Dynamics of remote working

For most businesses, this period has been a pain. While some have entirely summed up their operations, others have found ways of operating.

The most common business sustainability strategy enveloped by many businesses globally is remote working.

Remote working is a phenomenon where employees of a company work outside the traditional office environment.

Allan Ssekatawa resides in Najjera. The 30-year-old software developer along with his roommate rented out one unit at the building.

For Ssekatawa, remote working preceded the coronavirus pandemic.

He is used to staying home which also serves as his office from time to time.

“Most times, hours are very flexible, there is nothing like you have to start working at 9a.m and end at 5p.m,” he says explaining why he opted for remote working.

Necessities
To work from home, Ssekatawa says communication tools need to be in place.

“For online meetings, we use zoom, Skype, messaging slack, mattermost and email among others,” he says.

For the hardware, one needs headsets and a good laptop with a web camera and high Random Access Memory (RAM) such that it can run a lot of the aforementioned remote tools efficiently.

According to Ssekatawa, it is also very paramount to be trained in the virtual etiquette for online meetings through videos.

“Proper lighting when you are on a call, being in a quiet place, muting your microphone when you are not talking,” he says.

Covid-19 came without bells, eliminating opportunity for businesses to train employees on how to use remote working tools.

Mr Joseph Ajal, Secretary General of the Human Resource Managers’ Association of Uganda says they had to have on-job training for staff.

“It was training on the job. We trained every day. Majority of the people did not know how to use zoom even Skype. We had to train staff to download the tools,” he says.

Benefits
For some companies such as Andela, for whom remote working is the norm, Covid-19 has not disrupted its operations.

Isaac Tumusiime is a software engineering manager at Andela, in charge of a team of 25 engineers spread across five countries in Africa.

Andela trains its engineers in distributed work and remote working.

“You need to have a good Internet connection and communication,” he says.

Tumusiime engages in weekend one on one meetings with his engineers via zoom to plan for the week while scrutinising previous assignments, outcomes and any challenges.

“In case they have an urgent issue that can’t wait for a one on one, such as power outage in their area, breakdown of a laptop or need for office resources, we use alternative means of communication,” he explains.

According to Tumusiime, remote working has showed increased productivity amongst their engineers.

“What has come out of Covid-19, is that people working from home are more productive than when they come into office because they do not have to bear with traffic plus they do not engage in conversations with colleagues,” he explains saying the work-life balance has contributed to productivity.

Remote working saves costs for the company since there is limited use of office space.
Employees working from home, he says, are happier which leads to increased productivity.

For companies that have just adjusted to remote working, Mr Ajal says it is still premature to determine the level of productivity of employees working from home.

Remote working cannot effectively apply to all jobs, for instance, medical doctors.

In addition, unreliable electricity and Internet network capacity can hamper productivity.

Remote working with international parties is sometimes challenging because of the difference in time zones.

Team work is harder to cultivate amongst distanced employees. This will require leaders to harness a working relationship amongst different people in different locations.

Work-life balance
Unlike Ssekatawa, a young man living on his own, Ms Doreen Nayiga, an internal loss adjustor at UAP Old Mutual, works from home where she also lives with her 2-year-old son.

She has to work around her son’s sleep schedule to deliver her work.

“I follow the sleeping schedule of the child so when he is sleeping, I work. When he wakes up, I have to be with him,” she says.

With her job, Nayiga has to work remotely. But it is different with Covid-19 because schools were closed and the children told to stay at home.

However, the new model of working from home goes against the old work life balance of keeping away work from home as infringing on family and spousal time. It’s not cognisant of what will happen if work cannot be kept away from home. What will this entail? Could the new normal support work conveniences and company cost controls but endanger family time?

Cyber security
With remote working, company work is done off a personal device. This, experts warn, could increase the cyber security risk of companies.

Mr Albert Mucunguzi, the chairman of the ICT Association of Uganda (ICTAU) says it is vital for a company to restrict access to critical services to office.

“If I am working from home, my Internet Protocol address can be whitelisted so that I have access even if am not physically in the premises but that has to be done on a case by case basis,” he advises.