Will Workplaces Really Be Different After COVID-19?

Anyone who still believes that productivity and company loyalty are hurt when workers go remote needs a reality check; those fears are not backed up by data.

Already, this last week a significant number of organisations have decided to get ahead of the coronavirus pandemic by promoting remote working options for their employees.

Today, almost 20,000 Telstra employees will be working from home in what is Australia’s largest single organisation remote working experiment.

For those of us fortunate enough to be in jobs where the work can be done remotely, from home or other locations, this makes sense in limiting the spread of the virus, it is also great news in redefining how work can be done, now and into the future.

On Friday, I conducted meetings – over the phone, Zoom and Microsoft Teams – with clients and other customers who were working from home as part of their coronavirus readiness plans.

Meetings continued, business was done and for Friday at least we had a new topic of discussion, with dogs barking in the background and the door bell ringing as shopping was delivered (possibly bulk orders of toilet paper and hand sanitiser) as we discussed the merits and benefits of home working.

Even before the outbreak of the COVID-19, there has been a growing demand for remote and flexible working, especially in those industries where the skills crisis is front of mind.

We know that this is the future of work and your current and potential employees have already caught on to this.

In 2019, Atlassian began an Australia-wide assessment of its employees to gauge their suitability for remote working.

The move came in response to an internal survey which found 95 per cent of staff would be keen to change the way they work if it meant they could work from home more often.

Flexible working was ranked as the third most important factor in Australian millennial workers’ loyalty to a company, the Deloitte Millennial Survey 2019 found, after culture and pay.

Other research has found up to three quarters favour a workplace that offers flexible working when considering a role.

With millennials now making up the largest proportion of the workforce in 2020 employers would be wise to consider the practices they are adopting through the crisis as permanent changes to the way work is performed.

Can you afford to miss out on the best talent if you are aren’t promoting remote work?

According to a study by the International Workplace Group (IWG) almost 50 per cent of Australian employees work remotely for at least half of the week, while more than two-thirds work at least once a day a week outside the office.

I predict that when COVID-19 is finally on the wane the return to the office will be slow, and at some companies, it may not happen at all.

Once people realise that working from home can lead to a more successful, engaged and productive workforce this change will be hard to give up.

While this seismic shift offers the potential of enormous benefits to the corporate world, it’s likely to come as a double edge sword.

Just ask Graham Turner, CEO of Flight Centre or Alan Joyce CEO of Qantas. It’s not just the loss of international tourism that has impacted them, they have lost (perhaps in some cases permanently) highly lucrative domestic business travellers.

Could this be a watershed moment for business-related travel in Australia?

There’s no point in flying all over Australia for meetings when you can do the same things virtually. 

And then there is the commercial real estate sector, car parks, taxis, CBD coffee shops etcetera all of whom rely on your daily spending and your presence in the city you work in.

If a post-coronavirus world does lead to a mass exodus of on-site employees, finding something to do with empty offices will be the next challenge to solve.

Anyone who still believes that productivity and company loyalty are hurt when workers go remote needs a reality check; those fears are not backed up by data.

A 2019 Harvard Business School survey found that employees with liberal “work from anywhere” arrangements were 4.4 percent more productive than those following a more traditional “work-from-home” policy that gives schedule flexibility but requires workers to live near the office. 

Maybe we need to look at this crisis differently, perhaps this is Australia’s largest social experiment to see if indeed we are ready to embrace some of the benefits technology provide, enabling remote working and bringing forward the future of work.

Could this be the point that our very notion of what work is, not just where it is done is redefined?

Some simple tips for making remote working work learned last week;

• Be disciplined. The pile of ironing and washing can wait;

• Have fun, video meetings can be a bit 'wooden' so try to relax into the experience;

• Look directly at the camera when conducting meetings;

• Don’t fiddle with your phone (you wouldn’t do that in a normal meeting);

• Ensure your ear pods are charged; and

• You have installed the latest software for whatever video conferencing you are using.

Lastly, make the most of the experience, because working from home could well become the new normal.