For the past year, we have been stuck at home for our work. Working from the office has become like a distant memory for us. Some people start early in the morning, work till late at night, and find uninterrupted hours of focus, where they end up delivering more than expected.
For a few people, working from home is like working from the comfort zone. When you are at home, especially, the calm environment leads you to start thinking creatively.
In a survey conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit, 42% of the workers felt focused while working from home. On the other hand, for working parents, WFH can create chaos where several emails are replied to, they need to take care of their kids, and much more.
This proves that the same work environment cannot help everyone. Architects & Ergonomics spent years creating a work environment suitable for getting the deliverables on time. This led to an open office environment where people sat together and worked. But, a study suggests that even open office environments are, at times, not suitable for people who get distracted.
Considering the situation where we have been working from home for the past year, will working in an open office be viable? Also, will it improve the productivity of employees or not?
The pandemic has not only made safety our priority, but it also taught how workspace should be?
The shift to distributed work has proven that we can work from anywhere. Additionally, it has brought technology to the forefront, where we have started adapting to several technologies that we were not in the past.
Usage of technologies is one of the most significant changes in our lives. By using these technologies, teams have created a social bond that improves teamwork. Additionally, teams have been able to stay updated with the latest communication, thus ensuring a consistent brand message across various channels.
Let us closely look at some of the technologies that we have accepted and adapted during the pandemic.
- Cloud Storage – The only cloud storage we were exposed to before the pandemic was Google Drive. But, we were not constantly using this cloud storage, as we were more inclined towards sending emails and keeping documents on physical hard drives. With the inception of the coronavirus and Google limiting the storage space, many online storage platforms came into existence. People started adopting these cloud storage platforms and started using them daily.
- Virtual Meetings – Before the start of the pandemic, very few virtual meeting apps were used. But as soon as we started working from home, we were exposed to several such virtual meetings and apps. Google meet, zoom, skype, and several others began receiving equal importance, same as the cloud storage apps.
These were the two biggest challenges we had at the beginning of the pandemic. With the changes in the working pattern, we did overcome, and we can see the changes.
Hence, we can conclude that the pandemic brought its challenges, but the humans had the last laugh. We did get the required changes in our working pattern to adjust to the situation.
