FEATURE
REIMAGINING THE WORKPLACE HOW COVID-19 CRISIS COULD CHANGE THE FUTURE OF WORK
E
ven though many Middle East organisations have redoubled their efforts to bring employees back in the office, remote working has become a new reality. The pandemic and ensued lockdown left companies with no choice but to switch to remote work, which is now poised to become the new normal. Many surveys suggest that more than 50 percent of the global workforce continue to work from home, and a staggering 90 percent prefer the flexibility of continuing WFH in a postpandemic world. With virtual teams and distributed workforces, what will be the future of work in 2021? Will this lead to a shift in IT investment priorities? What unique challenges will CIOs face within a hybrid model that combines both on-site and remote work? There is no doubt that the workplace’s future will be different after 2020, says Stephen Gill, Academic Head of the School of Mathematical and Computer Sciences, Heriot-Watt University Dubai. “Although prior to COVID-19, a few companies had already embraced remote working, the sudden impact of the pandemic has certainly accelerated 16
CXO INSIGHT ME
NOVEMBER 2020
the switch to virtual workspaces. It has not only disrupted our jobs and our work environment; it has also prompted us to re-evaluate our roles as employers and employees, our objectives, our values, and how we achieve work-life balance.” While certain industries such as healthcare and logistics would need most of their employees to be on-site, organisations in other industries might consider going fully remote or hybrid. “A hybrid model will offer employees more autonomy to fit work around the rest of their lives, rather than organising their home-based routines
Stephen Gill
in around their workhours,” says Gill. As we approach the end of 2020, it is becoming evident that the so-called new normal is set to be just normal, says Mena Migally, Regional Vice President, META at Riverbed. Consequently, companies are preparing for a largescale, long-term shift to remote work, where increasingly employees will ‘work from anywhere.’ Whilst the pandemic has demonstrated that many businesses could continue to operate outside of the traditional office space exclusively, an office environment does provide employees with invaluable human interaction and collaboration. Many organisations, including Riverbed, are shifting toward a hybrid and flexible workplace environment, in which many employees split their time between the office and working remote, he says. Fadi Kanafani, Managing Director – Middle East at NetApp, also believes a hybrid workplace will be a reality for the foreseeable future as for many businesses not all employees will be required to work remotely – based on their role and responsibilities. “I believe more and more businesses will have to offer employees the flexibility to work.
