Working from Home - Is it the future?🏠

  For obvious reasons, working from home has been a highly discussed topic since the first COVID-19 induced lockdown was put into place back in March 2020. Over the past weeks, a lot of businesses have been slowly getting back into office life, however now with a second lockdown looming the WFH scene is very much back with force. I am wondering, now that people have begun to get settled into their new remote setups and day to day, whether there will be a buzz to get back into the office, or if the second round of ‘work from home when you can’ is good news to their ears.

  For a lot of more traditional businesses, the sudden need to transition to working fully remotely was a very stressful time and often caused a lot of disruption; however on the other side of the spectrum, many digital first companies have been successfully working remote first for years. Living in a very technologically advanced and driven world, has made these adaptations a lot more feasible and actually allowed the majority of industries to work pretty seamlessly from the comfort of our own homes during this time of need; however do we now believe that this is the new working norm?

  Working from home is now going to be seen as more normalised practice. From a recruitment perspective, I believe that although the forced nature of the working from home movement and the cause behind it were very unsettling, this has also opened a lot of opportunities moving forward for the future of remote roles and work communities. I think there will now be scope for more remote first positions and that this situation on a whole has helped to focus on the importance of more flexible working hours and environments across different industries, where possible. Fully remote roles give people the chance to join companies, where it may not have before been possible and also offers certain opportunities to a wider range of talent. This will hopefully aid in the growth of more diverse teams and workforces. 

 Even though there are these positives coming off of the back of the new working from home reality, there is also the worry that company and working cultures are going to be lost whilst we can all only communicate via screens and technology. As this situation is becoming more and more prolonged, a lot of us are missing our old office interaction and the social aspect of working within a shared space with your colleagues. I personally feel that social interaction and building relationships with your team and colleagues is a massive part of working life and I very much missed this whilst in lockdown. Companies are now having to think fast to bring in cultural initiatives to keep their team feeling as connected as possible, which can be much more difficult than you would think. 

  While I appreciate working from home could very easily become the new norm, I personally would prefer to see a split between this and being back in the office. I believe companies having this option and allowing their employees to adopt the best working situation for themselves is the new movement. This will allow businesses and their teams to enjoy the best of both, to still be able to interact with colleagues in a shared space if that is what they desire or to work from the comfort of their own home setups. 

 I would be keen to hear about other peoples’ experiences with working from home and how you converted to this change - whether successful or not. Also, what are peoples thoughts on heading back into the office and adapting to the new way of office life? As always if you have any more specific questions or would like any personal help with this transition please do give me a shout and I’ll help as best as I can! 💛