The coronavirus pandemic has caused sudden, sweeping change around the world. The necessary social distancing measures are having an impact on all of us. One large part of society that has been affected by these measures more than others is the employed. While direct customer facing businesses like restaurants and retailers have had to change their opening hours, adapt their business models or close their doors entirely, there are still millions of jobs that can be done at home, outside of the usual office working environment.
Organizations need to adapt to meet employee needs and ensure they stay productive, motivated and secure. With so many of us being asked to work in new ways in order to stay connected to our colleagues and customers, it is important to remember both the professional and personal challenges working from home on a permanent basis can bring. Quite obviously, this situation has brought a lot of issues into our lives. A survey conducted in April 2020, as things were changing rapidly, revealed that around half (46%) of respondents had never worked from home before and therefore, were not entirely ready for such changes.
There is a lot to be said about social and productivity issues caused by the new rhythm of work, but in fact, things were not that bad, because remote work in some cases helped people to have a better work-life balance and even be more productive.
What changed: guilty pleasures and life-work disbalance
Remote work is not an entirely new phenomenon; its benefits have been discussed for years now. In some industries, like IT, remote work has already been quite widespread. Last year, Kaspersky story remote
