Working remotely, To Be Continued.

Figure 1: Working From Any Where (Source: (Kubos, 2021)

Breif History,

In the year 1973, Jack Nilles coined the concept of telecommuting, a term for working remotely, and was soon adopted by IBM (Gupta, 2020). The concept came a long way with the improvement of information and communication technology and got boosted with the Covid 19 pandemic. With this development, more employers and human resource management teams are keen on encouraging staff to work remotely. 

Covid and Post Covid

Up to now it is more than 02 years since the Covid pandemic was  affected globally and due to its effects working remotely is more applicable, but what it will be like in the post-Covid era.

Working remotely means that an employee performs his duties other than his or her allocated place to work by the employer. Mostly working using electronic equipment (Dharmasiri, 2021), based on network connections, more and more employees are willing to work from other than physically attending to the office.

For Whom

Although this isn’t applicable as some are working with sophisticated machinery, for some work has to be performed collaborate as a group and some are providing hard labor who must present to the worksite or office. But in all, it is nearly 18% of the workforce in the global context working remote which number is going high with the waves of Covid 19 pandemic (Steward, 2021).

According to (Lund, et al., 2020), the Finance, Management, Professional Services, and information sector has the best potential to work remotely.

Figure 2: Working Remotely Statistics ( (Lund, et al., 2020)

People who work remotely from home or anywhere they are more comfortable with rather than office may enjoy,

01. Flexible working hours

02. Great anatomy of job satisfaction

03. Minimize health and safety risks

04. Balance work-life

05. Saving time and expenses for commuting

06. More benefit to disabling workers (Lupu, 2017 as cited in Thorstensson, E 2020).

Meanwhile employer should,

1.      Invest in the latest technology which is an additional cost.

2. Concern on organizational internal network security should be tightened as 
        employees will log in with various devices for their place. 

3. Monitor employees may attend to their matters during working hours which   
        derailed their productivity.  

        
4. Build interpersonal relationships which is vital for the organization (Allen & Eby, 2012).

Sri Lankan context working remotely will always decide with the quality of the net connections, availability of electronic equipment needed to operate and undisrupted electricity supply. In addition to that, it will ease the vehicle traffic during rush hours and on good effect on environmental prospects.

But the negative impact on small businesses like food suppliers, house renting, and urban area income will reduced as people will not visit there.

In the end, considering benefits enjoyed by employees working remotely than the office may able to increase their efficiency and productivity and impact on organization performance will come to the equation in post-Covid era and it will decide the existence of working remotely for many.

References

Allen, D. & Eby, L., 2012. Personal Relationships "The Effect on Employee Attitudes, Behavior, and Well-being". 1 ed. s.l.:Routledge.

Dharmasiri, A., 2021. apbsrilanka. [Online] Available at: https://apbsrilanka.com/wpcontent/uploads/2021/01/2015_27th_conv_a_1_Prof.Ajantha_S.Dharmasiri.pdf [Accessed 5 December 2021].

Gupta, A., 2020. The History Of Remote Work: How It Came To Be What It Is Today. [Online]
Available at: https://www.sorryonmute.com/history-remote-work-industries/ [Accessed 05 December 2021].

 Kubos, 2021. COVID-19: A Remote Work Model As The New Normal. [Online] Available at: https://www.kubos.com/covid-19-a-remote-work-model-as-the-new-normal/ [Accessed 11 December 2021].

Lund, S., Madgavkar, A., Manyika, A. & Smit, S., 2020. What’s next for remote work: An analysis of 2,000 tasks, 800 jobs, and nine countries. [Online]
Available at: https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/future-of-work/whats-next-for-remote-work-an-analysis-of-2000-tasks-800-jobs-and-nine-countries [Accessed 05 December 2021].

Thorstensson, E., 2020. The Influence of Working from Home on Employees' Productivity. [Online]
Available at: https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1446903/FULLTEXT01.pdf
[Accessed 13 Decemeber 2021].

 Steward, J., 2021. The Ultimate List Of Remote Work Statistics for 2021. [Online]Available at: https://findstack.com/remote-work-statistics/#:~:text=Remote%20work%20statistics%20tell%20us,3.2%25%20of%20the%20entire%20workforce. [Accessed 05 December 2021].