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SINGAPORE: On Monday (September 28), more people will be allowed to return to their workplaces as COVID-19 security measures will be further relaxed, but some workers in Singapore may not yet be ready to ditch from their pajamas for office clothes.
Chris Woon, 39, a telecommunications executive, said he has been working from home since March and hopes this can continue.
“I am satisfied with the arrangements of the company so far,” he said, adding that he feels more secure, can sleep more and is more productive.
Kong Man Jing, 26, who works in a teaching facility, said he is concerned about workplace restrictions that would make working in the office uncomfortable, such as the mandatory wearing of masks and regular temperature recording.
While he prefers to teach in person as it is more efficient for him, he would prefer to have the flexibility to do the rest of the work at home.
READ: COVID-19: More people allowed to return to the workplace, subject to conditions like capacity limits
Being able to go from bed to computer in seconds instead of commuting is another frequently cited advantage of working from home.
“I think my colleagues and I are used to working from home by now!” said Ms Kong, who has moved her entire desktop setup from her office to her bedroom.
They are the majority: July data compiled by human resources technology company EngageRocket from more than 2,600 respondents found that 72 percent of workers in Singapore are willing to continue working from home at least 50 percent of the time.
RETURN TO THE OFFICE? “PERFECT” FOR SOME
However, there are people who appreciated the announcement Wednesday night that employees can return to the workplace, subject to conditions.
The first condition is that employees must continue to work from home for at least half of their working time, and the second is that, at any one time, there should be no more than half of such employees in the workplace.
Ms. Lau, who is in her 30s, said returning to the office would be “perfect” – she felt more productive in the office as face-to-face meetings were shorter and more effective compared to virtual alternatives.
“Especially if there are new projects, when you need everyone to have ideas, it is better to meet in person,” said the executive of the shipping industry, who did not want to reveal her full name.
READ: With the coronavirus still with us, what does the future hold for the workplace?
Christian Sng, 26, a content designer, said the discussion about whether to return to the office has arisen at his workplace.
“I mean, in addition to feeling safe and all that, it relies heavily on preference and personality,” he said.
“For me, it really depends on the nature of the work. If there is a great emphasis on discussion and collaboration, I would prefer to gather around a whiteboard. However, with the implementation of digital tools, there is always the option of working from home. “
Associate Professor Trevor Yu, an expert in organizational behavior, said employers and workers must come together to craft a set of flexible work arrangements that satisfy all key stakeholders.
“Employers will definitely have to reconsider how essential it is to the job to have their workers physically located in a specific workplace.
“The workers themselves also have to be proactive and self-assess what are the conditions that allow them to be more productive in the performance of their work,” said Assoc Prof Yu, who is from the leadership, administration and organization division at the Business School. Nanyang from NTU.
WFH CHALLENGES
Dr Marco Minervini, an organizational design expert at INSEAD Singapore, said whether a person thrives while working from home could depend on factors such as the person’s dependence on social interaction at work and their tolerance for ambiguity.
“The office is a very effective place to resolve ambiguities because you have more social cues. It’s easier to talk to another person … people who are stressed out by ambiguity will struggle a lot in this new normal,” he said.
He added that working remotely requires the ability to structure work and put limits on it, and the people who can do it will do better. While some workers feel more in control of their time, others feel unable to separate work from their personal lives.
In the EngageRocket survey, the top three challenges respondents faced when working at home were not having the tools and resources they had in the office, having practical issues like space limitations or distractions, and working longer hours than usual.
Most companies have adapted well to working from home, according to the Singapore Business Federation, but for others, nothing is better than being able to work in person. From underpowered laptops to maintaining business interests abroad, these are some of the challenges people face when working from home.
Ms. Lau and Ms. Kong said that they now work longer hours and feel the need to answer emails late into the night.
“I see the line between my work life and my personal life blurring,” Ms. Lau said.
Associate Professor Joshua Gooley, principal investigator in the Sleep and Chronobiology Laboratory at Duke-NUS School of Medicine, said that achieving the separation between work time and personal time, which includes sleep, can be difficult to achieve when you work from home.
“Don’t check your work email before going to bed unless you have to. Before you know it, you may be back to work at the exact time you are trying to close for the night. Even if you don’t need to launch a reply, you may be thinking about that email and what to do the next day instead of going to sleep, “she said.
“It’s well established that screen time before bed is associated with later bedtime and shorter sleep.”
HYBRID WORK
Another implication of this week’s announcement is that more people may end up working remotely than working in the office.
In announcing the latest measures, Education Minister and Co-Chair of the multi-ministerial task force for COVID-19, Lawrence Wong, said that the new work arrangements do not have to be “binary” and can be a combination of both.
He also suggested that employers should allow workers to travel off-peak to minimize overcrowding on public transportation, for example by allowing them to work in blocks from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., or 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. in the office, and then work the rest of the day. at home.
Regardless of the practical arrangements, experts agreed that we need to rethink how we work if remote or hybrid work arrangements become the norm.
READ: The future of work is a hybrid model, not a completely remote one, says Zoom CEO Eric Yuan
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EngageRocket CEO Leong Chee Tung said organizations are already reconsidering their investments to improve home offices and improve access to resources in order to solve one of the main challenges of working from home: lack of tools. and resources.
“We will probably see office spaces evolve to be more suitable for their purpose: collaborative work, focused attention or social interactions, rather than a uniform open concept or cubicle model with a classy-looking pantry,” he said.
Some have estimated that companies and employees have accelerated the use of technology and remote work arrangements by up to five years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he said.
“The ‘workplace’ will also begin to extend into the home through technology, and a new combination of hardware and software will be required to enable this,” he said.
Adjunct Professor Yu said that people will have to be better equipped technologically and psychologically to handle themselves in such an arrangement.
While technology is likely to play an even bigger role in the new hybrid workplace, employers must be “judicious” in the way they use it, he said.
“For example, having a day full of Zoom meetings simply because it’s convenient can have a detrimental effect on the efficiency and physical and psychological well-being of employees.”
WORKING ASYNCHRONOUSLY
Instead, they must determine exactly what can be used to improve communication efficiency and plan projects with a mix of synchronous and asynchronous work.
Dr. Minervini said that before, work was designed for people to meet in the office and this has to change.
Following the lead of companies that were working totally remotely before the pandemic, more work can be designed to be done independently and asynchronously, he said.
“Before there was no need, they were all in the office. What we can do now is ‘break down’ the tasks as much as possible, to ensure that everyone can work independently without the need to coordinate simultaneously with each other. ” he said.
“The idea is that we work asynchronously and that gives you a lot of flexibility for your life … if there is someone who needs to take care of the children between 2 pm and 4 pm, which would be the usual working hours, they would have the freedom not to work now and maybe work later. “
Comment: Let’s face it. Zoom meetings are exhausting
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But he cautioned that certain hybrid work arrangements can create two subgroups of workers, with those working from home and those in the office forming their own cliques.
“My suggestion is to be very intentional about how to design these hybrid working arrangements and try to create a level playing field,” he said.
In addition to ensuring productivity, EngageRocket’s Mr. Leung said companies should also invest more in developing and maintaining a culture of belonging, and engaging their workers more frequently to calibrate focus as they move toward a work arrangement. hybrid.
“Without establishing this feedback loop, leaders will have a hard time understanding why their team is not productive and may be victims of cognitive biases that make them assume that the drop in productivity is due to remote work, when in reality they are the result of bad management practices, “he said.
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