Working From Home

According to the Financial Times, 750,000 people in the UK have lost their jobs during the pandemic. For those of you who are still gainfully employed like me, there’s a good chance you’re working from home. Some of you might prefer to work in an office, but according to the New York Times most young people prefer remote working. A recent government poll showed that only 13 per cent of British adults strongly believed that workers who can do their job from home should come back to the office.

For someone who works in finance, even though my work still starts at 7am and sometimes earlier, it’s a relief not having to wear my suit and tie in the morning and catch the train. However, the need for networking, collaborating or mentoring new colleagues is a lot more challenging with remote working. Remote working however is about to become a major threat to people working in well-developed countries or in major cities such as London, New York and Melbourne.

High skilled jobs are now being off-shored out of major cities to the rest of the world. Remote working was an emergency response to the pandemic but now it seems as if this tactic might solidify into something permanent. Big firms especially in industries like finance and tech are now looking for cheap and highly skilled talent in places like India, China and South America. Remote working would be greatly beneficial for individuals who are highly educated and skilled but carry a disadvantageous passport.

Consultancy company PWC surveyed roughly 350 companies in 39 countries and 58 per cent said that they were allowing staff to perform their jobs and start new roles from their home countries. Major companies can now have a global workforce while also reducing wages. Spotify and Microsoft have already made remote working permanent. Companies are using outsourcing as a way to protect themselves from volatility.

The pandemic has shown employers that for the most part, remote working works really well, and if they can outsource roles to potential candidates in less developed countries that are willing to sacrifice a percentage of their wages in order to gain experience with a global company, then these firms are willing to take these candidates from these countries on board. This, however, does not sit well with employees working in major cities who have been loyal to their company.

Employees in major cities who are still employed are beginning to acknowledge this threat and are taking full advantage of remote working while they still have jobs. There are a lot of employees out there who are ‘working from home’ but they aren’t exactly home. I know several of my colleagues, (whose names I won’t mention for obvious reasons) were out of the country and our managers didn’t even know it. It’s what they call a ‘work vacation’. I had one colleague who was in Dubai for three whole months and another one was in Sardinia.

These colleagues would work during the day and party at night and although I don’t necessarily agree with their actions, I do understand why they did it. Trusting employees to actually work with maximum efficiency is a skill that managers all over the world would now have to develop.

It has been a year since the first lockdown and we have seen this ‘experimental’ phase work out well for the most part but the challenges of ‘working from home’ will be something that companies will have to acknowledge, whether they recruit people from overseas or not.

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