There are so many things we have learned from workplaces this year. One of those things clearly has to be working from home. Over the past months work places have become deserted something we didn’t anticipate was going to happen in our life time or better in 2020. Most businesses have closed their premises and this has given us a mind switch in HR.
For so many years the argument for working at home has been that if a job can be done from home then there absolutely no reason why it shouldn’t be done from home. As HR Leaders we need to take a step back and ask ourselves whether the practice is good for the company and the overall welfare of the employees. We need to ask ourselves are the people happy? Does this practice affect the productivity and the commitment of the people? If it isn’t best for the people then it is not good for the company because at the end of the day what we need to have is happy people and a productive environment, whether working remotely or on the front lines.
Going on forward companies will need to incorporate new work from home policies. Furthermore the evolution of digital HR tools will play a crucial role in maintaining employee engagement amidst the rapid changes. More operational processes and workflows may need to be automated. This might include tasks like recruitment and onboarding, records managements employees benefit management and employees evaluation.
HR Leaders might be interested in also incorporating more artificial intelligence (AI) tools into every day operations for better efficiency and work flow.
While we do not expect every company to embrace the possibility of its employees working from home we do believe that working from home will remain an important part of how we work. In other words things like Zoom meetings which at first we felt were so exhausting might be here for a longer time, more than we expected. Because, what this pandemic has taught us is that we don’t have to be face to face for everything to happen. We can still handle things better even with the remote meetings.
At the end as we continue to embrace ourselves in the new normal and more operational processes and workflows becoming automated, the basic human, needs to feel fulfilled and connected at work place will still remain a priority to all HR leaders. Are you ready to embrace the new normal?
