After the spread of deadly disease covid-19, many countries have announced a complete shutdown. In an attempt to reduce employee turnover and increase productivity, many organizations have asked employees to work from home. It is believed that many people will still continue to work from home after the lockdown ends. Employees are communicating online and doing remote work to complete their assignments.
Working from home has many effects on the employees and as well as on businesses. Work from home has significantly increased employees’ productivity and job satisfaction. Employees gain more flexibility, avoiding long traveling, and remain free from office distractions.
While the IT sector is much familiar with the concept of remote work programs, this is the first chance for employees in other sectors facing such a scenario. However, work from home has one notable downside that they often hinder organizations from creating and solidifying their company culture.
The company culture encourages a large part of employees by making them come together and engage in team-building activities and company meetings—so that the teams can make their goals accomplish.
Company culture has meaningful effects on employee retention, satisfaction, and productivity. When employees clearly identify with a company’s values and culture, they’re more likely to work hard and engage with their work. According to researches companies with high engagement have higher productivity, customer loyalty, and profitability than their peers. an organisation with high employee turnover rates often face poor employee engagement.
When employees work from home, they likely only interact with their colleagues via email and occasional calls. Employees find it difficult to interact with co-workers in the same way that working in the office.
Though working from home can make life easier at first, it can actually be affecting the employees’ mental health and can also cause anxiety. Humans need social meetings and interactions, and working without seeing anyone can make employees feel cut off.
There are many tools which can bring flexibility in remote work for business such as Basecamp and other project management software.