What will your workplace model look like in 2022?
Over a year ago, the outbreak of COVID-19 forced most organisations to send employees home — with a laptop, no remote work policy, and a prayer. With vaccines now becoming more readily available and COVID cases subsiding, many organisations are toying with the prospect of returning to the old office routines.
The big question is are employees willing to flock back to the physical building after over a year of completely remote/hybrid work, will there be a push back and what are the likely implications?
Two weeks ago, I asked your opinion on your preferred post-COVID workplace model. Thanks for your candid feedback, I received almost 500 responses. Here is the result of that poll.
About 3 out of every 4 respondents indicated a preference for a hybrid work model with another 11% preferring to work completely from home. Only 13% of the respondents were eager to return to a fully physical workplace.
If the feedback is representative of the perspective of the average employee, we may not be returning anytime soon to fully onsite workplace model. Hybrid or some form of remote work which was a luxury pre-COVID is clearly now considered table stakes by employees. There now seems to be a big disconnect between business leaders and employees on this issue with a recent survey of 1,000 adults indicating that 39% would rather quit than return to office full time.
This sentiment is echoed by the reaction of her employees to a recent op-ed article written by the CEO of a Washington, D.C., magazine that suggested workers could lose benefits such as healthcare if they insist on continuing to work remotely as the COVID-19 pandemic recedes. The staff reacted, refusing to publish for a day and the CEO had little choice but to reconsider her position.
Apple’s CEO Tim Cook got a similar push back to his announcement that he would be expecting employees to resume 3 days onsite work a week from September; but mixed results from remote work (diminishing collaboration and company culture) has left some executives still insisting on some form of onsite work. Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman was recently quoted as saying that he would be “very disappointed if people haven’t found their way into the office” by early September. “Then we’ll have a different kind of conversation.” Gorman’s position collaborates the findings of a survey of more than 350 CEOs, human resources, and finance leaders, with 70% planning to have employees back in the office by September this year or sooner.
Although quitting a job is a luxury few Nigerians can afford these days, this is especially true for older employees with growing recurrent overhead. But forcing employees back into non-flexible work arrangements could leave organisations vulnerable to younger talent being actively poached by employers that offer the kind of flexibility employees have come to expect during the pandemic.
But how productive have companies actually been during the pandemic relative to where they were before COVID-19?
In our experience, this depends on the organisation. While some have remained remarkably productive during the COVID-era, capitalising on the technology to collaborate effectively and efficiently. Most, however, are less productive now than they were a year ago. Companies with the best talent and that were performing well before the pandemic have continued to shine. But it does appear that COVID has widened the corporate performance gap leaving companies with less capable talent and technology struggling. The sad reality is that the COVID-19 pandemic has left many Nigerian businesses struggling for survival and business leaders really need their workforce firing on all cylinders, many times this requires activities that are better delivered onsite.
Secondly, most of the existing literature on remote work is predominantly based on data from developed countries. But the context in Nigeria and most developing countries varies widely depending on the country’s income level, type of economy, as well as availability of critical infrastructure — in this case the internet and power. 75% of the Nigerian economy, like most other Sub-Saharan African countries is informal, with most of the jobs in industries like agriculture, trade, transportation, and hospitality much harder to switch to remote work. This singular constraint was the main reason why the government enforced lockdown and social distancing measures were largely unsuccessful in these countries.
Finally, our smaller homes and larger family size makes it almost impossible to have a designated workspace within the home.
While there is no denying that remote work can be highly beneficial to organisations and employees, each business must make this decision carefully considering its unique context or many employers may be forced to make the difficult choice between keeping their employees and ensuring the survival of their business. A bright ray of optimism is that responses to my poll suggests that most Nigerian employees would be happy with hybrid workplace model which may offer an olive branch that closes the widening divide between employees and their employers on the ideal post-COVID workplace model.
So, will business leaders create a new work world that will keep employees both happy and productive post-COVID or insist on returning to the status quo?
Will there be a revolt if employers push it?
Your guess is as good as mine.
