Since the COVID-19 pandemic, working remotely has become the new normal for many professionals. The workplace has shifted from open floor plans to kitchen tables; video calls have replaced meetings in conference rooms, and dressing in sweats has become our business casual uniform of choice.
TechRepublic Premium recently surveyed 847 professionals and asked them questions pertaining to working remotely to see where businesses got it right–and wrong.
The survey asked the following questions:
How many days do you currently work remotely (at home or at a non-company- owned location) during a normal five-day workweek?
How would you describe your company’s execution of its current remote work approach?
What safety protocols has your company implemented for the office?
What has your company done well as part of its remote work approach?
What has your company done poorly as part of its remote work approach?
What types of platforms have you depended on the most for remote work?
How have you changed your connectivity to make working from home possible?
As a result of COVID-19, a majority (61%) of businesses have gone out of their way to make remote work possible for most employees. According to respondents, 78% indicated that they are working from home five days a week. Five percent work remotely for either four or three days a week, 4% work remotely two days a week, and 2% of respondents work remotely one day a week. Only 6% said they do not work remotely; of those respondents, 61% would work remotely, if given the opportunity.
The majority (96%) of respondents said their company either very successfully or successfully executed its remote work approach. Some of the top ways employers are making it easier for employees to work remotely is by providing conferencing tools (81%), computer hardware (74%), and connectivity tools such as VPN or cellular devices (73%).
This is a good thing since 80% of respondents reported depending on video conferencing platforms (such as Zoom or Microsoft Teams) for remote work. Cloud-based office suites for collaboration (such as Google Workspace or Office 365) are necessary for 63% of respondents to work remotely, and for 57%, VPN is essential.
Cloud storage followed as a necessity for 46% of respondents, and then respondents listed team tools (such as Slack) at 33%. Fewer respondents require project management tools (13%), private cloud solutions (7%), and team management tools (5%).
Where employers fall short, according to respondents, is supplying hardware (56%) and providing equipment to help employees create an effective remote workspace (52%). In addition, 37% of respondents reported that their company is doing a poor job with their remote work approach with video conferencing tools, virtual collaboration tools, manager training, and HR resources.
Interestingly, 75% of respondents reported not needing to change their connectivity to make working from home possible. However, 7% of respondents have added a mesh network or purchased a Wi-FI hotspot to use as a backup, and 5% either switched providers or replaced consumer-grade network hardware with something more secure.
During the spring wave of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, almost half of all employees in the UK were working from home at least some of the time. Whilst this was, of course, a scary time for everyone, there was also a sense of banding together, battening down the hatches and maybe even a little excitement at being able to work from home for the first time. Many adapted well to this strange new set-up. Kitchen tables became digital business hubs and spare bedrooms make-shift Zoom boardrooms.
But that was nearly 10 months ago, and the short-term shift to remote working has gradually become a more permanent, fundamental change in the way we work. And many are now realising the potential pitfalls.
Driven partly by the resurgence of the virus following the summer, and also by shifting attitudes of employers who are now realising they can trust their people to get the job done and remain productive without their watchful eye, remote working is here to stay in some capacity. A recently released survey from KPMG showed how 68 percent of CEOs plan on downsizing their offices to reflect this shift, and it seems that what was the most popular employee benefit of the last decade has been fast-tracked some 20 years in the space of 10 months.
That’s all well and good for those who have adjusted well or have properties large enough to accommodate a home office. But not everyone wants to be working from home. Some miss the buzz of the office and the social aspect of a workplace. Others may miss the ‘me time’ that a commute afforded them. Indeed, many new members of the work-from-home community may have contributed to the startling increase in divorce rates and break-ups.
Maybe that open-plan family room wasn’t such a good idea after all. Regardless of which camp you’re in, remote working in some form is here to stay. So how can you make a success of it? Here are some pointers from someone who’s been a member of the work-from-home clan for more than two years now.
Create a dedicated space.
The biggest change that new work-from-homers will need to make as a short-term solution shifts into a permanent new reality is creating a space in their home that’s sole purpose is work.
Kitchen tables, the sofa or cluttered box room just won’t cut it anymore. Even for organisations that switch to a 3-2-2 model or a variation of it (that’s three days in the office, two working remotely and two days off at the weekend), it’d be a struggle in terms of professional mindset to move from office to sofa and maintain the same attitude, output and productivity.
A dedicated space helps create a more seamless transition between workplace and home working. It will induce a professional mindset when you enter and aid focus. This dedicated space should ideally be cut off in some way from distractions and general home noises.
I don’t think I would have been nearly as productive over the last two years if every morning was a trip to the kitchen to turn the laptop on and there I stayed until 6 p.m. That close a proximity to the fridge certainly wouldn’t have helped things either!
Play around with the ambience.
One of the big benefits that many would have enjoyed when starting their first few remote workdays is having total control over the office environment. Radio station? Pick your favourite. Too warm? No need to negotiate opening a window with an always-cold coworker.
For long-term remote working, it’s good to play around with the ambience of your home office to find what works best.
As an example, I always find talk radio is a great backing track for the morning rush to clear the inbox and check on campaigns. But the post-lunch lull requires a lively Spotify playlist at full blast to maintain productivity.
Others find that certain tasks, such as a blog or technical writing, can be easier to focus on with softer background noise such as rain sounds or even a YouTube video of general office background noise (I kid you not, and I’ve tried it, and it does work on occasion).
Have a play around with lighting too. Natural light is always best for alertness and attention, whilst for those who like to work into the evenings, softer lamp light may be less harsh.
Finally, have a think about the temperature of your room. Whilst it’s very tempting to create a snug office that’s always warm, research has found that we tend to lose focus and productivity in rooms that are too warm. After all, if you’re a bit tired after a long drive, you don’t whack the heating on – you open the window for some fresh air.
Force yourself to stay connected.
Remote working presents a challenge to both extroverts and introverts.
For the former, not being surrounded by co-workers, a lack of “real” conversations or office socialising are a real problem when it comes to working from home. They thrive on these interactions and, as such, working alone at home can become frustrating and isolating.
On the flip side, for introverts who likely gravitate toward remote working more naturally, there is a danger of slipping into a mindset that starts to resent or even fear the Zoom or MS Teams call sound after a few hours of peace. For the more introverted, the office forced social interactions. Remote working can quickly see you start to actively avoid the group chats and digital socials.
Whichever camp you may be in – and it can be a bit of both depending on your mood and how fatigued you are – forcing yourself to stay connected is critical for long-term remote working.
And force yourself to stop working, too.
This is probably the biggest problem for the WFH community. For a workforce that was increasingly becoming an ‘always-on’ workforce, working from home has exacerbated the problem – especially when the makeshift workspace was the kitchen table or living room armchair.
But it’s critical for the long-term success of remote working to force yourself to STOP. If your organisation has still enforced a 9-5 or equivalent working hours – just work those hours then shut up shop for the day. If your employers are really forward-thinking and allow for both remote working and flexible hours too, then make sure you’re pacing yourself too.
A recent survey from The Office Group found that working longer hours was the biggest contributor to burnt-out millennials, alongside the inability to separate work and personal life.
Remember, you’re no good to anyone if you burn out from overworking. And it’s detrimental to your physical and mental health. So take a break, try to switch off when your day is done and resist the late-night email check.
The best ways I’ve found to deal with this is actually leaving the house when a particular working shift is done, either to walk the dog or a trip to the shop. It breaks the work mindset and helps you to switch off. Give it a try!
By: Arthur Wilson Entrepreneur Leadership Network VIP
Modus Project Manager Samantha Park sits down with Co-Founder Jay Garcia to discuss how remote life differs at Modus from other organizations, share some of their techniques to make remote work easier, and talk about some of the challenges they’ve experienced working in a non-traditional environment. Ms. Park elaborates on the flexibility and independence that remote work provides, and discusses the expectation and reality of remote work, how to create a work-life balance, and tips for staying focused and on track. Modus is always on the lookout for people who want to work in an environment where they are challenged to grow and do great things with awesome people. Think you have what it takes to work with us? Check out our open positions at https://moduscreate.com/careers Subscribe to our YouTube channel, and turn on notifications! https://mdus.co/subscribe Sam on Social Media: Twitter – https://twitter.com/sparkps126 LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/samantham… Blog – https://moduscreate.com/blog Timestamps: 0:24 – Working remotely at Modus 0:50 – Going fully-remote for the first time 1:38 – Dealing with loneliness 2:08 – Expectation vs. reality of remote work 2:33 – Drawing a boundary between work and life 3:29 – The flexibility of remote work 4:14 – Building an office space at home 5:16 – Leading Modus while remote Modus Create is a disruptive consulting firm based on the model of an open-source team dedicated to making the best software on earth, and to leaving the world better than we found it. Together with our customers, we build products that empower people with breakthrough services and experience. Modus is always on the lookout for people who want to work in an environment where they are challenged to grow and do great things with awesome people. Think you have what it takes to work with us? Check us out at https://moduscreate.com/careers #workfromhome #remotework #employeeinterview #workculture #collaboration #collaborationtools #creativethinking
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Being an all-remote company since the very beginning, Transformify Freelancer Management System was not negatively impacted by COVID-19 outbreak. Yet, many of our clients were caught by surprise. Business interruption and declining revenues inevitably resulted in massive layoffs across the globe. Highly skilled people were struggling to find jobs during the lockdown, and unfortunately, the situation has not improved much since.
Finding a solution for all those people became a mission for our team as we realized the power of the user data gathered over the years.
Transferrable skills
Was there anything that could make people who have lost their jobs attractive to the hiring managers of companies operating in completely different industries?
Imagine flight attendants, chefs, waiters, travel agents, thousands of them, who have been laid off or furloughed at about the same time. Why would a hiring manager from Zoom, Amazon, Walmart or any other company out there that was thriving during these challenging times hire them instead of people who had experience within the same industry?
For some time, it seemed that hardly anything could be done when out of a sudden our powerful matching algorithm served the answer in front of our eyes—transferrable skills. All these people had some skills that were relevant to more than one company or industry that would allow them to be considered for completely different jobs to those they had before.
However, to take advantage of their transferrable skills, both the job seekers and hiring managers needed to be aware of these transferrable skills and take them into account during the hiring process. We realized that we were after something that could have a massive social impact in the years to come.
COVID-19 response: Sustainable remote jobs
As Transformify Freelancer Management System joined the Digital Skills & Jobs Coalition of the EU Commission back in 2016, we submitted a new pledge titled COVID-19 Response: Sustainable Remote Jobs tackling unemployment amid coronavirus outbreak. Travel has been restricted for a period of time making it hard for job seekers to relocate in search of a job elsewhere.
On top of that, most jobs have been transformed into remote jobs anyway making it a bit easier to apply for jobs with employers based elsewhere in the world. Leveraging our technology, we made it easy for the job seekers to outline their transferrable skills and for the hiring managers to consider candidates having experience in a completely different industry.
What about considering a travel agent for a customer support job with an e-commerce company? Or considering a hotel events manager as a key account manager with an online conferencing company? Strictly speaking, they have the skills that are required to make them successful with their new roles.
However, it was anything but easy to convince the hiring managers to consider them. After all, there were so many candidates having relevant experience within the same industry, why should they give a chance to anyone else?
It took months of constant communication, press releases and lots of online events to popularize the initiative but it was worth the effort. It’s a positive change that shifted the mindset of people, both hiring managers and job seekers, toward life-long learning.
Life-long learning
As a professor at Zigurat Business School, I have the privilege to teach very bright students who have already achieved a lot in life. Mostly, these are managers in the middle of their careers, looking for their next career step and eager to learn and develop their skills. Prior to the pandemic, people who constantly invested time and effort into learning new skills were in the minority.
Now a lot of job seekers have learned the hard way the importance of having relevant skills. From developing a side hustle, to securing an independent revenue stream, to acting as an independent consultant for a period of time, to taking on freelance gigs to make the ends meet while job hunting—it’s clear that developing new, in-demand skills is an investment that always delivers high returns.
Some time ago I had the pleasure to interview Shelley Osborne, VP of Learning at Udemy, and I could not agree more with her views on life-long learning:
“Learning to me is the future of work. With today’s rate of change, there is no longer a way for us to exist without infusing growth and learning into our daily lives. We have to break down those traditional thoughts of just achieving a diploma or getting through a company training ‘because someone told me that I had to.’ Instead, it’s a mindset that persists and prevails and should instead be thought of as lifelong learning.
When I was thinking about writing, ‘The Upskilling Imperative: 5 Ways to Make Learning Core to the Way We Work‘, I knew I wanted to convey that upskilling is imperative and provide a roadmap on how we can create this culture of learning where continuous learning is the norm. The need to learn something new will always be there. It’s impossible to know what will be critical to learn in five, ten years from now so we must develop ‘learning agility’ – the idea that we are open to learning new skills, whatever those skills might be.
Life-long learning is the way forward but how do leaders predict which skills will be high in-demand in the foreseeable future?
Although there is no single answer, the best way to learn and develop new skills is to ask yourself “What am I good at?” as it is hardly possible to excel as a data scientist if you dislike math and statistics—no matter how much such skills are demanded on the market. A single Google search using keywords like “the most demanded skills”, “jobs of the future”, “the future of work” will deliver lots of relevant results.
Visiting popular job boards and filtering based on the number of posted jobs by category also provides an idea of which skills are in demand. Last but not least, visiting online learning portals and checking which courses have been trending over a period of time is also a good starting point.
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When working from home, there may be a new concern for workers other than going without pants.
To ensure employees do what they’re supposed to, some employers have begun using surveillance apps and programs to monitor worker productivity.
This has raised some worker privacy concerns and the questions of whether this is legal or proper.
The short answer is that yes, it can be legal if done right. As for whether it’s proper or not, that’s up to debate. In this article, I’ll discuss what can or cannot be done when it comes to employers remotely supervising their employees.
Why Would an Employer Want to Monitor an Employee?
Traditionally, there have been five primary reasons why employers seek to watch or monitor employees.
First, the employer may want to protect itself in the case of possible lawsuits. This can include documenting what a worker does in case litigation, or an internal investigation ensues.
Second, the employer may want to maintain the integrity of its hardware and software from malicious cyber activity. Social media and rogue cloud accounts can be sources of harmful software, including viruses and malware.
Third, the employer might seek to protect intellectual property, such as trade secrets or client lists.
Fourth, all employers want to make sure workers do what they’re supposed to do. This means not downloading pornographic material or engaging in any activities that the employer might have a particular reason to discourage.
Finally, we have the employer who wants to ensure productivity levels. This is likely one of the biggest reasons employers monitor their employees, especially with the rise in the number of people working from home.
How Do Employers Monitor Their Employees?
Employers have been monitoring employees since the dawn of the employer-employee relationship. In the Internet age, with the ubiquity of laptops, tablets and smartphones, what the employer can do has gone up a notch.
Depending on the device and motivation of the employer, employees can expect employers to monitor them by:
Keeping track of what they type
Recording Internet activity
Taking screenshots
Using a device’s webcam
Noting which employees access what files and when
Monitoring an employee’s physical location using GPS
Measuring the employee’s productivity, such as noting a computer’s idle time or how long an app or piece of software remains open
That’s some pretty invasive stuff so it’s sometimes hard to believe that it’s mostly legal.
As a general rule, when using your employer’s equipment while on your employer’s network, your employer will have the right to monitor what you do. If you’re on your own device and using your own Internet connection, it’s less likely to be legal if your employer monitors you, although it still is often perfectly legal.
Also, it’s probably going to be legal if your employer has your permission or otherwise gives you notice of the monitoring. A good example is a company’s BOYD (bring-your-own-device) policy which will often allow employers a certain level of access to what an employee does on their personal device.
Employee Monitoring Pursuant to Federal Law
The main federal law that potentially covers employment monitoring is the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA).
Title I of the ECPA is also known as the Wiretap Act. It makes it illegal to intentionally intercept, use, disclose or otherwise obtain any wire, oral or electronic communication.
Title II of the ECPA is more commonly referred to as the Stored Communications Act (SCA). As the name implies, it exists to maintain the privacy of stored electronic information.
Title III of the ECPA covers pen registers and trap/trace devices. Pen registers and trap or trace devices do not record the substance of the communication, but they do record identifying information, such as the number dialed or from where a telephone call originated.
At first glance, it appears as if the ECPA would prevent some forms of employer monitoring, but the ECPA has some notable exceptions and caveats as they apply to the employment context.
First, there is the business use exception, which allows employers to monitor the oral and electronic communication of employees as long as the employer has a legitimate business reason for doing so.
Second, there is the consent exception. Employers may monitor their employees’ communication if they obtain the consent of the employee.
Third, for the most part, the SCA does not protect the privacy of stored information if the information exists on the employer’s own servers or equipment.
Fourth, the ECPA is silent as to many forms of employment monitoring, such as keystroke logging. In many respects, the ECPA is definitely behind the times due to advances in technology.
However, employees in some states may have slightly more employee privacy protections.
Employee Monitoring Pursuant to State Law
When it comes to certain types of employee activity, a few states make it more difficult for the employer to monitor employees.
For example, some states, like Maryland, Illinois and California have “all-consent” or “two-party consent” laws that require everyone involved in an electronic communication or telephone call to consent to the monitoring.
A few states require employers to give notice to employees before monitoring can take place. Connecticut and Delaware are two such states with specific laws on the books, although Connecticut’s law might not apply when the employee is working from home.
Other Laws Potentially Applicable to Employment Monitoring
The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) protects the right of employees to collectively bargain. The National Labor Relations Board, or NLRB, enforces the NLRA and has concluded that surveillance of employees who are engaged in concerted activity can be an unfair labor practice.
There’s also attorney client privilege, which may protect an employee’s communication even if it takes place on the employer’s laptop or during work hours. How this privilege applies will be specific to the facts and jurisdiction, but the overarching principle will be an expectation of privacy.
For instance, if an employee emails her attorney from her personal web-based e-mail account using her laptop while working from home, then that’s very likely going to be protected from employer monitoring. But if that same employee were to use a work-issued laptop and her employer’s email account to send the email, then it’s far less likely for the attorney-client privilege to apply.
The Practical Realities of Employment Surveillance
Most laws, especially at the federal level, will not directly address the legality of the many different types of employment monitoring. So, the legal landscape is a little fuzzy, but regardless of what the law is, there are some principles or realities about workplace monitoring.
In many cases, much of the monitoring isn’t done in real time. It’s often just the gathering and archiving of employee behavior that will only become known if there’s a lawsuit, an internal complaint of improper behavior or poor job performance.
When overdone, employee monitoring can be bad for morale as employees won’t feel trusted and will feel micromanaged. This will be particularly true if the employee meets his or her productivity expectations when working in the office or in the home, but it’s only when working from home that the employer feels the need to snoop.
Then there’s the fact that the employee will probably feel the monitoring is unfair. They might ask themselves, “Why should everyone lose their privacy just because one or two employees acted inappropriately?” Or they might wonder why it’s not okay for them to step away from their laptop in the middle of the afternoon for 30 minutes to take care of a personal errand, but it’s perfectly okay for the boss to expect them to reply to an email late at night.
Finally, there’s the fact that workers are not robots. They won’t be working every single second of every single day, even when in the office. The practical reality is that workers will do non-work activities while on the job.
They will plan a birthday party for a co-worker, make a personal telephone call, text with family, surf the web for personal reasons and even spend a few minutes catching up on the latest office gossip. Employers who don’t accept this reality (to a reasonable extent) may find themselves with unhappy workers.
The Bottom Line
Most employers can legally monitor what you do while working as long as it’s for legitimate business purposes or they have your consent. If you decide to engage in personal activities during business hours, you will usually do so at your own risk.
After clerking for a judge and working as a federal prosecutor, I wanted to spend more quality time with my kids so in 2009 I started the Spiggle Law Firm. We focus on workplace law helping protect the rights of clients facing pregnancy and caregiver discrimination, sexual harassment and wrongful termination in the workplace. I am a frequent commentator on employment law, especially how it affects families. My book, “You’re Pregnant? You’re Fired: Protecting Mothers, Fathers, and Other Caregivers in the Workplace,” is available on Amazon. You can learn more about my work at https://www.spigglelaw.com/contact
Some employers are turning to software that monitors their employees as they work from home during the coronavirus pandemic. CBS News contributor and Wired editor-in-chief Nick Thompson joined CBSN with how it works.
Modus Create, Inc.
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