Is work from home here to stay? Filipino insurance executive Nina Aguas weighs the pros and cons of this hybrid set-up.
Work from home. Employees want it. Business preparedness for the next pandemic (God forbid) requires it. Will this be the future of work as we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic? Or is it an expedient phase that cannot be sustained? What are the implications for traditional communities as work and leisure converge in a common space? And in such a scenario, what does one do with the thousands and thousands of square metres of office space all over the country?
2020 was a turning point for the way we do business, spend our free time and interact with each other. Remote work, and for that matter remote learning, are behavioural changes that may very well have unpredictable consequences. In the field of education, for instance, it could trigger a new wave of outsourcing. Students who are all online in Korea may very well have a teacher in Manila.
At the risk of being controversial, I don’t think digital life is going to be the new normal. True, digitalisation is perhaps the most important, long-term change accelerated by the present pandemic. But it is unlikely that Covid-19 will undo millions of years of human evolution. The more basic features of human nature will persist. We are still social beings that like contact.
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Digital communication (over Zoom and similar video conferencing apps) will continue to be important, but it will not take over our lives. You can’t underestimate the power of face-to-face contact. It’s very easy to miss a lot of critical nonverbal cues in video calls. More significantly, casual and random physical meetings work much better at fostering collaboration and spurring creative thinking.
Still, the convenience of work from home cannot be denied. The time saved in not having to navigate Manila’s notorious rush-hour traffic jams may be justification enough. And studies have shown that employee productivity markedly increases when employees have flexible work hours and are allowed to work from anywhere.
In the end, the office setting that will emerge from all this is the one that makes the most sense. That may well be a hybrid set-up that supports a healthier work-life balance, a value close to InLife’s heart as a passionate Sheroes advocate, and still meets customers’ service requirements wherever and whenever they need them.
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The future winners will be clean, open communities in non-traditional yet “Instagrammable” locations outside the crowded metropolis, with the digital infrastructure to support the working members of a family on their WFH days. Spending the typical Friday happy hour by the beach or with a mountain view as a backdrop isn’t a bad idea.
Aside from being picturesque, these locations have the distinct advantage of a considerably lower cost of living.
A near-utopian future of work where employees are happier as the business thrives? That certainly is something good coming out of the bad. Then again, the future is never ours to see.
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