Why Work from Home is beneficial for Business and Society

Originally Published on April 11, 2020

Seldom great changes in the way we live, work or relax come from popular movement. It is in times of great challenge that humans mend their ways. The challenges could be manmade like Great Depression, World War or Economic Crisis. Or they could be natural Calamities or Pandemic.

Calamities were localized in nature for quite some time. For this reason, people could hold different opinion on validity of global warming. But 2019 forest fires in 3 continents brought the issue to forefront. This provided a face to the threats of global warming that the whole world could see and experience simultaneously.

Covid-19 Pandemic is a disaster on true global scale. The effects of social distancing, fragile healthcare system and intertwined supply chain are felt equally. This has suddenly pushed a large chunk of workforce into working from home. And even worse, a larger section of population out of work.

This mass work from home situation is involuntary on the part of employer and employees. Due to this we have seen varied level of responses from both parties.

Some employers were quick to respond and announce WFH measures and policies at early onset of the pandemic. Some later reluctantly allowed due to government pressure. The tools that enable WFH have been in existence for a long time. but the will and need to use these came in the face of a global pandemic. There have been popular studies that have shown benefits of working from home.

Benefits listed so far have been more personal in nature. Benefits such as less stress, more saving and sometimes better productivity. These are all employee centric and do not discuss the benefits for employers and economy as whole.

This article is an attempt to broaden the discussion of WFH beyond the employees. In various section I would try to map the benefits to various sections of society, economy and environment.

Who can Work from Home?

There is a concept of Knowledge Workers. These kinds of roles are completely compatible with WFH style of work

They are found in IT, Financial and Education Sectors. These sectors, majority of employee are knowledge workers. They use computers to create value and do not produce any goods in person.

Similar Knowledge workers are found in other industries also. Here they constitute a smaller percentage of all employees. Example would be roles like customer support, planners and coordinators. All those who work in front of a computer and are not mandated to interact with clients or co-workers in-person.

How Knowledge Workers can work from home?

To work from home, one requires, necessary IT infrastructure support from the employer to start. There are other adjustments required from personal side to make this possible.

Remote Working Tools

This list starts with VPN, chat and cloud storage. Add to this Video Conferencing, collaboration and project management tools as basics requirements. Based on specific requirements add more specialized tools might to this list.

Strength

Most of remote working tools are available with any modern company. If not, then these can be purchased off the shelf to provide basic amenities.

Due to global nature of business, for most part people do not work from same office, but collaborate across the globe with colleagues working from different offices. So, working remote is not entirely new.

Most of the knowledge workers as of now reside in metro cities where internet connectivity is good. And where it is poor, the connectivity will get better from here on, due to demand supply dynamics.

Weakness

To enable a large chunk of workforce, licences have to be procured which is a cost. This will be offset by reduction in office infrastructure support cost.

Employees might need training to improve the usage of these tools to reach level of perceived productiveness in office environment.

Not just the tool usage, but progress on lifestyle adjustment through work hacks will be required. Having a dedicated work space and adhering to schedule is a must. this creates conducive environment and other similar changes on case by case basis.

Opportunities

Once all employees are equipped with tools and best practices, we can expect the productivity and overall wellbeing grow beyond the current level. This will positively impact the business and profit outcomes

Recently Zoom downloads surpassed TikTok and Instagram. Microsoft team and Google G Suite also witnessed similar uptick in usage. As the popular story goes around Zoom started to provide a simpler alternative to cumbersome WebEx from Cisco. With WFH movement there is a market for a new and innovative product in remote working space.

And these products go beyond work and can be used to deliver Entertainment. VR based concert gigs and movie releases might not be all that far away.

The BPO industry that started by proposing cost reduction through offshoring, gets another round of optimization and can provide even lower cost due to work from home.

Threats

Cyber security takes centre spot in this exercise, but this is an evolving field. We recently saw Zoom CEO taking responsibility of security lapses and hiring of Facebook security head, sets an example for all to follow. If current vendors of remote working tools take a collective cognizance of this, then the security issue can be easily tackled in short span.

Fear on the employer’s part of reduced discipline and productivity in employees is well founded. But believe that these can be mitigated by better training and employment policies. Policies that hire correct attitude, measures the progress correctly and rewards the deserving performer.

What is the benefit to knowledge workers' Employers?

Reduced cost of operation

Employers save on costly office space and associated admin and housekeeping expenses. this does not mean to do away with offices all together. Offices should be now reserved for collaborative and creative sessions organized whenever required. The open plan office space meant for collaboration finds best use here. The idea is to keep the existing office space, optimize it but not create more.

This cost reduction will allow redirection of funds to other priorities. IT companies can provide better productivity and security tools instead of cubicles visible from manager’s cabin. Banks can spend on better data analytics and product research to gain competitive advantage instead of opening new branches. These benefits are debatable, but the idea is to think in this direction to identify better redirection strategies.

Reduced salaries to employees

At the turn of this decade the gig economy gained prominence. This provided greater flexibility for the employers to manage work pipeline and reduce overheads of having a permanent employee. With the right tools and policies discussed in previous section, benefits of gig economy to become more reliable.

For regular employees, the offset of inflation in a metro to tier III city will be possible now. Employers can negotiate lower package in lieu of allowing working from home towns and villages and occasional visit to city offices. This may result in dip in overall takeaway for employees but other savings and softer benefits would outweigh some salary cut.

What is your opinion on this? Please let me know in the comments.

Reduced business travel

This is a big cultural shift, but is uniform across countries. We all understand that creating a vaccine and a global immunity to Covid-19 is far off scenario. With intermittent outbreaks and changing travel policies will restrict movement for business. And this restriction is for a common good. The reduction in travel cost can mean cheaper service offerings for clients.

Not just the travel cost, when you save travel time for your executives, they can invest this in closing more business for you remotely.

What is the benefit to the knowledge workers?

Let us discuss the softer benefits mentioned earlier in the article. These may vary based on role you play, where you work currently and where you want to live. I am working with an assumption that most of the knowledge workers operate out of metro cities and have come from smaller towns to work in the cities.

Saved time in commute

In a large metro city, a knowledge worker spends anywhere an upwards of 2 hours daily to commute to work. These hours can be well spent in pursuing upskilling or leisure based on personal priorities. When an employee upskills, she and the employer both benefits. On the other hand, leisure is not just and idle activity. This is a prime driver of the consumption economy. One consumes, more products and services through this. More entertainment, more food, more gadgets and hobby paraphernalia.

Reduced cost of living

With better work from home support employees can work from their actual homes. Living in home town with parents which reduces the heavy overhead of living in metro cities. This kind of lifestyle is proven to better the work life balance, reduce work related stress, improves productivity. This results in more growth and better earning potential in long run.

This way we put more time and money in the pocket of consumption creators of the economy. When you have time and money to spend and family to spend with, the cycle of economy rolls. let us hold on to this thought till it remerges in the later part of the article.

Who cannot work from Home?

As you would agree, the knowledge workers form a very small part of the formal economy. Beyond this a an even large section of population of workers are engaged in informal economy in country like India. Formal economy consists of large and medium sized manufacturers who’s factories are shut in this time of corona. There are also large service industries like, entertainment, movie theaters, retail stores, food chains etc. These are also severely affected. But once things return to normal the factories have to start producing again and service industry has to service again. That will be possible only if there are people who have cash to consume and have reason to. When the consumption creators have more time and money, they will make the cycle of economy roll

The informal sector consists of cottage manufacturers, individual retail shops, cab drivers, service and delivery personnel. The large internal migration of large number of workers due to lockdown is an evidence of their reliance on working population of metro cities and manufacturing hubs. No amount of government stimulus can bring back the country to pre Covid-19 situation. We have to work with what we have. If we enable the knowledge worker population to consume more, probably then the uplift in economy is possible.

Now, let us examine the worst hit sector of economy and see what is a respite there. And also, how Economy, Environment and Society at large will get benefited. These may be short term, location specific or overstretched. But we have to start seeing the silver lining from somewhere. Hoping to ignite a discussion here, that may lead some decision maker to act upon one.

1. More regional travel through UDAAN scheme by government. Regional tourism will get a boost from this and support local economy throughout the country.

2. If more people are working from home, they will take lesser cabs. But if more people are coming out of homes for leisure, they will prefer cabs over public transport for continuing the social distancing norm.

3. Due to demand and supply dynamics and JIO effect, even smaller towns will now get better broadband connection in the near future. Options for lot of regional resellers or ISP also will emerge.

4. More push for 5G rollout. But due to anti-China sentiments, we will have to see how this situation pans out

5. OTT content providers have become a household name in the social distancing world. People who have not tried it before, would have now done so. This is good news for Indian content players like AltBalaji, SunNext, Zee5 and likes.

6. With robust network connectivity and more OTT providers, micro content creators will see more takers.

7. Advertisement themselves may evolve more into product placement as compared to in the face jingles of past era.

8. Corner retail shops have seen a resurgence and they should strengthen from here on.

9. More scope for home delivery or not just food or grocery, but new generalists like Dunzo and specialists will rise.

10. Scope for retail home office furniture setup in short run and 4BHK becoming popular due to requirement of dedicated home study or office room.

11. More women entering workforce due to flexibility provided by WFH, promoting the elusive equal workplace.

12. With reduced travel, human population spread across the country more equitably, environment will also get chance to heal in some way. Lakes and groundwater of our metros will not run dry in the immediate future

13. With more mind space, it will be easier to sensitize and mobilize people for the cause of environment.

More Ideas are welcomed in the comments. To tide over these tough times, we would need more ways to increase local consumption or the popular swadeshi movement. This applicable for all countries that would now focus on various aspects of deglobalization and focus on local. As the learning from over reliance on global supply chain has come to bite every country in different forms.