Disruption: Work from home arrangement and its challenges

Eliza M. Dizon

Just recently, there is a massive disruption on how people go about their day to day activities brought about by the emergence of Corona virus. Suddenly, people need to follow social distancing protocols in order to mitigate its spread. Moreover, public places such as malls, beaches and schools became empty and people from all walks of life were forced to stay at home and limit their outside activities. Businesses and institutions needed to adapt and implement change in order to ensure their survival. They also needed to find a way to secure the safety of their employees, thus they implemented a “Work from Home” setup to be able for their employees to continue their task. While there is are advantages of this set up, there are also clear challenges.

First, “Work from Home” set up requires a strong internet connection. With the current connection speed available in the market, performance is really challenging. If affects the efficiency and effectiveness of the employee. Nowadays, it is normal for an employee to be disconnected during their zoom meeting or fail to send an attachment because of poor internet connection. Cases of intermittent network outage also became an added burden.

Second, the ability to stay focused when working while at home. Especially for those who have children at home. While we all want to put family first, we also need to attend to our commitment to our employers and it is difficult when you are being disturbed by the noise or by their activities during meetings. It can be a challenge to those living in small spaces.

Lastly, some employees might have a hard time connecting to the rest of the team. Virtual setting might cause others to feel uneasy since it is not like the normal human interaction we were used to. It is also difficult to assess an employee’s attitude at work by just looking at their daily outputs. Miscommunication is also an issue on instances that information is being passed thru e-mails and chat.

These challenges can be addressed by collaboration of the government in creating policies that will ensure that better services are provided for people to cope better in this new normal setup. Companies can also provide training and sessions that will address the issues and gaps of the work from home arrangement. The most important of all, we must communicate with our family and ask for their support as we all face the new normal. Their cooperation will create a great difference if we will be able to help them understand the challenges that we go through.

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