“Largely for the working population, I believe Work From Home has been a by-product of this pandemic. Whether it is a boon, or a bane is matter of intuitive thinking.”

Its Work Form Home for me! A nice sense of joy settles in!  Intellectuals already had many ‘deep dive’ discussions and research on this. Here, I make an attempt to express my observations and experiences as I felt. 

When the pandemic started, Work From Home quicky turned to an  unquestionable choice to every employer, losing its existing ‘status quo’ as privileged ‘employee benefit’ practiced by many progressive  employer brands. 

In the initial stages of experiencing this, people were quite excited due  to perceived flexibility of this arrangement, inherent features of being  invisible, and for some probably due to fear factor due to pandemic  scenario. As the days gone by, some started sinking into the inherent  benefits of WFH, and some started to realise that working from the  home environment for a longer period is not a comfortable option.  

The notable point here is that such an arrangement has worked differently for different set of people. There are some key factors which  play between people and these choices. To understand the human  dynamics on this, we first need to understand the workforce  demographics, their mental and emotional dimensions, generational  aspirations etc. 

A female, who has just started her motherhood probably will seek an  option to have WFH at least for a longer stint, if not permanently due to  its inherent benefits. 

A self-motivated performing employee would not mind working from  the jungle so far as the pre-fixed goals are met. That gives her a sense  of satisfaction and achievement. An employee who does not have a conducive environment to focus on while working from home, is a  prospective candidate for Work From Office. 

For many young millennials, making to office is matter of  relishing the ‘moment of truth’ realised through watching and  interacting with the butterflies around. 

Some people look for a nicely blended cake on this which  usually is a combo offer, and comes presumably with best of  both, WFH and WFO.  

So, understanding these dynamics become vital and inevitable  while we rush to make conclusive remarks on this subject.  

Now, the unseen side of the coin has a strange scenario. More  exactly, an alarming situation probably. Let’s look at this how? Here comes the Employee Engagement! Again, good number  of theories have gone by to discuss and understand this most  trending topic under the HR vertical. 

One thing is quite undisputed here. As a human being, as an  employee, you need to be part of inclusive workforce with  diverse set of people around, breathing some social air in the  office which will be essential for your social and emotional  health as these two factors considerably helps you in  professional and social success. 

On the hiring side, many are recruiting people almost virtually,  at times not even having a virtual face-to-face interview, and  starts working remotely leaving the new joiner with a sense of  detachment and disengagement from the day one! This makes  many new intakes less connected towards the manager and the  team and less engaged towards the organisation causing much  higher chance of increasing attrition levels. 

I believe, most certainly, we need to be little more conscious and perceptive here to deal with this situation appropriately! 

CorporateCanvas, by Binu Nambiar