaurants, and retail in urban centres. The second trend, the report states, is the growth in the share of e-commerce and the "delivery economy," which was two to five times faster in 2020 than before the pandemic, is likely to continue. "This trend is disrupting jobs in travel and leisure and hastening the decline of low-wage jobs in brick-and-mortar stores and restaurants, while increasing jobs in distribution centres and last-mile delivery," it adds. Thirdly, companies have enlisted automation and Artificial Intelligence to cope with COVID-19 disruptions and may accelerate adoption in the years ahead, "putting more robots in manufacturing plants and warehouses and adding self-service customer kiosks and service robots in customer interaction arenas."

MGI says that COVID-19 has highlighted the importance of physical proximity as a factor shaping the future of work. Work from Home has multiple challenges. Adjusting to it in the home environment and meeting pressures of productivity and efficiency is an onerous task for many. Replicating an office workstation at home is not feasible due to space constraints and design priorities to meet household requirements. Besides, remote working in isolation cannot provide the same satisfaction as working with colleagues in the shared environment of offices. Freedom of other members comes into conflict with the work from the home model when one or more members are engaged in video conference or giving an online presentation of official work. These are sensitive areas in the new work models but also impact the performance and productivity of an individual employee. The job protection under the performance-linked model will depend much on how much the disruptions in remote working are factored in weekly, monthly, or annual work appraisal. Continuing the same appraisal to assess performance as in the pre-pandemic situation when weekdays used to be office days runs the risk of under assessment of performance. For organizations, government, and private laying emphasis on remote working as the new normal, during long spells of the pandemic, the employees and workers acquiring the skills remote as well as hybrid work models will be critical to staying competitive in the job market. The scientific community is not in a position to foretell as to when the COVID-19 pandemic disruptions are going to be over. In such a situation, changing the work model is going to become a permanent feature for most organizations. Automation pushed in manufacturing industries to reduce the physical proximity of workers will lead to job loss. More factory workers will be required to acquire skills by learning to use the automated units in addition to their manual labour. According to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, the second pandemic wave in India had led to 75 lakh people losing jobs due to localized lockdown. Dr K.V. Viajyraghavan, Principal Scientific Adviser to Prime Minister has cautioned that the third wave of a pandemic is inevitable, and all must remain prepared. This indicates that switching to a remote and hybrid work model is going to be long drawn.