The latest results from my informal ‘Who’s Working From Home’ survey show an increase from 38% of respondents working from home at the start of the year to a current 52% which is back to the levels we saw early last year at the outbreak of Covid.
So, what I predicted would be a WFH drop off appears to have turned out to be an increase with over half of the workforce now settled in to a WFH routine of at least 2 days a week.
Also, whereas when Covid began it was employers who were driving WFH, it now seems to be the preferred arrangement of employees.
Does this sound like your experience currently? If so, one reason for the current trend could be that schools are still not fully back and parents are having to make arrangements to be at home.
How does WFH feel to you now…temporary still? or are you settling in to a new normal?
Last year when it began we were talking about pro’s (no commuting) and con’s (unsatisfactory experiences with the sudden increased demand for teleconference software). Other con’s appeared because of the sharp increase in remote connections particularly amongst project teams, OKR supervision and ad hoc activities like audits and inventories.
These activities are important because they require high levels of communication. Cross functional l Project teams for example have always struggled to collaborate satisfactorily… IT and Business for example…and this will not have been helped by being done remotely (or has it?)
Another valuable but highly under utilised activity at the best of times, in my opinion, is Mentoring which, because of the loss of casual encounters between Mentor and Mentee, maybe falling into disuse. If so, there will be repercussions not only at a personal level but on the business as well.
So stay connected, be proactive and don’t think twice about consulting a Mentor.
After working in sales and then purchasing roles for almost 18 years with companies in the UK, Japan, Korea and then here in Hong Kong, I became involved in the field of business skills development. 20 years later, my special interests in this area are individual management style building, interpersonal communication and influencing strategies. 