Working from home pre-Covid-19 was the luxury of a few multinational and development sector employees.
This is not the case anymore, as the coronavirus has caused more employees to work from home, which has been exacerbated by the public health response of social distancing.
A March 17 survey by Gartner Inc gathered information from 800 global human resource executives and found that 88 per cent of organisations have required their employees to work from home.
The survey further revealed that to balance employee needs with financial realities, organisations are implementing various approaches, including use of leave. Some have asked employees to take unpaid leave.
Working from home is, however, a major change in many organisations, as this change has been not only sudden, but has also led to unprecedented adjustments by organisations and their employees.
A Consumer Insight poll conducted between March 28 and 31 showed that 81 per cent of Kenyan workers interviewed view working from home as unproductive. But what choice do they have except to embrace this change and make it work?
The truth is that work life, day-to-day life, the education of our children, our peace of mind, even fashion, have all been disrupted so suddenly and overtaken by fears of uncertainty.
LEAVE DAYS
This public health crisis is going to be a baptism by fire for organisations that have not previously invested in working from home.
Work, management of the human resource, employee benefits administration, employee pay and employee discipline, among others, have been impacted.
The new reality of the pandemic has forced employers to send employees home to minimise cases of infection and keep fatalities at the lowest possible.
For an employee to be away from work, one has to utilise one’s accrued annual leave days, sick leave if unwell, compassionate leave if bereaved, or study leave.
Seldom do employees take unpaid leave. Today, about 80 per cent of employees have been asked to work from home and different employers have asked employees to take annual leave, go on unpaid leave, take loaned leave, or simply work from home without any of their accrued leave being deducted.
The impact of employees utilising accrued annual leave days during this period is that when they resume, they will not have any if their entitlement is the statutory 21 working days.
Employees, however, cannot be forced to use their annual leave days, so their employers must explain the need and reasoning.
Some who had exhausted leave days have been loaned some days by their employers. This means they owe the employer the days because they did not have any accrued.
They may pay an employer in cash for the loaned days or continue to forfeit their leave days until they clear the loan.
PROVIDE RESOURCES
One other way of supporting employees who are loaned leave is for them to appeal to their colleagues who have extra leave days to give them so that they offset their loaned days. This has been practised elsewhere and worked.
To work from home means a shift of the workplace to one’s home.
To successfully work from home, employers should prepare the organisations and their employees to work from home.
The employer should have the infrastructure in place, including internet access that has the right security and privacy protocols.
We must now redefine a workplace and a place of work. As long as one can productively engage and achieve that which the job requires, the location from which this is done may not be of much concern, but caution should be exercised.
The assumption is that the employee has a comfortable seat, a well-lit room, tea to sip at certain breaks to increase sugar levels, a working laptop, and internet access.
Employers should take inventory of the types of equipment the staff would need as they work remotely.
This includes ensuring they have a laptop, a mobile phone, a printer, chargers, and office supplies in some cases.
There are several options an employer can consider, including giving employees a capped amount for their internet bundles, providing laptops for those who do not have them, and employees utilising personal internet and seeking reimbursement from the employer at prevailing rates.
LIMIT RISKS
The employer should prevent risks around confidentiality and protection of their proprietary data.
Public sector employees should familiarise themselves with cyber-hygiene guidelines by the Ministry of Information, Communication and Technology.
Employers should limit security risks. One of those suggested by ICT experts is having cloud-based applications.
There are organisations in Kenya that long moved into cloud-based computing while others remained with physical bulky servers.
This disruption is an opportune time to invest in cloud-based computing and data storage. I have often met friends and held meetings at a coffee shop where I have internet access.
The question for the employer today is to consider what teleworking means for their organisation.
Would you be comfortable if your staff are working from somewhere else other than home, such as a coffee shop?
Can they use their own electronic devices? How will meetings be held — online via video, phone, WhatsApp? And is the internet speed strong enough to sustain a video call?
CONSTANT CONTACT
Employers should establish guidelines for working from home. These should include how often employees should check in with their managers and team members, and in what way or medium.
For employees, during a video call, dress up, be kempt and presentable.
Human resource departments should ensure that work-from-home policies balance the expectations of both employees and the organisation and fulfil the needs of the workforce.
Help employees find clarity on what the work-from-home experience looks like to minimise their anxiety and negative impact on their productivity.
Managers should regularly check in with their staff to ensure they are still on target in meeting their deliverables and any challenges experienced mitigated on time.
Schedule more conversations with your teams. Avoid making team meetings late in the evenings when families are catching up too.
Encourage peer-to-peer interactions too, given the reduced face time in the office. This will ensure employees maintain regular professional and personal interactions with their peers and colleagues.
Working from home looks different for each employee depending on their needs and those of their families.
Many employees have taken the double role of supporting their children’s school work.
Organisations can support teams to meet the demands of the dual roles, for instance, by determining the “core team times” when all team members are available for meetings or consultations.
This way, employees will ensure these timings are freed for interaction with their manager and their colleagues.
PSYCHOLOGICAL BOOSTER
Managers should exercise flexibility. At home, a lot of things come up that usually wouldn’t when working from an office and therefore give your staff room to be flexible with their schedules — as long as everyone knows what their deliverables are and the timelines.
Employers should reach out to the entire organisation with communication on the situation and allow for employee feedback.
Tell your workforce how the organisation is doing and what is likely to happen next. This will make them feel confident that scenarios that may arise are being taken care of.
Be honest about situations and hold candid conversations. Working remotely, away from the usual office, requires a high level of discipline for an employee.
An employee who is used to being in an office from 8-5pm under the watchful eye of an employer would have to be self-disciplined, responsible and accountable.
While one may not dress up, taking a shower, and readying oneself for work at home is a psychological booster.
Managers should provide specific tasks to be accomplished by the employee while working remotely.
This will ensure deliverables are met while bearing in mind that the conditions under which the work is being done are not the usual, and this alone impacts employees.
The SMART model should guide work and deliverables more than it has even been done before. This will form the basis of the performance evaluation for the employees.
MINDSET
Managers should already be reviewing any performance objectives that were set before the Covid-19 disruption to ensure they remain relevant and timely.
The Covid-19 crisis will create a ‘next normal’ and will leave behind any sense of ‘business as usual’.
Some employees may come back full-time, others may consider working from home and some may opt to work for their employer a portion of the time.
Some may actually quit employment and run their own business, having had a time to reflect.
This will certainly require human resource managers to develop new operating models that include looking into governance of work, policies, work hours and our current employment laws to effectively respond to present-day challenges.
The Covid-19 season has led us to work from home and, as Elijah Schneider, says: “Wake up and get ready just like you’re going to work. If you stay in your slippers all day you will not be as productive.”
Dorcas K Wainaina, OGW, is a human resource expert: dorcaswainaina@yahoo.com
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