Despite, the work from home culture becoming a major part of the new normal, normalizing it into the next evolution of the workplace dynamic could prove to be counter productive in the long run, feels Praveen Sinha Jabong Co Founder. Yes, work from home comes with its fair share of positives. It is helping organizations all around the world trim costs by saving on expensive office rentals and all the other costs that come with maintaining commercial real-estate. It also allows the employees a certain freedom to choose their work hours and spend more time with the family whilst staying safe in a time when COVID 19 still continues to be a part of the society. But do the pros of this culture outweigh the cons? Let’s take a deeper look. 

Why will work from home not work long term? 

  • Lack of teamwork – For all the collaborative tools out there on the internet, there is nothing like a brainstorming session in a conference room without your colleagues. An online session simply doesn’t have the same productivity. 
  • Difficult to focus – With constant distractions ranging from family to pets, work from home is not as a novel a concept as once imagined. 
  • Invasion of privacy – Some organizations have started taking the new arrangement for granted, with online forums buzzing with frustrated employees talking about how they are expected to be available even on the wee hours of the day at times since they do not have to commute to work anymore. 
  • Erosion of company culture – It is difficult for a management to enforce a company culture if there is just no one in the office. 
  • Lower reliability – Studies have shown that employees have become far less reliable in a ‘work from home’ environment. Without anybody to keep track of progress from a physical standpoint, this was bound to happen. 
  • Doesn’t work across industries – Despite some IT firms and online companies adopting the work from home lifestyle forever, this arrangement doesn’t work for every industry. Could a law firm for instance function with everybody working from home, questions Jabong Co Founder Praveen Sinha. 

Hybrid Model – the answer? 

Some companies have gone for a hybrid approach to the situation allowing some employees to work from home full time, whilst retaining the core employees in the office. Some have made it optional allowing the employees the flexibility to choose what they want to do, whilst some have set a minimum 2 days in the office per week schedule. Some have adopted ‘work from home’ till the time the virus is at large while others have jumped at the opportunity to simply go back to work. I think thought needs to go into finding a calibrated approach for every organization as no standard industry template could possibly work for all the different types and sizes of organizations we have. The right way to go about this is to host a discussion with all the stakeholders and arrive at the best approach for your organization. However, some semblance of the old work culture needs to continue, because that is what worked all these years, concluded Praveen Sinha

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