The essence of WFH culture
The year 2020 invited a tremendous change in work culture, undoubtedly the most massive remote working experiment. However, with more and more countries declaring unlocks, COVID-19 continues to exist as a significant threat. Organizations are still dicey whether and how to have their employees return to regular office work culture. A business leader may have to contemplate several aspects while making the call. The critical element is the impact of a remote work style on the employees’ creativity and productivity.
Let us discover the benefits of WFH culture.
At the outset, the majority of the business leaders feared that employee performance would considerably drop. But on the contrary, it was found that employees adjusted to work culture remotely more quickly and nicely than the anticipated fear of leaders. Instead, employees have successfully driven this big of a switch amidst the pandemic with no productivity loss, which is simply remarkable.
Maintaining productivity does not mean the shift was easy. It witnessed its fair share of intricacies, from employee engagement to job satisfaction. It took time, and eventually, everyone got into the rhythm.
To some extent, remote work culture implicated organizations to discover the right balance between meeting and work time. It also involved increased comfort levels, uncovering new best practices for virtual communication, and comprehending work-life balance in the new environment. Turning off work at home has proved incredibly challenging; it has been observed more than 80 percent of employees are maintaining 10-hour workdays. The virtual work environment has cut-down employee stress, task-related conflicts, and negative emotions considerably.
It sure did teach employees and employers the significance of the shorter yet effective meeting, more focus time, and more flexible time with family. To cut a long story short, most white-collar employees boded well to the transition to a virtual work environment.
What made it successful?
History is riddled with the inefficiencies of several WFH experiments. What made the employees adjust so well this time? There are two precise reasons: this time, everyone had to do it, and everyone collectively vied to overcome the remote work environment’s challenges.
Before the pandemic, WFH was a mere choice, but the COVID-19 ensured virtual workers were no more the odd ones because everyone had to do it irrespective of job role or designation. But this time around, employees and employers came together to establish a new set of working rules, create a new language, and create a new work culture.
The downside of WFH culture
Once the stress of the pandemic cuts-down, what would happen? The WFH culture could sabotage organizational health by impacting three critical activities:
- Enrollment of new employees
- Creation of weak ties
- Fostering connection among the talent pool
Work post-pandemic
People hope to continue mainly working from home after the pandemic is over. But others are hoping to go back to the office without masks, attend meetings in-person, and more. Many organizations are working on allowing some or all of their staff to work remotely forever.
The COVID-19 has proved the knack of idiom; the necessity is the mother of invention.
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