Page 70 - FDI Alliance International Magazine. Spring 2021 Digital Interactive Issue

THE CHANGING FACE OF WORK

Contrary to popular belief, technology is dictating stored the tools we needed to do our work and always connected to employee motivation and
the work from home phenomena and not the be productive. performance. Low bandwidth and technology
pandemic. The pandemic was the accelerator for failures are the leading causes of work from
an already growing trend in the computer facing Whether we realized it or not, we have been home productivity issues. A survey by Stanford
workforce. COVID-19 mainstreamed working moving toward a hybrid way of working since University found that only 65% of Americans
from home and pushed employers and employees laptop computers became mainstream and have Internet connections fast enough to handle
to engage with task enabling technologies at a remote workdays became sought-after perks video calls.
much faster rate. The rapid uptake and demand when negotiating new jobs.
for communication technologies created by The same Stanford study surveyed 16,000 workers
the pandemic, propelled the work from home The office is no longer defined by a physical over a 9-month period and found that overall,
movement forward by close to a decade. To say space, the Cloud, personal computers, improving working from home increased productivity by
it was a major disruptor to the status quo of the bandwidth and team enabling and convening 13%. The uptick in productivity was attributed to the
traditional office work environment, would be an technologies, have changed that for good. The employee being able to make more calls per minute
understatement. office is anywhere you can be productive and and participate in more meetings each day. Think
communicate with your teams and clients. about it, without travel time, employees spend an
The concept of an office or shared workspace average of only one hour per meeting as opposed
existed because that is where resources were THE IMPACT OF WFH ON PRODUCTIVITY to adding travel time to and from a physical
housed, desktop computers, telephones, copy meeting. You can pack a lot more meetings and
machines, printers, and paper, the multitude of Productivity in the work from home scenario is a communication into one day while working
physical files. The office was the place where we big topic of discussion these days, and it is not virtually.

70. FDI ALLIANCE INTERNATIONAL