You have to Work From Home (WFH), but still don’t know how to manage this sudden change? Sometimes, reading facts about the experience of others who have gone through a similar situation can help us to adapt better. Read this blog post and get into the context of how workers' lifestyle has changed in the global picture.
An unprecedented change
COVID-19 has forced the world into lockdown. And, although the number of people working partially or fully remote has been on the rise for years now, the coronavirus pandemic may have pushed the fast-forward button on this trend. Long story short: all businesses had to adapt their labor force in so many ways, and those who haven’t are struggling now to keep their activities in motion.
As a result, those sudden changes had consequences. If we keep in mind only the areas that we have to take care of and adapt on our own (those that managed to move from our workplace to our home), we probably realize that we did not consider them important before.
The key is to adapt
So, what can we control? Clothing, sleep, diet, exercise?
We all have searched ways to keep balance mentally, physically, and spiritually speaking. On the search, we have found many ways to adapt these activities and fulfill them from home.
To be confined has made us pay more attention and discipline to our habits and led us to discover new ones.
To be confined has made us pay more attention and discipline to our habits and led us to discover new ones. As an illustration, the most common ones are: getting freshened up everyday like if we were going to our workplace, or keeping our circadian rhythm like before by sleeping well, doing exercises at home, and of course, eating food that is more nutritious.
The thing is we can mention several. Also, they may vary a lot depending on person to person, but most of them are related to improving something: it can be in our health, our professional skill set, our personal life, or others.
Under those circumstances, we all have changed our habits in some sort of way. For example, we managed to use our time more wisely (that extra time that we have since we don’t have to drive to an office anymore), by taking some habits that we even wanted to do, but we couldn’t because of the time. For example: learning a new dance, reading a new book, fixing details at our house, etc.
But, how do we know the impact? Is this going to last forever?
The current state of remote work
Let’s look at some data:
According to the State of Remote Work, 98% of the remote workers want to continue their activities remotely for the rest of their careers, if it’s possible.
But, why are people preferring to WFH? The main answers are:
- The flexibility of managing a schedule
- The flexibility to work from anywhere
Just for your information, those two main topics mentioned in the study report were followed in third place by not having to commute.
People prefer WFH because of the flexibility of managing a schedule, working from anywhere, and not having to commute.
Briefly, those data mean that lockdown measures have highlighted the value of workplace flexibility —particularly for people with kids: a total of 86% of parents now want to work flexibly (compared to 48% in the pre-COVID-19 era).
What about the not so cool?
Of course, not everything is positive. There have been some challenges that remote workers still have to face. To unplug — to separate the attention between your work activities and your domestic life — is the main one (with 22%); loneliness had a 19%; and collaborating and/or communication had a 17%. Distractions, time zone, taking vacation time, staying motivated, and reliable wifi were other topics mentioned in the study report.
It is true that to unplug from work may be difficult without a change of location and defined office hours. Because of that, people are struggling to separate personal and professional time. Also, one-third of the people were concerned as well that the full extent of their professional efforts wouldn’t be appreciated because of the lack of in-office contact.
Where are we now?
We are still on the course of change, but it seems that technology allows businesses to implement this variation into their work life. Society itself has embraced this new normality and those businesses who are unwilling to change will struggle a lot more.
These are new times and we have to be adaptive. Fortunately, technology is helping but some of us are still struggling and looking for ways in our homes. Certainly, companies must have their own adaptive process, because it seems this new work-life is here to stay at least until 2021.
Stay safe and don't give up! Adapting is sometimes not easy, but not impossible.
Thanks for reading!
