Q1. What has been your experience of working from home in these 50 odd days of lockdown? Have there been any clear benefits and/or challenges faced on both personal and professional fronts thus far?

Responses varied from objective to broad, subjective ones.

1. In the initial stages of lockdown, scheduling of work and time management were the biggest challenges. The sudden, overnight transition of managing work from a established office environment that offers infrastructure to a WFH (Work From Home) one proved to be immensely challenging. To make matters difficult, there was no prior communication or preparation even after the lockdown started for the first week to 10 days. Everything was so sudden. Advance preparedness was completely missing. Some felt that HR was caught on the wrong foot. Line managers too were clueless as to how to route work, manage staff and plan transition. This resulted in several delays and disruptions.
2. A few Brand Managers of MNCs reported that the initial level of preparedness was a tad better especially since their headquarters based in Europe had already started shutting down and gave advanced warning to all affiliates of the oncoming pandemic. This helped to mobilize efforts but the scale of disruption was not entirely predicted.
3. Women marketing colleagues, especially mothers, have had to bear the biggest brunt of managing both the work and home fronts. Managing the demands of family, kids and the job has been the biggest challenge. As the lines between office and home fronts blurred, it became a never-ending treadmill of balancing the priorities and there is no respite as on date. These colleagues felt that their organizations and leaders could show more empathy and sensitivity considering the situation. However, a few women colleagues also did mention that their employers have been proactive in giving them high flexibility of working hours when the demands are low at some times of the day. One lady Manager did mention of the high degree of support her spouse was giving her in splitting the daily chores and pitching in when the conflict of demands arose.
4. Colleagues have automatically figured out “coping mechanisms” to seamlessly manage demands of work and home through division of duties with spouse or through “time bands” (certain times of the day for certain work only) or building support infrastructure with gadgets.
5. Colleagues feel that the 2-month lockdown has caused social isolation of high order which will now be quite difficult to reverse. Behavioural patterns have changed. Social isolation from office co-workers, friends and relatives is causing high levels of stress/anxiety. The fear of Covid has made families huddle together, insulate themselves from friends/relatives and this is likely to continue even after things return to normal. This is likely to be the new normal.
6. Colleagues believe that the new normal is a hybrid “phygital” environment – mix of the real physical and digital worlds. Wafting through both these worlds will now become easy and necessary as the pandemic is likely to continue till year end.
7. A colleague mentioned that silos that got routinely enforced between the Business Units in his organization in pre-Covid time held no relevance now when the lockdown kicked in ! Teams were forced to break down the silos and collaborate as they had to restore launch activities, field support and meetings overnight. Wisdom gained through serendipity.