Office employees to work from home for remainder of 2020?
Tech giants Facebook and Google say most of their staff will work from home for the rest of the year
Print19 May 2020
While uncertainty prevails as to when exactly office-based staff will return to said office in many sectors, journalist Adrian Weckler has made the pert observation that tech companies tend to lead the way in these situations.
Indeed, Google was the first major company in Ireland to ask staff to work from home at the outset of the Covid-19 crisis and Microsoft and Facebook were the first heavyweights to announce conferencing activities were cancelled until summer 2021.
So what have the big tech hitters told their employees since? Well, Facebook and Google have said the majority of staff will continue to work from home for the rest of this year.
Twitter meanwhile, has told staff they can work from home “forever” if they wish.
Our sister publication, TechCentral.ie, has also reported how working from home has proved unexpectedly successful for many firms, in a study which can be viewed here.
With workable broadband in most locations, this feat is more achievable than it would have been in the past. However, while some colleagues enjoy the greater flexibility offered by working from home, for others a lack of physical interaction is more problematic with loneliness and isolation creating difficulties.
Barry Whelan of Excel Recruitment presciently examined whether the coronavirus crisis would lead to a widespread permanent shift to working at home in ShelfLife‘s March issue.
“Working from home or remote working is becoming more and more prevalent in modern working life,” he wrote, “and whilst it’s unlikely to be an option offered to retail worker or field sales personnel, we have seen these practices creep into retail. Primark allows colleagues in its buying office the option to work from home every Friday. If Primark offers this most modern perk, who will follow suit? And what will be the effect on productivity, company financial health and indeed, staff morale?”
As Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang put it, “the crisis is a very, very big challenge to the society,” but it also gives people a “chance to try a new way of living and new way of work”.
Both Excel Recruitment and The HR Suite offer useful advice and strategies to ensure successful remote working in this month’s issue of ShelfLife, which can now be accessed digitally at the link below (on pages 12 and 30).
https://www.shelflife.ie/may-issue-of-shelflife-magazine/
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