I am a big fan of innovation in the workplace and finding new and more efficient ways of doing things. Old schools of thought required iron discipline in the office to keep workers in line. This was based on an underlying assumption that people are fundamentally lazy, and that brute force is required to extract productivity from them. It is a result of the industrial revolution and its mass production of goods under miserable working conditions. This line of thinking evolved towards providing people with incentives to accompany the discipline otherwise used to exert control - the idea that performance based bonuses should be provided so people will work above and beyond what they are otherwise required to do. As the school of thought behind workplace performance evolves, a new conversation has started around work carried out outside of the office, which includes working from home. The COVID-19 crisis has accelerated this development by essentially forcing much of the world to temporarily work from home.
Many major corporations have instituted work from home programmes during the pandemic. JPMorgan embarked on what it calls “Project Kennedy” in which 10% of the company’s 250,000-plus employees have been working from home. The experimentation in this field by these global companies has resulted in positive feedback, and there are indications that there will be a more lasting shift towards more flexible working arrangements even after the pandemic has passed. Daniel Pinto, a co-president of JPMorgan has stated that staff working from home on a rotational basis would become a more permanent fixture of company policy. He elaborated that this is in line with the bank’s future vision of work. Facebook, Capital One, Amazon, Microsoft, Zillow and others are to follow.
As new studies challenge conventional wisdom, we are starting to see the value of a more flexible working life balance to our economy and our well-being. Studies are increasingly showing that teleworking not only offers obvious increases to quality of life but increases productivity also, despite what intuition may otherwise say. Preliminary discoveries in the psychology behind teleworking show that rather than abuse of these privileges, many employees put in more extra hours overall than were they to sit in the office for a fixed amount of time. Aside from these benefits to the company, teleworking also takes cars off the road and thus implies less traffic, cleaner air and less stressed employees; as they do not suffer the stress of commuting. One can think of the added benefits for those with young children or for those with disabilities.
Nonetheless, as the cartoon accompanying this article succinctly illustrates, there is great potential for abuse when it comes to working from home. Employees during the COVID-19 pandemic have experienced increased workloads and higher expectations to deliver. The amount of work expected from employees has increased, and one can see many case studies where working from home becomes an obligation which one experiences in addition to office hours, rather than as a replacement for them. I have myself experienced a situation where in addition to my eight hours spent at the workplace, I was expected to work evenings from home as the need arose, in addition to weekends. Working from home carries certain obligations from employers to respect boundaries. If the working relationship becomes abusive, then naturally, all the positive benefits predicted by studies are likely to evaporate.
Therefore, there are clearly nuances to the implementation of teleworking. Associate professor Kristen Shockley of the University of Georgia states that “companies should never just implement telecommuting without changing anything else,” as there are factors to consider which may be as subtle as how managers may undervalue employees who are not in the office. Looking to the broader picture, while one assumes it is a more environmentally sustainable practice, it is not quite so simple. Working from home in winter may instead be less environmentally sustainable the further north one goes in the world where people increasingly need to use central heating. Instead of heating one office, individual homes require heating instead.
Further towards the equator, it instead depends on how intensively people use air conditioning in summer. While these are ultimately a question of how that energy is generated, it may mean that teleworking is preferable at certain times of the year while we transition to an increasingly sustainable economy. This is particularly relevant in the context of the Green New Deal. Therefore, the way these changes are introduced have far reaching implications.
We must keep in mind that leading global companies are increasingly valuing good health, creativity and innovation in employees, rather than their ability to follow robotic instructions. Recognising the value of well-being and freedom in employees encourages such characteristics. This new way of thinking is immediately recognisable in Malta through the way that international companies offer healthy food at the workplace or flexible hours. By extension, they become more desirable places to work, and attract a better selection of potential employees.
There are many other vistas to explore which can offer unexpected solutions. Fundamentally, a happier and healthier population is good for the economy, and that is why measuring a nation's success from GDP alone is an outdated way of thinking which may ultimately even be self-defeating, and ultimately limit GDP growth itself. It is why third parties have called for Malta to look to New Zealand, which is looking to focus on gross national well-being instead of GDP. The Prime Minister there has also announced that a four-day working week is part of how she intends to rebuild the New Zealand economy. While Malta's economy has grown, we have become more stressed out and more divided, and our quality of life is on the retreat thanks to environmental degradation and air pollution. Teleworking, which exists to a limited extent in the public sector in Malta, is only one such new avenue which we can further develop in Malta. Let us open our minds to the potential, as we rebuild and adjust our economies to the "new normal" of COVID-19.