What We Learned from COVID: Time to Rethink How We Treat Remote Work and Study?

With vaccines against the novel corona virus deployed, most people in North America will probably be vaccinated by mid-2021. When workers and students who have been telecommuting since last March return, what should offices and classrooms look like? The COVID-19 pandemic provided a natural experiment in remote working and learning. We need to take stock of what we learned during this pandemic.

Working and studying home from had advantages and disadvantages, and for workers with children, one significant challenge has been balancing work and supervision of children. But the post-pandemic work-from-home environment will be different, with school, after-school, and childcare returning. Some may prefer remote to in-person work and instruction. Remote work and school have advantages for the institutions as well. Lessons learned from this natural experiment should be incorporated into long-term plans and policies, particularly in human resources and technology.

Telecommuting and Flextime

Working from home is not for every job, or for every worker, and even where it is possible, some people or teams may benefit from at least some in-office time. But policies that many firms relaxed for the duration of the pandemic should be reviewed policies with an eye toward more flexibility.

Restrictive policies assume that people cannot be trusted. The pandemic belied this assumption; in-person supervision is not the key to productivity. Employers need not fear slackers: those prone to avoid work are as adept in the office as well as at home. Distrusting employees is not only a questionable approach to management in theory, it turns out not to be accurate in application.

Rather than look at inputs (like hours worked), firms should measure productivity by outputs (how much a person produces), or even better, outcomes (results). Many reports over the last few months indicate that productivity did not suffer, and with children headed back to school, there will be fewer distractions at home. By allowing work-for-home, partially or fully, organizations can realize many benefits.

For employees:

• More time for work and family
• Cost savings (meals, clothes, transportation)
• Reduced stress
• Flexible schedules (errands, school plays, doctor appointments)
• Work from multiple locations
• Larger job pool to choose from

For employers:

• A happier, less stressed workforce is more loyal and productive
• Lower carbon footprint
• Potentially lower cost as space needs are reconsidered
• Larger labor pool to draw from, since commuting and relocation are not a bar, and accessibility issues are reduced.

Technology

IT departments made remarkable strides to meet the unprecedented needs during the pandemic, and can institutionalize policies that support remote work.

There are different approaches to dialing in and accessing company software and data:

• Login to their work desktop computers in a virtual session to access software and data
• Access data from a server via a virtual private network while running software locally
• Access data, and possibly applications, in the cloud

Connecting to a remote desktop can be painfully slow, and either a VPN or cloud approach are secure alternatives that run more efficiently. While it is more cumbersome for administrators to manage updates and malware protection, the end user experience is much better, and it seems a good tradeoff.

Of course, organizations must assure that the selected cloud service protects their proprietary data. Cloud-based applications keep getting better and resolve most administrative and functionality issues. The common element is that employees should be able to access their data from anywhere, and that means moving data off local machines and providing off-site ways to connect to it.

Prior to the pandemic, lax rules or enforcement about where data files are stored and shared was a risk. If some policies need to be relaxed, these need to be strengthened.

• Data must be taken off of local drives, which are usually not backed up.
• Staff must be given formal training on using a file server or cloud-based storage, especially for file and folder sharing, group editing, reviewing, shared templates, and using both web and desktop applications when opening cloud-based files.
• Downloading copies of files to local computers or flash drives, especially if those files contain sensitive data (PII, HIPPA or FERPA) should be prohibited.

Since home computers are generally not as powerful as office computers, and have different security settings, policies should consider

• issuing company equipment that can be remotely managed to anyone working remotely more than a few days per week.
• Rejecting logins from unsecure computers, with standards for anti-malware, updates, firewalls, and how computers connect to company servers (IT administrators should not have direct control of personal computers)
• Encouraging team applications for a distributed workforce (Teams, Slack, Asana, Notion, Airtable); but realistically, many will need training and thought given to how to integrate these products into company culture — without a widespread commitment to use these, it will not just happen
• Advanced productivity features only work if everyone uses the systems as designed, and that means enforced policies that supersede to a degree some individual control.

Classroom Learning

This is a topic on its own, but here are some initial thoughts on policies that should be considered. Clearly, some students benefited from remote learning, while others fell behind. In some cases, it is course-dependent: labs really need to be on premises, and public speaking is different with a camera rather than an audience. But some material may be better suited for online learning or a hybrid approach.

What can schools do to get a return on the technology investments they made this year once classes resume in person? This is an opportunity to shift some classes fully or partially online to make better use of classroom and explore the “flipped classroom” model where appropriate. The implications for facilities planning are significant:

• Large lectures require expensive lecture halls
• Multiple sections mean multiple classrooms
• Prime-time demand means a shortage of classrooms during midday and empty rooms at other times.
• Matching available classroom size and enrollment is always a challenge

If some sections are fully or optionally remote, fewer classrooms would be needed. Scheduling and enrollment would be more flexible, and institutions can increase enrollment without needing to make as many costly infrastructure investments.

Students or faculty who cannot attend in person due to illness, disability or family responsibilities, may still be able to attend and participate in classes. Snow days may be a thing of the past, with classes continuing uninterrupted and a reduced urgency to reopen giving facilities more time to reopening the campus without incurring significant overtime.

New policies on teaching, rethinking capital and operating expenditures, and negotiations with unions in many environments will be required. Given the challenges many schools already face, these discussions may be critical to their long-term survival.

Conclusion

Many of our approaches to work and learning were based on assumptions that have been challenged by the pandemic and found to be wanting. Policies assumed that activities must be onsite, and that telecommuting was a rare exception, not simply an alternative option. Schools are designed and operated around classrooms, with remote learning a special case rather than integrated into the entire operation. It is time use our COVID-19 experiences to revise policies and operations to embrace remote work and learning where it works, while recognizing that it is not appropriate for every case.

Photo credits: Thirdman; Marcus Aurelius; Stefan Coders; Andrew Neel from Pexels