13/04/2020
My two cents: What can South African companies take-away from Lockdown
I have always been a big proponent of remote working or telecommuting, however much to my amazement, the trend has not really taken off in South Africa.
Naturally I am largely talking about “desk bound” employees, employees who perform administration tasks, accounting staff, general office workers, computer programmers etc, (majority %age of the employed in the Western World) and not receptionists, restaurant employees, factory workers, nurses, care-givers, mechanics and such like employees.
To me the benefits are immense:
• Staff are happier (I admit not all people are capable of working remotely)
• Happier staff are more productive.
• Less commuting and therefore less stress (massive factor)
• No time-keeping issues
• Huge cost savings with respect to office rental
• Environmental impact and carbon footprint benefits
• Less meetings and other unproductive distractions
• Savings on “Corporate apparel”
I could never fathom why South African companies / managers were so averse to it, until one day a manager colleague stated the obvious outright.
This person admitted that the big issue to them was a loss of control and admitted to being a little bit of a control freak. I realised then that many South African managers are dinosaurs compared to their counterparts in first world countries like the USA and Europe.
The truth is, that most jobs are measurable and as a result staff performance can be managed by managers being far more results-orientated. Some of my most productive staff I have had the privilege to manage were terrible at irrelevant things such as time-keeping, attending meetings etc. Some of my most unproductive staff were at their desks at 8am sharp and only left again at 4:30pm, yet got very little actually done.
Yet how often do the unproductive staff (as above) get better performance reviews? Result-orientated performance reviews eliminate this and also keeps “office politics” completely out the mix. Treat your staff like responsible adults and they will behave like responsible adults.
I cannot really see any arguments with merit against remote work.
COVID-19 and Lockdown has forced those companies that can, to (at least temporarily) utilise remote-working or telecommuting.
Talking personally, my firm was not 100% geared towards it but these are merely teething problems. Still using a server based accounting package “without a proper server” has necessitated working on my office computer via my personal laptop using AnyDesk or TeamViewer. This is not ideal, slow and time-consuming, printing is also an issue. However, we have coped and have been productive. As mentioned earlier, simply teething problems.
How would a company transition to remote-work? Overly simplified, but in essence, I would go as follows:
• Move all systems off stand-alone servers and go cloud based.
• Existing employees to take current hardware home. (there would be policies involved)
• Future employees operate on a BYOD scenario (bring your own device – those that don’t have or cant afford - you could assist with finance included in their package)
• Pay or contribute for connectivity / fiber usage (cease if employee moves on)
• Assist employees who cannot work from home with some form of co-working space near to their residence. Eg Workshop 17
• Utilize co-working space (Eg Workshop 17) for monthly / fortnightly meetings.
• Utilize Skype / Zoom for other meetings.
My two cents how we can move with the times, assist the environment and have happier workspaces.
