With high speed internet and the Internet of Things in full swing, many businesses didn’t miss a beat as their workers were able to work from home very effectively. Sure, there were a few hiccups as everybody tried to figure out how to make things work. Shortly thereafter, things did work and very effectively at that. Which begs the question. Shouldn’t everybody that can work remotely just continue to do so? Why do we even need to commute and work in a cramped office anyway? There are pros and cons of course. In this article, we will go over several of the ways that work culture has changed now that the world was turned upside down.
9 to 5 is a Last Century Phenomenon
I don’t even mean just that people were working remotely, it also changed work schedules in general. Many offices are seeing the benefits not only of allowing people to work from home, but also doing flexible hours so they can make their own schedule.
Some people like to come in late and then leave late while others prefer to come in early and leave early. As long as the work is getting done, it doesn’t really matter when. This works out great for businesses as it ensures every hour worked is as productive as it can be. In both scenarios, people are not sitting in traffic for hours getting to work and home again. This means more work is actually getting done. And the same holds true for remote workers. They are actually productive in front of their computers earlier than they normally would start their work day since they aren’t sitting in their car or a train getting to work. As long as remote employee management is being done properly, the work gets done.
Technology Plays a Bigger Role
There is no way possible that many businesses could have survived this year without the technology available to allow it to happen. Advances in the Internet of Things and high speed internet allowed for workers to be able to be more productive than ever before. This means that work was getting done much more efficiently.
Some of the biggest ways that technology has helped businesses is with their paperwork. Filing for things like benefits, sick leave and other human resources related events were able to be done through apps for the most part. This took a lot of work away from people and freed them up to do other things like coordinate a remote workforce quickly. Other apps allowed offices to keep their communication open through virtual meetings. In many cases, they used apps like Slack and Discord to keep everybody on the same page and the work delegated efficiently.
Barriers Broken and Drama Eliminated
A true productivity killer in any office is drama. There is almost no way to avoid it as you have many different personalities in a small space that need to find a way to work together. Often, these relationships turn sour and it is difficult to get work done. With people working more flexible schedules or even entirely remote, almost all of the drama was eliminated from the office dynamic. Even with the tension surrounding the uncertainty, people were much looser and relaxed about things when they did have to work together. People were all pulling on the same rope. This is likely to continue even as things get back to normal. Emotional barriers were also broken by showing a dimension of themselves that is not readily apparent in an office. People’s personal lives were on display for all to see. In some cases literally as video meetings from home would be interrupted by family members or pets and co workers saw into their peers homes. This likely means that co workers are seen as people and not just a face in the office that they depend on to get certain things done. There will likely be a greater spirit of collaboration from this point forward as a result.
Conclusion
The 9 to 5 culture is so outdated that it seems almost laughable now to think it was still a thing a few short months ago. There doesn’t seem to be any reason to continue with this way of working since it is unproductive and made totally obsolete thanks to technology.
