Hello Remote Working & Workations. Goodbye Antiquated Work Practices.

What to do when the workers don’t want to be in work? The Covid 19 pandemic will be studied for numerous years going forward. Never in recent memory has something so profound affected the entire population of the world and the social fabric and economies within. Mental and physical health, societal configurations, working patterns, environmental issues - you name it, it has been touched. When the statisticians and psychologists have done their work, companies will interrogate the data and see what lessons can be learned from the ‘experience’ of Covid. Financially you would doubt the World could afford another pandemic but of course, the real effects are yet to be known. Have car emissions plummeted due to less commuting? Have electricity costs risen due to more usage domestically? What happens to the low paid migrant workers? Have job opportunities decreased? Has far right nationalism increased? Has environment improved due to lack of air travel? Are staycations now an annual calendar event? Anecdotal stories of people in their 30’s and 40’s taking a hard look at their Work/Life balance abound. Some people have decided simply not to work but others have analysed their behaviours and aspirations, accepting that a working life is both a necessity and perhaps something that defines them. Unless you win the lottery chances are that you will be required to work to earn money. Simple. But where you work is the key. Can you do your work from home….or Guatemala? Can you enjoy the stimulus of a new environment while also paying the bills? I believe the answer is yes and is why I firmly believe Workations can solve the growing friction between those who want to work from home and the Businesses who want their employees to be in the office. Lets be clear – the guy who is bluffing at home is the guy who will be bluffing in work. Just because they are at a desk in your office does not mean they are working productively. Chances are the person working from home is balancing their life, getting more from their existence and yet doing more hours than they would be in the office. The commute to a workplace (besides the pollution) is a tremendous waste of personal time and typically unpaid. Whether you spend 1 hour each way on a commute or 3 hours each way, there are only so many podcasts, songs and audiobooks you can listen to before you realise a huge proportion of your week is sat doing nothing. Travel to a workplace simply because the boss wants you to be in there. We are in 2021 and these Victorian working ideals belong precisely in that era. You either trust the person you have employed or you don’t. It really is that basic. Businesses need to become flexible. End of. The competitors and head hunters are all alive to that fact. New employees are getting new deals, the business needs to show the employee that they are simply not a number on the end of a wage slip, a slave to the end product of glorious profit. It’s a whole new world out there and the opportunity is there to reset our bad habits which include the workplace, social gatherings and the environment. In the modern world we are travelling at 100 mph at all times. Everything is done at speed as our work practices, news, games, health and family life are threw into a wirling mass of 'must dos'. The modern rat race to waste precious time travelling to a building where the same job could be done from another location week in, week out, simply does not make sense on any level in this day and age. We have rightly moved on from the original Victorian concept of working in a hive. Workplaces need to evolve and businesses need to evolve. If there is any benefit from the pandemic to be had it is simply that the world of employees have woken from their slumber and now can influence the outdated practices of the far removed Director from their personal lives. Commute time is personal time, not company time. When we all realise that then the veils will drop from our eyes and the employee can work but also recover the most valuable thing that they can have - time. photo credit: The Consumer Watch Foundation