Hy-brid, low appeal

LAST week I bumped into a friend called Bridget. After calling out the familiar greeting of ‘Hi, Brid’, I received an uncharacteristically stern response, “Please don’t call me that.” You can guess why. I couldn’t but, later on, the penny dropped (with the recent inflation that’s now a pound coin). She was referring to the new kid on the block – the term ‘hybrid’.

Before COVID-19 struck the world in its voracious manner, nobody complained about ‘going to work’. You made the journey to carry out your work responsibilities. Some thoroughly enjoyed both the work and the social interaction dimensions of it. Others neither enjoyed the work nor were able to hear their colleagues above the din of the factory equipment. Many travelled long distances, but they all went to work.

Then along came the first seriously damaging global pandemic in 100 years. And, along with it, came the sensible strategy of keeping as many employees as possible working from home. In reality of course, for many, that translated into just ‘not being at work’, which, in Eswatini, coincided with the biggest residential building boom in living memory. At least work kept people separated and more people continuing to breathe. Time to consider the three broad options: 100 per cent remote working, 100 per cent at the workplace and the halfway

THE ever rising statistics of gender-based violence (GBV), even after numerous campaigns and the much celebrated enactment of the Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Act, are a serious cause for concern. The latter development was seen as the perfect panacea to the worrying trends of GBV; many were convinced that the tough ramifications that came with this piece of legislation would arrest the situation through the double-edged sword effect of deterrence and punishment. Two years later, our girls and women are still being raped, beaten and killed, while many boys and men suffer in silence. Of course, it will not take two years to rectify social ills of generations but we can be forgiven to have high expectations of a major behavioural change in our people after all the interventions that have been made.

This, in my view, points to deeper underlying issues in our society that need the attention of everyone, especially our leaders. It is becoming increasingly clear that we are an angry and disillusioned society. Both our men and women are struggling in many areas of their lives and are failing to deal with issues. house configuration known as ‘hybrid work’.

In the short-term, the range of opportunities for 100 per cent remote working is limited to specific areas such as internet shopping, teaching, learning and communication platforms. But don’t be surprised if, in 100 years, your great-grandchildren ‘report’ seeing factory floor workers operating the factory machines from desktop computer devices at home; telling the robots what to do. Perhaps even some medical screening will be done remotely. “Sir, kindly put that bottle of lager down while we check your pulse rate.”

Remote

Could either full remote or hybrid working become the norm in years to come? Full remote has become increasingly appealing. The employer is ecstatic at being able to remove one of the biggest items of expenditure in the company budget – the office rent. Remote working certainly broadens the market for available employees, and cuts down traffic congestion in the cities, and travel costs for employees; a win-win for employer and employee.

But not for a country’s unemployment problems, if, for example, the remote employees are based in Outer Mongolia where reciprocal employment opportunities would be thin on the ground, and the absence of personal contact and supervision render the fully remote scenario administratively very challenging. Office blocks would become hotels or squatter buildings. We know the impression given by a derelict building in a city centre.

And the human being is essentially a sociable animal. There are huge psychological and sociological benefits from working in the physical presence of others as opposed to the isolation of working from home. Decent and industrious behaviour are key outputs. One of the more significant offerings by the outgoing UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson,

We are not at all a happy people and our mental health issues are manifesting in destructive behaviours. In this country, as it is right now, it takes an extremely optimistic person to see any light at the end of the tunnel. With the economy performing as badly as it is right now, with the huge inequality and poverty; the only light many are seeing is that of an oncoming train. What further compounds that is the glaring lack of vision and a sense of duty within our leadership. We only see career leaders hell-bent on keeping their jobs and who are so detached from the suffering of the people. Our leaders have demonstrated a confused and reactionary leadership that has a strong aversion to consultation.

Leadership

If this state of affairs persists, our problems as a country will spiral out of control. Our leadership needs to think creatively about how we can foster social cohesion going forward. We need to see how we build our country, starting from the primary source of socialisation; the family. The nation can benefit hugely from a ‘Social Cohesion Indaba’ that would begin analysing our society from that basic unit of society; the family, to see where we are losing it as a nation. From there, we could begin to understand, contextually, what makes up a liSwati. We will understand the social, cultural and political context that informs our behaviours and attitudes, as citizens and leaders. It is then that we can begin to unravel our complex nature and see how that affects us.

I am convinced that such a reflective process will give answers to so many of our problems. From there we can begin to understand why we have a huge leadership crisis. We can understand and dissect the was his warning about the ‘cheese and coffee’ distractions of remote working (mine is coffee and toast, for the record). Dangerous territory. A waste of time and bad for the waist line! Especially when distracted by that surplus hamburger in the fridge, or the emerging need to nip to the local shop for a packet of milk (for the coffee) or putting the child’s toys under shelter from the rain. Bad habits emerge, deteriorating into working in pyjamas and conducting lengthy, even argumentative (lol) conversations with oneself.

There’s also the issue of lines of demarcation to embrace taking a break. Failing to get up and move around from time to time is downright unhealthy. Utilising the time to include some exercise requires self-motivation, usually absent, though this can be resolved by an hourly WhatsApp group message requiring its 200 participants to do 20 press-ups or a five-minute jog on the spot outside the home. That peer-pressure could catch on; an aerial view of the residential areas would be highly entertaining.

Decision

There are clearly benefits and shortcomings for both 100 per cent remote and 100 per cent workbased. It’s an easy decision for customer-facing sectors – hospitality and healthcare for example – because 100 per cent remote isn’t possible anyway; at present. But for companies with flexibility, the potential of the ‘hybrid work’ option has given rise to a lot of trying and testing across the world. But its popularity is now fading; both with employer and employee. Those made 100 per cent remote by COVID-19 resent losing their full autonomy. It’s ‘closing the stable door after the horse is out’. And those favouring full time at the workplace resent losing the interruption from the interaction with colleagues and visibility before their superiors. The employers themselves have found hybrid work hard to manage, synchronising the arrival of the respective employees to the workplace. Many have seen staff members coming into the office only to spend all day on Zoom anyway. Best to leave hybrid to plants, humans, language and golf clubs; and avoid calling your new arrival Bridget.

docility in emaSwati that festers the many human right violations which take place with impunity. Perhaps we can also understand why a select few among us feel so entitled to resources that belong to all bona fide emaSwati, that they are willing to use all means necessary to reserve them for their exclusive enjoyment. We can even understand why the life of a liSwati doesn’t seem to matter much in this country. A very good friend of mine is wont to say; “Lelive leli alimati umuntfu’’. It’s a very sad statement which I have reflected on many times and has proven true in many occasions.

The point I am trying to make here is that we need to go back to the basics if we intend fixing our nation. Attempts to fix the economy and politics at the higher level will be an exercise in futility if we ignore the problems at the micro level. Let’s focus on building a nation of people who are highly patriotic and who desire to take the country to another level. When our people keep their end of the bargain and work to bulge the tax pool, leaders should reciprocate this with excellence in service delivery. As a people, we want to feel that we are not second-class citizens and that we have a fundamental role to play in nation building, not just churners of the resources that are to be enjoyed by a select few, but as citizens who should be able to influence the direction of the country. In that way we can breed a happy and prosperous society where social ills such as GBV are so minimal to be negligible. Morality cannot be enforced sustainably using law only. There is honestly no excuse for a nation with flowing rivers, fertile lands, mineral resources, fairly educated people, one language, no history of war and a little over a million people should not be an envy of the world.