With the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) saying in mid-April that a three-month UK lockdown followed by three months of partial restrictions would trigger an economic decline of 35.1% in the quarter to June alone. Many people are asking what working life is set to look like for the rest of 2020?
Mark Whitehead, Managing Director of telephony services vendor VoIPLine, says that a lot of the changes we have seen to date in terms of remote working, video-based meetings and other collaboration apps are most likely to stay in place.
“Much will depend upon the exit plan the government comes up with and quite rightly the pace and structure of that exit will be predicated upon the science, the data and the ability of the NHS to be able to withstand a secondary wave of COVID-19 cases and hospitalisation of those infected.
Assuming the UK gets that timing about right, only then will we begin to see what is on the other side as businesses progressively open up for trade. What we won’t see is a return to pre-COVID-19 business life. Come July the virus will still be active and amongst us – no cure in the form of drug treatments and no preventative vaccine will be available. It would be a brave man that bet otherwise.
By July many organisations will have embedded in their remote working programs and be within touching distance of pre-COVID-19 efficiencies. And if that’s working for business then for sure there will be boardroom discussions about the need to scale that back especially if by then there is any hint at remote working delivering the productivity improvements that its proponents always harped on about before.
But for every remote worker on the payroll there are countless more employees that can’t just open up a laptop in their front room and put in a regular shift. Progressively these employees will be invited back into the workplace to resume their duties. Depending on the prevailing circumstances many will do so reluctantly, and most will retain their desires for social distancing.
Digital businesses will always have an advantage but in a lockdown the field is totally tipped in their favour, they have a huge advantage. However, we have found that in the rushed exodus to home working organisations are exposing themselves to gaps in security and fixes, such as two-factor authentication (2FA) need enabling.
However, it is clear that remote working is evolving at a pace. Firstly, because you’re not being constantly interrupted at your office desk, there is a lot of ‘white space’ emerging that can be filled productively. I’m seeing this being filled with new innovative ways of collaborating with fellow remote workers, HR managers finally having the time to update company handbooks, IT guys making good on security processes for remote working and above all, having time to plan out future company strategies.”
“The ongoing bonus for business is a recognition that all their expensive office space is not really needed and that a downscaling would put money on the bottom line”
“Fuel costs are reducing – I know one remote worker that is saving over £300.00 a month, and that’s not untypical, and the planet will surely thank us for reducing our ecological footprints.”
