With the deadly coronavirus affecting the livelihood and businesses globally, industries are changing their work culture to adapt to the situation. Various companies, mostly in the IT sector, are promoting work from the home feature for their employees. Employees are carrying their office workloads to their homes and completing the tasks at their homes. Working at home may seem to be an easy task, but a remote job can be extremely challenging to implement. What are the challenges faced by the employees and management while working at home?
Isolation
Chat buddies are nice, but e-connections are not as efficient as human interactions. Being confined to your houses and self-isolating can take an enormous toll on one’s mental health. The isolation can make one depressed, panicked, bored and anxious. A person needs to give importance to their mental health, as much as they give for their physical health.
Communication
For the success of any project or a product, teamwork is essential. While at the office, where face-to-face human interactions are possible, teamwork can be easy. However, the communication between the team members can be challenging while working from home. There is a higher possibility of miscommunication. One efficient way to counter this issue is by using video conferencing via services like Zoom, Jitsi or Hangouts.
Boundary Issues
While at home, having a dedicated workspace is complicated. You are sharing your home with your family, hence, there is a high possibility of interruptions, especially if having kids. To most of the friends and families, by working at home, they are expecting you to be available for emergencies and longer lunch breaks. An employee needs to make them understand the boundaries between working time and leisure time.
Motivation and Ambience
The motivation for work and the working ambience is at pole ends. When at the office, signing and signing out on time is a factor as the mindset of the employees is “getting credit for showing up”. At home, you get paid only for the productive work done. Also, while the office premises are quieter, home is more suitable for loud music and an ambience suiting your mind.
Work Setup
The workplace setting in the office and home can be poles apart. The chairs and desk at the workplace are ideal for the position you use the system. At home, our couches and beds can be our workstations. Prolonged use of this can lead to body aches and other physical issues.
Conclusion
Working at home and the offices’ ambiences are at extreme poles. A company faces various challenges in implementing work at homes when a need arises. We, at 2Base Technologies, have successfully overcome these challenges and has implemented the work at the home facility for our employees during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis.
