It’s safe to say that the first year of the pandemic, marked by lockdowns, travel restrictions, working from home, and remote monitoring tools forever changed the collective mindset surrounding work. The expectations of the average worker have been altered as work flexibility and overall well-being shifted to the forefront.
This is what Microsoft called the new “worth it” equation, in their “Great Expectations” report.
In the report, they state that more than 50 percent of employees have started to prioritize their overall (mental and physical) health, in comparison to pre-pandemic times. Around 52 percent of Gen Z and Millenials are expected to change their employer this year.
What started off in 2020 as the Great Resignation, slowly transformed into the Great Reshuffle, with the job market adapting in order to appease the reshaped expectations of workers. It’s no secret nor surprise that there is a lot of hesitancy regarding returning to the office, allowing hybrid and remote work to spike in popularity like never before.
The rise in remote and hybrid work, naturally, also led to an equally heightened need for good, reliable, and easy-to-use software to monitor remote employees. Click here to find out more about the benefits that this tool can bring to your business or company.
Changed Approach To Work
The hesitancies about returning to the office can be explained by numerous different reasons.
1. Health-Related Frears
The lingering health-related fears in the post-pandemic world. Employees are more conscious of diseases and illnesses and don’t want to risk getting sick at the workplace.
They also don’t want their mental health to take a nosedive due to work-related challenges. Remote monitoring tools allow employees to work on their tasks in their own, safe environment, without the risk of compromising their health or adding office stress.
2. Health Insurance
With unemployment comes unemployment insurance (UI), if you meet the eligibility requirements. The U.S. is, still, the only high-income country that doesn’t offer its citizens universal health insurance coverage.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) reported on 35 million people enrolling in insurance coverage related to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and a historic 21 million people enrolled in Medicaid expansion coverage. This is a huge increase, in comparison to the year 2020, when around 28 million Americans were uninsured.
3. Increased family demands
People have either started to prioritize their family life, or they have gone through a family expansion and want to spend more of their precious time closer to their loved ones. Flexible arrangements and work time are what’s sought after; not free office coffee and doughnuts.
4. Commuting
An extreme dislike towards commuting, especially for workers who had to take long commutes to their job. Why waste time and money commuting, when you can do the assignments, just as productively, at your cozy home office?
Working with Revolutionary Tech
As the business world and its needs change, technology does too. Even though this technology has been around since the nineties, remote monitoring tools are at an all-time high in regards to popularity and usage. With just a few clicks, you can have accurate insight into an employee’s work time, productivity, web usage, as well as other integrated applications and analytics.
Even though some businesses and employees are struggling to adapt to the new work model, companies monitoring employees working from home is becoming the new normal. Will this be a permanent shift? Nobody can tell with certainty. Even though working remotely comes with a set of benefits, remote employee burnout is becoming a more prevalent issue.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) entered “burnout” in the International Classification of Diseases as of January 2022, and defined it as “a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed”.
It can be prevented and managed if the first signs of burnout are recognized on time. This is why developers of this type of software are actively working on integrating features that can warn an employer of signs that their employee is starting to enter burnout.
Hybrid Work: The New Normal
Whether you miss the office or enjoy the benefits that remote work brings, one thing is for sure: a new, hybrid work era is unfolding and evolving in front of our eyes. When this work model is properly implemented, it allows employees to have a heightened sense of autonomy, and flexibility. Hybrid work allows companies to reach higher levels of overall performance.
With the right remote monitoring tools in place, open and direct communication, and appropriate managing systematization in place, hybrid work allows for a healthier work environment and better work-life balance, with a focus on well-being.
