Netmotion: Work v life – striking a balance
It’s fair to say that, for over a year now most of us have been working differently. In fact, for most people whatever routine they have settled into is what they now consider ‘normal’. Some of us will have been working from home (WFH) or remotely, and others will have been mixing this up with some visits to the office. This prompted me to mull over the whole, ‘work-life balance’ scenario for people working under these different conditions. So much so that I thought it an interesting question to pose to my network via a LinkedIn poll.
In very basic terms, I was interested to find out how people’s work-life balance had been impacted since working from home? Had a healthy work-life balance been less or more achievable than it had been previously? Had working from home changed the boundaries between the time that should be dedicated to work and the time that should be reserved for people and their family? Overall, had it improved people’s work-life balance?
The LinkedIn Poll was a fairly primitive testing of the water, a conversation starter if you will. The findings pointed to a fairly even split between those expressing an improved work-life balance versus a worsened work-life balance. I am fully aware that such a poll can’t be used scientifically to prove a trend in either direction, but it certainly made me (and others) ponder the various forces that are driving us all whilst we wait to see if there will be a mass return to the office environment or a continuance of WFH / remote working.
Initially I was curious to understand if people were happy with the supposedly improved work life balance, given that most had been used to going into an office most, if not all of the time. But then, we aren’t looking at a level playing field – for example, most IT teams will be based in an office / data centre environment, whilst salespeople will be typically mobile, on the road for most of the time. Is it better or worse to be stuck behind a desk in an office or in your home? Also, is it fair to compare the work life balance under COVID when so many things (businesses) have been shut – restaurants, pubs, non-essential shops, kids play areas? Do you get a better work life balance from spending more time at home with so many places shut? Arguably, many people might venture that their work life balance has deteriorated because they haven’t been able to do anything else. Spending time with the family is great but there’s only so much homeschooling that we can take.
And as we all face up to whatever’s around the corner from a work routine point of view, what’s the psychological side of things? How are people actually feeling about the situation? Our LinkedIn poll suggests that there is a balance with respect to people being comfortable with going back to some form of normality. Even some of our social online interaction with customers indicates that whilst some are chomping at the bit to get back to the office, many others are just not ready at all. Indeed, some of them seem to be saying that they don’t plan on doing anything until next year; for example, not going back to commuting to the London office. Businesses face having to manage all of these different expectations. They will be weighing up remote working and office working with perhaps a flexible model as a middle ground – don’t forget that there are still concerns regarding attracting the best talent. Top graduates from the best Universities will expect to be able to work flexibly; being in an office nine to five will hardly seem appealing now. On the other hand, organisations will still need people in the office.
With investment in technology in mind, the majority of companies are still reacting to the situation – people still don’t really know what the future looks like so there’s a chicken and egg scenario with respect to investment. New technologies will emerge due to necessity – look at security, for example. Businesses will need to deploy new security technologies to deal with all the risks associated with people working on other networks and on other devices. Zero trust network access is a case in point in the face of everyone using different networks and companies increasingly moving more resources into the cloud – because they’re getting rid of office space. And data centres are getting shut down because many of them form part of the office environments that companies are doing away with; another driving factor to move apps into the cloud. All of which drives organisations to seek new security solutions that mitigate a lot of these new risks – zero trust network accesses ticks all of the boxes here.
In short, I’m glad I shared our poll on LinkedIn. Whilst it won’t necessarily serve to prove anything decisively, it certainly encourages (and will hopefully continue to do so) debate around a subject that is so close to many of our hearts. What actually ends up happening is still anyone’s guess, but flexibility will be key, backed up by new technologies that provide secure and efficient ways to empower people to work – wherever that ends up being.
