The Work from Home(WFH) is no more a new term in today’s world due to Coronavirus Pandemic. Unlike companies in the IT domain, where employees were allowed remote working pre COVID- 19, all other industries are struggling royally. Now, every industry (who can work remotely) is forced to adopt and adapt to this new work culture to keep their operations running.
This has left them with just two obvious options – to halt their operations or adapt to this structural change of working from home, which of course cannot be implemented overnight.
Top Challenges Faced by the Companies to facilitate Remote Work
Most of the companies were not prepared to deal with work from home. Thus, they are facing a magnitude of challenges, some of which are:
Lack of Right Infrastructure
With employees at homes, companies must be adept with VPN facilities and the likes to effectively work from home. But, this isn’t the case with most at present. On top of that, the unreliable speed of the internet, unavailability of a noise-free, separate work area at home is making communication extremely tough.
Inept in Understanding Software
Most of the people have worked from office throughout and have had IT teams at their disposal. But now every employee needs to get a hang of collaborative tools on their own, which is becoming a problem. Finding and fixing the smallest of glitches is, in turn, impacting the productivity of work.
Unavailability of the basic IT Infrastructure
There are many companies that still work on desktop computers and the employees don’t have a laptop at home. And with everything under lockdown, it has become challenging for companies to buy or rent these at this time. Moreover, the demand for equipment is high with a limited supply leading to organizational work being hampered.
Household Chores as Distractions
In most places, house help has been given indefinite leaves. So an employee working from home has to engage in several household chores, such as cleaning, cooking or laundry and managing kids at home. These tasks consume most of their time and lead to reduced productivity of the staff and adversely affect work quality.
It is not just the companies that are facing the challenges in regard to productivity. The employees too are finding it puzzling to maintain the continuous efficiency while managing household tasks. Moreover, it has led to various ergonomic issues among the staff who have never considered having a working zone at home. Working from sofa or bed is causing health problems, like backaches, wrist pains, neck strains.
Conclusion
Accomplishing seamless operations from home for employees and employers alike is becoming a tough cookie. This is also due to the fact that there wasn’t any Business Continuity Plan made by companies for such an emergency. Those who gave a thought in preparing one have gotten accustomed to this adversity quickly, while others are getting a learning for life.