Latest update April 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
Jul 18, 2020 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom
Years ago, there was a government employee who was known to be an early bird. She turned up for work before all the other employees. It was later discovered that the reason why she came in early was because she would use the government telephone to check on her parents who lived in the countryside. She would call them every day to see how they were getting along. She made these daily out-of-town calls on her office telephone because she did not wish to incur the cost on her personal landline at home.
When her employer eventually let her go, the savings from her office phone were significant. If she had to work from home, she would not have been able to rack up so many calls. The government has had enough time to assess the costs, benefits, advantages and disadvantages of remote working – that is working from home. It is now clear that the government has not undertaken such an analysis or, if it did, it has failed to incorporate the findings of such analysis into its decision making.
The government has announced a return to work, on rotation for non-essential workers in the private and public sectors. The country has been running at quarter speed for the past four and one half months. Some workers, in both the public and private sector, have been forced or were asked to work remotely in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. They have now been given the all clear to go back to work.
The government, however, seems to have been oblivious to the new employment reality occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic. The world has changed and some changes will become permanent. Among those changes which will become part of the new normal is remote working, or working from home.
The International Labour Organization estimates that as much as 260 million workers or almost 8% of the global workforce were already working from home prior to the pandemic. The pandemic has resulted in a drastic increase in remote work with as many as 42% of Americans working from home and another 33% not working.
Working from home has economic, environmental, labour and personal benefits. A study undertaken by the Centre for Economics and Business Research and a software company, Citrix, estimated that flexible work would result in more than US$2 trillion in economic gains as well as impact positively on unemployment.
The environmental benefits have also been significant. Remote working has reduced fossil fuel emissions and can potentially impact on traffic congestion. Studies have also found benefits for employers. Long before the pandemic, employers had begun to recognize the benefits of working from home. Remote work saves on office space and overheads – telephone, electricity and janitorial costs. It has been found to reduce absenteeism and increase productivity without any reduction in quality. Employers also benefit from reduced recruitment costs since there are lower rates of attrition.
Workers who were engaged in remote work enjoyed savings from not having to commute to and from work. In terms of work-life balance, some workers reported improvements while others did not. But most favoured the flexibility of working from home.
Unfortunately, the government of Guyana is stuck in orthodoxy. Its phase 3 directives makes no accommodation for persons working from home. The government instead opts for a system of rotation. The government appears oblivious to the new normal which has emerged as a consequence of the coronavirus pandemic. Increased remote working is part of that new normal.
In other parts of the world, the reopening of economies has led to a spike in coronavirus infections. There is no reason to disbelieve that the same will not happen in Guyana. In fact, the most recent local spike has occurred during a period when the people and businesses decided that they had no choice but to reopen.
In circumstances where the economy has to be reopened, the least the government can do is to try to protect the most vulnerable. In Italy and Spain, older workers and those with underlying conditions were allowed to stay away longer than younger workers. This was part of the strategy to minimize risks.
The majority of public sector workers do not interface with the public. And therefore the majority of them could have been asked to work from home. This would reduce the risk of infection.
It would have also allowed for improved expenditure management, at a time when savings are desperately needed. Its costs taxpayers more than G$500M per day just to keep the public bureaucracy going.
The new normal – working from home – could have led to considerable savings, monies which could have been diverted to fight the pandemic and provide relief to those affected by it. But don’t tell that to the COVID-19 Task Force. They are stuck in the old ways of doing things.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)
Please share this to every Guyanese including your house cats.
Apr 19, 2024
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