APC – January 2021
English | 116 pages | pdf | 37 MB
Inside APC Magazine January 2021
Are you one of the many that has spent most of 2020 working from home? And, now face at least a few more months of WFH as we await the jab in the arm that will, we hope, rid us of this massive disruption?
Were you caught ill-equipped when it all began, and had to rush into setting up a home office that was an improvement on a laptop at the kitchen table? Did your company scramble to put in place remote working systems to ensure smooth workflow, tight security, and all without having to spend a small fortune?
And if so – how do you feel now about returning to an office full time again?
For a great many, I suspect, perhaps less than keen.
We’ve all had plenty of time to adapt. And, so have our employers. Does it strike you as slightly crazy that one should rise early in the morning, put on some expensive clothes so we present well to the outside world, and venture off on a potentially long journey, to sit at a desk, or a long impersonal crowded bench – being the new style of worker’s paradise – packed in tight with others, working in a sterile and depressing environment on worse equipment than you have at home?
I’ve come to think this is madness, and I’m not alone. When the world returns to ‘normal’, well, it won’t be the old normal. Across industry – and particularly in tech – many companies have offered employees the opportunity to remote work permanently. It’s happening on various scales. Some will expect a day or two in the office – likely scheduled for when team meetings or client presentations need to happen, others are offering complete freedom to
WFH five days a week. Or will that soon become four days a week? That’s the next frontier, and it’s gaining momentum.
Of course I’m well aware there are a great many – perhaps a majority – of industries where it is essential that office workers come in every day. Recalcitrance to change is surely a factor in many, though. Bosses that don’t trust their workers unless they can see them, etc. But money talks and the cost of running a fancy CBD office is immense.
It’s a massively complex topic. What are the psychological and social implications for people living alone? Who pays for a worker’s new laptop? How will tax law change for deductions? And what will become of all those empty city buildings?
It’ll be most interesting to see how 2021 unfolds. With so many large companies leading the way and allowing remote working there’s already huge momentum. The workers who have taken a shine to all the conveniences and cost savings of WFH will be making some noise. If this was a new concept being proposed today in a fantasy non-COVID world it would undoubtedly sink – but through 2020 hundreds of millions of people, or more, have proven it is not only possible and doable, but desirable and with clear measurable benefits.
BEN MANSILL
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