When I added the idea for this post to my content calendar, several weeks ago, Coronavirus/Covid-19 wasn’t something many people outside of mainland China were overly concerned about. Over the past number of days, we have been hearing about tech giants such as Google and Twitter asking their entire workforce to work from home in light of the outbreak and to test their readiness for remote working. I will shortly go into the influencing factors when considering remote working from the perspectives of both employers and employees. I have harvested these influencing factors from research carried out on behalf of the Department of Business Enterprise and Innovation in Ireland. At no time during this research, was a worldwide epidemic or possible pandemic considered as an influencing factor. The situation is changing by the day and there is a very real possibility that remote working may well become the business continuity tool of necessity for many businesses, both large and small. With that said, there’s a lot a scaremongering and misinformation doing the rounds on social media and the web and in the world of “Fake News” many are still drawn in by sensational clickbait headlines. We all hope that the impact of this virus on people’s health, freedom of movement and ability to work is minimal. However, should more draconian measures be required to curtail it, employees working remotely, may, as I have mentioned, become the business continuity tool of choice or necessity for many.
Coronavirus may well be a crisis that everyone all over the world is talking about but what about extreme weather events? Here in Ireland, there have been several powerful storms over the past few weeks that have resulted in restrictions of movement for many of its citizens. This too can have a drastic impact on business.
These are of course emergency situations when remote working may become a viable and necessary option but what about companies that simply want to engage in this practice for any number of reasons that may benefit the company and the employees. What follows are non-emergency related influencing factors for remote working as it relates to employees and employers.