Tension Brewing Among Those Who Work From Home

According to a regional human resource consultant, there is tension brewing among employees working from home (WFH). He said that the fine lines of work-life balance and virtual abuse are being compromised. 

Gajendra Balasingham, group chief executive officer, GKK Consultants Sdn Bhd, said these are some of the complaints from employees WFH:

• A lack of work-life balance,
• Having to sacrifice private time,
• Solving employer-employee conflicts during group meetings,
• Employers who are too demanding,
• Reluctant to speak up over fears of being dismissed.

In a statement, he said that many employees had to bear with the hard-handed treatment of demanding and insensitive employers. As Malaysia continues with the third Movement Control Order (MCO), he said that many people are starting to wonder how productive can WFH be. 

Gajen had retrained over 500 retrenched workers during the Covid-19 pandemic. He advised many of them to bear with current situations until times return to almost normal. 

Getting through the new norm

The new norm of work has some positive points for both employers and employees:

• Employers enjoy a reduction in office rental, utility bills and travelling expenses.
• Employees get to save on transportation, commuting time, and child-care expenses as they are WFH. 

Gajen's consultancy is based in nine Asian countries, and he has organised and attended hundreds of virtual meetings. He has underlined helpful tips for both employers and employees. One tip is that virtual meetings should be capped within a conducive timeframe, preferable not over 30 minutes. 

For every meeting, one must prepare an agenda and follow it proficiently to ensure all relevant issues are discussed so they can take appropriate actions. 

He said that one should recap the pointers discussed in a follow-up email to ensure everyone is equally informed and observe all deadlines. Employers should also allow workers to turn off videos as they tend to be self-conscious during group meetings.

Time management is crucial for WFH arrangement.

According to Gajen, some employees are afraid to voice their honest opinions to fear losing their jobs. In addition, he said that some employers might be unintentionally demanding, as they had to manage such stressful and unpredictable times that any well-charted business plan could not have predicted at all. 

He added that employers' stress management has become more crucial and have to be managed well. Employers have to ensure their, and their employees' health was not compromised, as Covid-19 spreads ever so fast. 

He said both employers and employees should manage their time better. Employers should:

• Respect each other's space, and
• Draw the line between work time and avoid infringing on workers' personal lives.

As for employees, they should:

• Respect working hours,
• Devote themselves 100% towards completing their tasks.

Conflict management

Gajen advised that conflict situations should not be discussed at group meetings but rather solved between employer-employee. Angry emails or Whatsapps can only escalate the problem. Additionally, such emotional discourses would worsen the employer-employee relationship further and would eventually be challenging to mend. 

He said that if both parties can heed these critical tips, the new work-life balance will evolve into an efficient workplace. 

Remote-first

Recently, many companies said they opted for a "remote-first" model where they focus on enabling WFH as a permanent option for employees. These companies are:

• Shopify, 
• Quora, 
• Hitachi,
• VMware,
• Twitter,
• Facebook,
• Coinbase,
• Fujitsu.

Gajen's advice to employees as they reskill themselves to prepare for the future is to continually upscale and improve their proficiency in many IT areas. He added that workers should not make themselves redundant to the world's changing needs. 

Source: BERNAMA

Click here to Post Job for 30 Days + Get Extra 30 Days >> https://bit.ly/3572wfO.
If you have any questions, please feel free to Whatsapp us at 018 966 6610 / Click Here >> https://bit.ly/3xcII6G

Articles that might interest you 
How to Register for MITI's CIMS 3.0 and Obtain Approval Letter 
How to Renew Your SSM Business Registration Online
How to Register for PEMERKASA+'s PSU 3.0