Not long ago, a request for work from home was looked upon with tons of skepticism, doubts, discouragement and a certain judgmental entitlement not only by your manager but
even by your colleagues and by the corporate ecosystem. In some of the corporate cultures and countries, this was not a very welcome or encouraged situation.
I think this has totally changed, not necessarily by choice but for survival owing to the Covid 19 pandemic the world over. Increasing number of large organisations are announcing their willingness to allow employees to work from home for perpetuity!
Indeed, work from home has led to some comical and debatable situations as well. The social media is full of incidents where video meetings or news broadcast are bombed by children, parents, partners and inquisitive pets sniffing laptops or making their presence felt in the background by the occasional barks or meows. Some situations are truly hilarious!
The debatable ones are like my son talking to me and my wife the other day and announcing that his boss finds our household full of commotion and questioning his right to judge our home. Other interesting debate I read was about how the privacy of families are invaded while working from home. The author went on to say as to how corporates have rules of conduct while families visit the work places of the employee, when they can come, which areas they can visit or not visit, how loud or feeble they can be while they talk whereas during the work from home regime, the corporates conduct their business with certain amount of entitlement and right to violate the privacy of homes and families.
These are interesting times and industry pandits are already calling this to be the ‘NEW NORMAL’
Work from Home is no more asking the employee to have a laptop, a phone that is working and an acceptable internet connection, it is much more now. A work from home employee has to worry about having a work desk, a private space, enough illumination, safe and healthy seating, isolation while the corporate has to worry about secured network when the employee has to access critical and sensitive applications from the Enterprise resources, inability to monitor the remote employee, inconsistent network performance, quality of service etc.
While there are pros and cons on both sides of the coin here, one side being the corporate and the other side being the employee, these are times which are unique, overwhelming, intense and ever evolving!
While I sit back, observe, learn and feel amused with childlike orientation, I often wonder in the changing times as to how wonderful is the DNA and spirit of corporates and employees not only to survive but look at excellence even during the global pandemic which is threatening the essence of life itself.
Be safe with your loved ones, while I do look forward to connect with you again!
Atul Ojha
Co-Founder
Axon Networks