Following the current state of Covid-19 and the need for social distancing, many workplaces (excluding essential businesses) have shut down and people have been working from their own homes. Despite initial beliefs that working from home using virtual meeting programs like Zoom or Google Meet would cause productivity loss, according to a report by PR Newswire, people have found themselves becoming more effective than before.
One of the factors for this unexpected benefit is the fact that employees working from home no longer have to wait in traffic to get to work. What would have been an hour wasted stuck in a car is now an hour that employees can use for work. According to the World Economic Forum, the irrelevance of having to commute has created a reported 13% increase in work productivity.
Another reason for this increase is the use of communication programs such as Zoom. By having a face-to-face video call that also functions as a virtual conference that can house up to 1,000 participants with paid add-ons, people find it much faster and easier to talk to others rather than using the traditional emails or phone calls. In fact, the Boston Consulting Group reports that employees have found themselves forming better relationships with other fellow employees which helps with the overall efficiency of getting work done. Although this system appears to be a new innovative way to adapt to our current times, this actually isn’t the case.
The OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) has reported that modern-day work has been shifting over to a more virtual form for the past decade. In 2015, approximately 32% of occupational groups used teleworking as a means for their work. Contrary to many people’s beliefs, remote work isn’t something that appeared during the pandemic but rather a structure that has been implemented as our society advances.
In spite of concerns that Covid-19 has ruined work for many employees, the way businesses and companies are functioning in accordance with social distancing mandates and quarantining is actually an ongoing transition that has been occurring behind the scenes for the past few years. It is just the sudden change in work environments that caught people off guard, but this new model of work is most likely to stay prominent even when the global pandemic settles down.
Information comes from the OECD, World Economic Forum, PR Newswire, and the Boston Consulting Group
