Coronavirus and working from home

Very quickly we saw travel warnings enacted. Stay at home! Keep away from affected countries. But what about people living and working in the countries where the coronavirus is present?

The answer seems obvious. Turn meetings into virtual ones and work from home as much as possible. 

Health & safety of staff is a top priority so do what needs to be done to ensure your health and stay calm.

This raises an interesting question.

Working from home has been an option that companies have debated and implemented to some extent for a number of years now. They asked the questions –  

Is it really effective?

Can you manage teams this way?

Do people really work when they stay at home?

Maybe we can create a compromise by allowing one day a week to work from home?

Many companies have put the topic on their agenda and have also tried to implement it with various strategies, compromises and phasing-in approaches. Some have been more successful than others in making this part of their culture and approach. 

Over the last few weeks, some of my clients, who previously never considered working from home, we’re now doing it (and even enjoying the experience).

What we have here is a situation where a quick and immediate solution needed to be found and implemented. There was no time to phase-in, transition or try a mixed approach. It just happened because it needed to happen. And it’s working.

What’s the economic impact?

What’s the impact on performance?

On work-life balance and ‘happiness at work’?

I’m curious about that.

Maybe it’s difficult to see this as an opportunity for learning since it arises from scary circumstances. At the same time, maybe this situation shows us that we can be flexible in our work environments. We can give people more of a choice, encourage quality of life and let people work from home, based on their needs and what works both for them and their business.

Just a thought…

And most important, of course, let’s stay healthy and safe and hopefully this will pass soon.

As a leader of an organisation, are you supporting working from home, and what measurements would you put in place when you allow your employees to work from home? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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