An Experiment in WFH & Productivity: What COVID-19 has taught us
“For years, people had been told, “It’s essential for you to be in the office,” only to realize that being in the office wasn’t so essential after all. Zoom calls easily replaced dozens of in-person meetings…
Processes that seemed to work fine in a physical office space suddenly showed how dated and inefficient they were,” according to the article Remote work is changing how productivity is measured from FastCompany on August 16, 2020.
“In March 2020, the largest ‘work-from-home’ experiment in history began.”
Did you know? The “experiment” has actually lent to a significant increase in productivity.*
Life after COVID-19 for both businesses and employees will never be the same — nor does it need to be.
There are two “big changes” changes that the article references:
- Businesses Will Embrace Flexibility
- Automation Will Increasingly Be Essential
So, let’s start with flexibility. Most of us can remember times when an 8–5 was a must as well as those hours being logged in the office. With COVID-19, this just wasn’t possible in most cases. We’ve all experienced, for the most part, new challenges and changes with the work-from-home switch. For one, business casual has become much more casual. Also, children, dogs and cats — even significant others — sometimes make noise or even appearances on conference calls or video chats.
Also, school is from home in many cases right now and daycares are closed, making scheduling often if not tricky even completely impossible to fit into normal business hours. But it’s not just partners and vendors that are facing these challenges, it’s the clients too. It turns out that it’s okay to have a life outside of your fully professional one. It’s okay to be a bit more transparent — human even. Sometimes, it can actually be a chance to maybe find commonality with a client!
“Work-life balance is a term that has long been used, but it focuses on the separation of work and life. Today and moving forward, it’s all about work-life integration.”
Now let’s visit automation.
“Many businesses didn’t realize how inefficient they were being until the pandemic hit.”
What worked in the office simply doesn’t necessarily support efficiency or ease in a work-from-home employee model. Instead, a move to cloud-based where all-in-one solutions and guaranteed uptime are both possible is essential. So is the ability to reach your customer base from multiple touchpoints to increase communication ease and overall customer experience.
For contact centers, this solution is simple: getting cloud-based call center software. Click here to learn about the 8 advantages of having a cloud-based contact center.
So, in reality, the realization that WFH is the new normal — and that flexibility is now being embraced — shouldn’t be a scary or worrisome one to those in executive and management roles. Rather, it can be something to be embraced. Higher productivity. A larger emphasis on efficiency and automation. Who wouldn’t want that?
Looking for more information? Our team at Qubicles has you covered! Check out one of our other blog posts listed below:
Remote Work Solutions for Contact Centers
Contact Centers + COVID-19: Changing to Work-from-Home and Cloud-based Solutions
5 Tips for Communication with New Work-from-Home Contact Center Agents
*Source: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200519005295/en/
