COVID 19 adds remote work to the traditional work culture

Everyone is familiar with working from home lately, better know as ‘remote work’.

Thanks to COVID 19! On the vast majority job boards online, the ‘remote work’ work type has became a whole new job location category of its own.

The term ‘work culture’ – is it even a thing? A quick search on google shows the first hit by the Management Study Guide defines it as “a concept which deals in the study of: Beliefs, thought processes, attitudes of the employees. Ideologies of the organization.”

Does the COVID 19 pandemic have an effect on that? I would say, yes it does, especially working on-site vs working remotely.

The COVID 19 pandemic definitely reminds everyone how important it is to have a Business Continuity Plan in place to activate in such a situation where everyone was forced off work. Organizations that do not have this are already suffering at the loss of daily business, in whole or part.

This activates the thought that; how do we continue with business when situations like this happen? Out of all the answers out there, reliance on IT tools, products, and services comes into the picture.

Organizations with a good Business Continuity Plan would have reliance on IT to keep businesses running. This is obvious when lately, terms such as ‘remote work’ or ‘work from home have been the buzzword all over the internet.

Now back to our point on COVID 19 changing work cultures. Prior to 2020, flexibility to work is a luxury only a handful of lucrative organizations can offer their employees. The normal work culture surrounds an office workspace from 9 AM to 5 PM, Mondays to Fridays.

This COVID-19 pandemic has shown everyone that apart from a job that requires physical presence at a worksite, jobs and tasks can be done from the comfort of our homes, coffee shops, or even a park.

The internet has been crucial at this, connecting employees to their colleagues in other locations. We can say that the Internet is the main infrastructure that almost anyone who works remotely must utilize in order to remain connected – figurative and literally.

Other IT tools and applications play an important role as well, especially video and audio conferencing technology such as Skype and Zoom, collaboration applications such as G Suite and Office 365. These are some of the crucial applications anyone can utilize in order to do work despite isolating ourselves to curb the spread of COVID 19.

Work culture will definitely change. People will begin to see that remote work is equally as important as normal on-site work – and of course, technology is the main driver.