2020 OCTOBER – THE NEW WAY OF WORKING

I heard from a wise man that with what will take us five years to change, Covid-19 is only taking 5 months for us to change now. Already the future of work looked uncertain to us with all the challenges that are known to us—algorithms and artificial intelligence; robotics; shifting demographics; redefining globalization; outsourcing work and part-time work; learning new working skills, and the list can go on and on.

The pandemic came upon us like the sudden darkness at night and forced us to shut down all our business establishments, remaining open are the hospitals, supermarkets, pharmacies for what are known as the essentials.

All of a sudden, the workplace is no longer a physical location and it is taken over by the virtual environment. Using the video-apps available from the market via desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones. The internet connection is becoming very important as the “work-from-home”, “study-from-home”, “meet-from-home”, and all the online courses have been booming. And because of all these activities, staff can decide to work in the family room or living room, kitchen table, bedroom, and also basement. The use of the virtual background can camouflage the location and created a twist to the surrounding.

For those companies who have offices in other part of the country can work closer and more simultaneously. Sharing of charts and documents can make the meeting more productively and instantly through the sharing of the screen. It increased the workflow and the efficiency that has never been realized before. For international companies, the operation has long been established and operated in a system of matrix management. This can be revisited and finetuned to make it less hierarchic. Talents in the offices can be exchanged and a restructuring for a less bureaucratic management can also be encouraged. It is the time to explore more about the hidden talents using this opportunity as almost all the frontiers have been pushed down. This will bring diversity to the teams although personal interaction is still required, but creating the time to break the staff into groups after the meeting will allow their interaction in another new level.

Perhaps the hinderance is the different time zones, and because the working environment is less restricted, arrangements and sacrifices will need to take into consideration.

Gone are the days of the micromanagement and the old top-down bureaucracy but more self-initiative and desire to accomplish the common goal.

But this cannot be so positive without any unexpected situation to arise as we have not been trained to work alone. This is only at the beginning and I believe a lot of finetune and even books will be published and courses will be held to help us to understand the concept and help us to work more effectively. After all, we have been working in most part of our career with face-to-face meetings and interactions. We cannot say now the office is dispensable. There are already arrangements for the different teams to come to the physical office on alternative days to keep the interaction to avoid any emotional problem that may incur if we are all work from home for too long.

We have to understand the difference of the men’s and women’s role in the family. Women still bore much of the childcare-responsibility than men. During the lockdown when everyone is in the same house and any kind of problem can become more acute. Then there is the study-from-home for the kids that can take away the mom’s attention from work and all of a sudden, her roles are becoming business and home at the same time. The living environment can become an issue if it is too small. Before the pandemic, everyone would leave for their destinations in the morning, whether it is the different offices, schools, daycare centers, and that could have made the difference compare to the lockdown situation. It has complicated everyone’s life at this time.

At the end of this writing, I would like to post the seven commandments of Zoom meeting etiquette as suggested by the pros.

• Be punctual for the meeting
• Turn on the camera
• Sit still
• No eating
• Don’t interrupt
• No multitasking