Companies that were against working from home or flexible working practises have found that they have needed to embrace them, and quickly, in order to survive. Technology manufacturers, distributors and resellers have been inundated with requests for VoIP services, Laptops, cloud computing solutions and all of the other things that are needed to enable a home working environment.
One of my favourites was the cardboard pop up desk from Pallite, showing that innovation in a time of crisis can not only keep your business running, but it can also help people. A low cost, temporary workspace that could be quickly manufactured, delivered and deployed was exactly what a lot of people needed.
It was the same for communications solutions. Those of us that could connect people quickly and efficiently, with minimal disruption or capital outlay could help people continue to work as effectively as possible.
We’re several weeks into “Lockdown” now and there’s a large proportion of the country’s workforce either working from home or on furlough. How will we all react to going back to work?
When you’ve worked from home for a significant amount of time you get used to a number of things. The most important I’ve found is the extra time gained from not having to commute. Even if it’s only 15/20 minutes, that time is valuable. Sitting in a car in rush hour traffic can be infuriating, particularly if you’ve got a time constraint. Simply not having to travel to a place of work is a liberating experience, and now a lot of people have felt this.
Unemployment and redundancy is likely to rise over the coming months as a lot of businesses are likely to be cutting costs, cutting staff or even folding entirely. That’s a lot of people out of work. There will also be businesses expecting people to go back to their normal work patterns, in the office every day. Now that staff have had a taste of freedom, will they want that? Or will they all start looking for somewhere a bit more open minded about where their employees carry out their activities?
I think it’s highly likely that businesses will need to change their attitudes in order to retain or attract good people.
Those that can modernise their infrastructure and enable people to work from locations other than their central HQ will inevitably be seen as a better prospect. A lot of companies will have made some efforts to keep running with remote workers during this time. They need to cement that ability to remote work as part of their business continuity plan and ensure that their remote working solutions are reliable, secure and efficient. We don’t know if this virus is going to come back in a second, third, maybe even fourth, wave. We don’t know if a different one will strike in the future, so we need to be prepared.
All of this has shown us that business continuity needs to be considered as the highest priority and that the technology is available to enable almost anyone with a desk based job to work remotely and keep the wheels of commerce and industry turning.
