Fadia, 36, told Asharq Al-Awsat that she was not surprised when informed that she would not go back to working from her office and that working remotely would not affect her salary.
While Fadia finds working from home somewhat comfortable, she says that Lebanon's very poor internet services and power outages have been the major challenges since she began working from her home instead of her office in Downtown Beirut on October 17.
In addition to technical difficulties, Fadia finds that she cannot enjoy the same degree of privacy, given the presence of other family members at home. She says that she worries about the safety and security of using online platforms and breaches that they are exposed to.
Fadia is one of many professionals whose lifestyles will change after the coronavirus epidemic. According to Maya Rahal, managing director at the MIT Enterprise Forum (MITEF) Pan Arab, companies will maintain remote work policies permanently, even after the pandemic ends.
In an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat, Rahal explained that even before the virus, many companies had already adopted partial remote work policies. Some companies allowed their employees to work from home for two or three days a month, but the pandemic forced these companies to experiment with it for longer periods. It subsequently became clear that it is necessary for employees in many fields to be in the workplace in order to do the work required of them.
Rahal believes that it is only natural for companies to adopt “remote work” after the pandemic ends, especially in creative fields (design and photography) or technical fields (programming and information technology) explaining that companies could go through a transitional period as they move from working from an office to working from home, merging the two, by maintaining a small office devoted to meetings and completing tasks that require physical presence or communication.
She says that companies’ positive experiences with remote work will weigh heavily on these decisions and that employees’ fear of losing their jobs may have contributed to the remote work’s successes, as they felt a need to prove themselves and do their best.
She goes on to say that companies have a positive view of remote work because it may free employers from the burdens of giving employees insurance, social security, and transportation allowance. This, of course, is added to many expenses that they would avoid paying, such as the cost of renting the office, electricity, internet, telephone and cleaning bills, as well as the office's miscellaneous daily expenses.
In the event of adopting a remote work policy, Rahal warns against micromanaging employees in a way that disconcerts them and creates an uncomfortable environment, as mutual trust should form the basis from which managers follow up and monitor.
Remote work could also reduce the number of employees laid-off in light of the economic crisis, since financial considerations had forced companies to make those lay-offs in the first place, and remote work policies would allow for money that would have otherwise been allocated to the workscapes to be used to keep employees. However, this does not negate the possibility that some companies may nonetheless lay-off employees or reduce their working hours or salaries, for many employers also realized that many of the employees in certain departments are surplus to requirement.
Rahal believes that there are two major reasons for employees’ discomfort with working from home. First of all, we are working under exceptional circumstances, as all the members of our families are at home and we are extremely stressed about the epidemic. Second, the change was sudden. Most of us had not planned how we would work from home; rather, it was imposed on us. However, she says, our discomfort will be alleviated once we become accustomed to it and organize and plan it.
