Satria Utama Salimanan

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Drafting Planning Process : January 29, 2021
M14

WORKING ON HOME VS OFFICE ON THIS GLOBAL PANDEMIC

In 2019, only 5 million people worked from home full-time in the United States, which is roughly
3.4% of the overall US workforce, as reported by [Link]. Even worldwide, only 1 in 5 full-time
workers work from home frequently, with only 10% of those doing so full-time. This is a raise of
173%, excluding the self-employed population, since 2005 according to the same website.

In March 2020, within the United States, about 15% of the total workforce were working remotely 1-
2 times a week, with 70% of those wishing to convert to full-time from home if given the chance.
Then the pandemic hit, and suddenly everyone is suddenly forced to work from home.

Since then, we have heard a lot of discussion on whether the Work-from-home situation is going to
become the new commonplace. The news has told us that Twitter, Square, Slack, and other
companies have decided that their employees will work remotely going forward. We have seen even
small businesses questioning if this is the future for them.

Moving to A Remote Workforce

Companies have been building bigger buildings for centuries. Even companies that share buildings
strive to move higher in the floors, there is more prestige in being at the top, after all. Partners and
managers set goals to be in the corner office on the highest floors. So, are companies just going to
leave their buildings behind and have their people work from home.

According to the article “Are Remote Workers More Productive?”, an employee working from home
is 13.5% more productive. Another source “Work From Home” by [Link], reported that in the
office, there are at least 70-minutes per day of interruptions and ‘water cooler’ conversations. They
also reported that employees are more likely to stay with a company longer. But today, the average
professional stays with a single company a range of 3.8 – 6.2 years within the public section. It is
slightly higher for government work, but even in federal jobs, it only goes up to barely 8 years. When
you add that it takes the average employee 18 months to 2 years to be fully productive, that means
a company gets roughly 2 to 4 years of true production before the employee is moving on.

Employees who work from home report that they are happier and feel more satisfied with their
work. They take less sick time and time off work because they feel they have a better home and
work balance. These factors lead to employees staying with a company longer. Workers in larger
metropolitan areas, such as NYC and LA, report up to 4.5 hours per day just commuting to an office.
Many employees are even starting to negotiate reimbursement for travel and commute time within
their employment contracts. At first, I thought big deal…$50 a month maybe, until I did some
research. A 35 minute bus commute from the Virginia suburbs to a Washington DC Metro station
can be a $170 expense per month, or over $2,000 a year, and that doesn’t include riding the Metro
rail system to the final stop, or parking!

So, it would be smarter and more cost-effective for companies to move to a remote workforce. It
even opens the opportunity to hire from anywhere in the world, not just local to the company’s
office or candidates who are willing to relocate for the position. This is a wonderful prospect for
potential employees who struggle with a disability that denies them the chance to commute to
work.

Going into the technology side of the equation, Microsoft and other vendors have been putting
products in place for a while that help facilitate a remote workforce. Products like Office 365 and
Sharepoint make it very easy and secure to allow employees to work remotely. Tools such as Slack,
Trello, and MS Teams allow for collaboration, while everyone’s favorite, Zoom, is great for video
conferencing.

See You in the Office

It seems the argument is strong for remote workers staying at home and working from there. But
what about the other side of this debate? According to Forbes magazine, many Fortune 500
companies have stated some interesting reasons, for why they will not be allowing their entire
workforce to work remotely. In fact, IBM, Yahoo, and Aetna has revised their work-from-home policy
within the last 5 years to reduce the workforce with that option. The main reason being Work-Life
balance. They reflected that the division between work and personal time is being blurred during the
shutdown, and employees are finding it more difficult to “turn off” the work. Instead of enjoying the
lessened commute time, they are replacing them with more work hours. They realized that
employees need face-to-face, real time interaction and stricter work balance to get real overall
results.

These Fortune 500 companies also recognizing that bringing new employees into a remote working
culture makes onboarding more difficult. Personally, I have seen a new employee in a rather large
organization take almost 2 weeks just to get HR, technology, and security access to begin work. That
was 2 weeks of salary with zero productivity, which frustrated both the new employee and the
supervisors. Had all the staff members been in the same building as normal, that would have taken
about two days, with the longest part waiting for a security badge. Plus onboarding is more than just
filling out the HR paperwork, getting a badge, and desk. It involves meeting the staff, building
connections, and creating common ground within the team for future collaboration.

“Water cooler” conversations, as stated before accounts for up to 70 minutes of interruption

throughout a workday, but those casual conversations built strong bonds within your department
and teams. Remote working means no grabbing lunch with co-workers, sharing laughs, or even tears
at times. Friendships form and often last beyond the workday. We see company baseball teams,
pick-up basketball games in the parking lot after work, or even supporting families during times of
illness and crisis. The same Forbes magazine article mentions remote workers often feel lonely,
disconnected, and prolonged remote work has led to more depression and other mental illnesses.
Recently, the owner here at Techno Advantage attended the funeral of an employee of a client. We
had worked with him and he will be greatly missed. That’s part of the culture we have here.
However, that’s not the case everywhere, as shared in “Work From Home”. The author relates an
experience of a remote worker for 4 years for a large Corporation. She and her sibling lost both
parents during an accident. Her brother worked a traditional office career and had several co-
workers come by during the funeral and afterward to check-in and support him and his family during
this difficult time. His family received flowers from the company, his department, and even some of
his clients. The remote worker received an email from her direct supervisor, and some awkward
condolence comments during her first staff meeting once she returned to work. Both siblings
worked for similar size companies doing the same level of professional responsibility. The noticeable
difference between the in-house vs remote worker left the remote working feeling unappreciated
and disconnected.

These larger corporations support adding some flexibility to allow employees to work from home a
couple days a week, will result in better overall employees, morale, and productivity. They believe
that this current trend of people working from home full-time will be popular for a couple years, but
then, reverse back to companies pulling people back into the office. One point they made to support
this is, “look at the pop up of co-working spaces over the last two years – people want to work
remotely but yet be near other people while they are doing so.”

Final Tips for Both Sides

In our research for this blog, we did find that both sides do have some overlapping advice for the
company leaders regarding remote working.

1. Have a written remote work policy. Whether you allow your employees to work remotely a
couple days a week or full-time, develop a written policy regarding expectations, means of
communication, and work hours. This policy might change as the environment changes, but
it should exist in some way and be shared with all employees.

2. Prioritize regular communication. Have a communication tool to allow for easy

communication between staff, such as MS Teams or Slack and provide training. It’s not
enough to simply give them the guide that comes with the tool. Everyone must know how to
use these tools to fulfill the expectations set in the remote work policy.

3. Schedule regular staff or team meetings. Ironically, it was suggested that Zoom or other
video conferencing tools only be used for staff or team meetings, if necessary. Most
communication can be done “off-camera” and the shutdown has led to too much “Zoom
fatigue”.

4. Use a centralized project management tool. Have all project specs, deadlines, and team
member collaboration within a centralized tool, such as Trello, Workzone, or Hive.

5. Give praise and say thank you often. Due to the separation, leaders recognize that
employees working remotely need to hear ‘Thank you’ and receive kudos for well-done work
more often. This is partly contributed to a lack of facial and body language received via email
or written communication – “The employee doesn’t see the supervisor’s nod or smile at the
end of a good productive day”, according to [Link].
 6. Have a social time or outlet available. This can be a special channel within the
communication tool for the water cooler conversation, for sharing jokes or to discuss the
movie they saw recently. Others have suggested a “happy hours”, where employees are
encouraged to meet online after hours for non-work-related conversation and a drink and
snack, from their kitchen.

So, because of this global pandemic, we have to face the crisis wether we have to work ourselfs
from home or office it has to be faced until this pandemic gets over and eveything goes just like
normally just like they were did on pre-pandemic.