Remote work, and the tug-of-war over office return

Hers was a young family, and living apart was never Sumayiya Nanyonjo’s desire hence opting to join her husband, who worked abroad. However, the harsh weather, lack of help for their toddlers, and later the Covid-19 pandemic made that impossible.

“Nursing my husband, our sole bread winner made me question my helper role because with him out of work, our finances dwindled to a point of reaching out to our families. It was a dire time that shook my mental health while the medication did not spare my husband’s mental tenacity,” she says.
As soon as we got vaccinated and he was back on his feet, Ms Nanyonjo opted to return home. With her was the hope to turn life around because she had discovered LinkedIn and her blood boiled to make something out of this new found opportunity mine.

However, that had to wait because her mental health needed restoration. But even more, she had to navigate the platform, which she had learned was not just a job seekers platform.
“I had noticed that only Nigerians were making a killing out of this site, based on the content they shared. Nonetheless, with our financial situation, getting a coach was reaching for the sky. But I am thankful to my family members who responded, once again, when I asked for help, enabling me to get the coach,” she shares.

From optimising her profile, to walking the journey with her, Ms Nanyonjo, a human resource practitioner, says she could soon do it herself. Taking baby steps, she created human resource content but learned that she had to niche down to speak to a particular people.
“After reflection, I opted to speak about job seeking, targeting job seekers. Three months later, I got my first client from the U.S seeking CV [Curriculum Vitae] writing services. That opportunity is all I needed to keep at remote work,” she says.

Using LinkedIn was not enough hence creating a community of youth and stay-at-home mothers called Remote Mum Ventures. Through this, she helps mothers looking to become financially independent while working virtually and those looking to transition from the nine-to-five to remote work.

She also conducts webinars for the youth on how to build an online presence, learn remote work skills and make a living while at campus or in secondary school.

Her services include Curriculum Vitae (CV) writing, which is between Shs50,000 and Shs100,000, while LinkedIn profile optimisation is Shs95,000.
“While the community has 25 people, I have helped about 30 to 40 mothers while the youth are over 50,” she says.

Making a case for remote work
Joel Kafiire, a human resource practitioner with True North Consults, says remote work is important because it creates an environment where an employee can apply a mature approach to issues and shine.
“Someone does not need to work on site to deliver on their key performance indicators. The important thing is that they are supported and they will deliver regardless of where they are,” he says.
Kafiire adds that it allows for work-life balance where one can plan out their activities while closing on their pending actions.

Despite all the glory that remote work carries, there are some stones in the rice that make it tough to drive teams forward. That is why Elon Musk is calling it morally wrong, asking his Tesla workers to put in 40 hours of overtime per week. Even Zoom, the greatest advocate of remote work, is calling in its employees at least twice a week. What is their cry about? 

Kafiire says with remote work, it is challenging for any organisation to promote their culture because culture is not taught but caught.
“Culture is the organisation’s way of working but how do you pass these on through a Zoom call, say during employee induction? The best way is through employees seeing the workings of other staff, say top management, middle level and they adopt,” he says.

Otherwise, simply sharing about the organisation’s vision and mission will not demonstrate how an organisation carries out its operations, resolves conflict and the like.

It also becomes tough to measure performance because while you work at home, how does your line manager take note of the critical incidents? How do they asses your emotional abilities to see how to render you support to deliver?

“Even the most skilled players like Messi come and train every day, and the coach assesses their abilities and incapacitates hence giving the necessary help or advice. However, while at home, if your internet connection or electricity is off, no one can help, which affects your productivity. Inadvertently, it affects employee bonuses, which are often given based on performance appraisal,” he says.

Adding, “Employees also feel isolated because they feel unsupported.”
It is not just the human resource manager who needs employees back in the office. Even the customers miss the face-to-face interactions. Research shows that people buy the experience, not just the product. Kafiire says when providing a service, a customer wants you to support them with after-sale services. But how do you do that over Zoom? Even if it is just a service, say when you visit a hospital for medication, how the nurse treats you will determine whether you will heal or not, in terms of perception,” he says.

Remote work also affects effective communication yet when working onsite, a memo could be sent or a one-on-one interaction could be held because sometimes communications do not require mails.
“For instance, if you are implementing a new policy, maybe health and safety, people ought to be together and have a physical demo. However, how are you going to train people on how to use a fire extinguisher on Zoom?” he asks.
Collaboration and teamwork was also dying away because of reduced interactions. Remember the corridor talks, the chats during lunch where deals were cut, ideas sprung up? All that disappeared with remote work.

“With everyone at home, doing what they can do, teamwork is strained. Moreover, some people switch off their phones when crisis arises. However, that would be different if people were on-site as calling an emergency meeting to sort it out would be easy,” he says.

Why should the tide change?
Ms Shamim Nabaggala Walusimbi, a human resource practitioner, says calling employees back from remote work is a misconception and calls for a mindset change. That is mainly about providing the right tools, metrics, and rethinking performance management.

She says some Artificial Intelligence generated tools can support in measuring the performance of employees remotely.
“There are also physical performance management tools and metrics that can be input in the computers to work as a biometric system. These show when someone clocks in and out and what one is working on,” she says.

In response to reduced interactions, organisations can leverage on creating different engagement opportunities for the employees. For instance, introducing employee engagement initiatives on scheduled days to help them create the balance.
“This can still be done online where the teams speak about non-work-related issues,” Ms Walusimbi shares.

For team cohesion, she says that flexible working schedules must be instituted. Even in instances where all the team members are needed to work on a project, they can work out an initiative that allows cohesion.

There is also need to review the policies and Ms Walusimbi says she saw that in Cape Town, South Africa, where there is a specific work visa that enables people from all across the world to live in South Africa but work remotely.
“Therefore, an adjustment in policies is crucial starting from the organisational level, all the way to the international level,” she says.

While remote work is becoming a more acceptable way of work, the resounding voice is that remote work was never the ideal situation, but rather one that is circumstantial - in response to Covid-19. 

While there are other issues that can lead one to adopt the working trend, human resource managers are increasingly calling their staff back to office. Hybrid work models combining remote and in-office work will become the norm well into 2030 and beyond.