How the world learned to live with the Pandemic
Tags: Work From Home, Coworking, Pandemic, Productivity, Employee Monitoring

When the pandemic disrupted our daily life and refused to relent, it raised the hackles of many.The future felt uncertain and inhouse working felt a distant fantasy.Transitioning to work at home was not easy and it took time for many companies and their employees to adapt to it . Work at home culture was very alien to most of the companies but gradually most companies are able to adapt to it .The beginning was hard and came up with lot of challenges.But most companies were later able to adapt to this new way of working.

Here are a few roadblocks that companies had to face and overcome for their transition to the work at home culture .

Making Resources Available At Home

Many employees were devastated when they had the limitation of finding the required resources and assets that are needed for work at their home. Laptops , desk chairs ,internet connectivity and more were not available or limited in many homes . It took time for many employers and employees to make the required resources available at remote locations.Assets like desk chairs were sent to employees’ remote work spaces by top companies taking into consideration employees physical health.

Mental Adaptation

Lockdown did not come with mental gifts.The change was hard to take in the beginning.Pandemic caused many employees to settle into their bleak thoughts .Most felt depressed, anxious and mentally numb when isolated from their social circles.The uncertainty in work and every other anxious thought brought many into mental breakdowns and suicides.The beginning of the pandemic resulted in loss of jobs for many .Isolation and uncertainty that spread around every employee brought mental discomfort to many.

Observing such effects of isolating people to their homes , companies later came up with more virtual interactions and employee welfare programs to uplift their employees’ mental health.

The later slow coming back of the economy and learning to live with the pandemic,brought more positivity to people’s lives.Gradually employees were able to adapt to the work at home culture with a better mental health.

Monitoring employee activity and productivity

Monitoring employee activity felt impossible for many companies when they switched to work from home culture.This brought down productivity for many companies. Many employees worked less productively when not observed. On the other hand, there were too committed employees who worked hours after working hours due to not having any travel or other such limitations.For both the reasons and more, there was a need for employees to be monitored.

States Empowering With better Internet Connectivity

One of the many challenges faced by most states were that they were not able to provide the required internet connectivity and speed when employees were scattered far and wide .Bandwidth had to be increased and more investment had to be made in bringing efficient internet connectivity to employees working from home who resided in remote locations

Nurturing Work Spaces

Good workspaces play an important role in uplifting productivity. But work at home culture narrowed employees to their homes which was not an ideal place to work for many.The distractions that most employee homes nurtured brought difficulty to their productivity.This was a great barrier and was a big limitation for many .Most did not find good working spaces in their home. This gave rise to co-working spaces to open up in many spaces as the covid restrictions slowly started to relax. People started using more co-working spaces near to their homes.This felt a lot like working in house for many. This decreased social isolation as well as brought distraction-free spaces to work for many employees.Many companies later booked a wide number of seats for their employees in many of these coworking spaces seeing its benefits.

Final Thoughts

We are learning to live with the pandemic and many of the offices are returning back to in house working .This is because many companies feel their workers are not able to work efficiently, especially when the work requires team interactions and meetings.

But on the other side , many other companies have realized how well they are able to benefit from it , if done right.The cost benefit and work life balance lingering with this new style of working has made many companies to think about sustaining this culture for the post pandemic period as well.

We are not completely over the pandemic and we are still fighting it . Therefore a lot of companies still have to continue with their work at home culture due to covid limitations as well as for better safety of their employees.