Listen to This Article Enhance your reading experience by listening to this article.

Most companies are still struggling to get employees fully back to office due to attractiveness to the ‘work-from-home’ model, a new report says, raising concerns of impact of the pandemic on the future of workers.

Latest study by the US-headquartered Association of Talent Development (ATD) reveals that more professionals are still reluctant to go back to the office ‘full time’ by claiming they are more productive and focused working from home instead.

Through the 2022 Trends Shaping the New Normal for Employees and Organizations report, the research notes that some organisations have provided back-to-work strategies as they get concerned of losing their top talents, who may have taken up online gigs to supplement their day jobs.

This partly explains the clamour for working from home in the New Normal. Further, in Kenya, such arrangements have seen workers cut down on costs of commuting to work, beating traffic jam, as well as slicing costs associated with eat-out budgets.

However, local employers are not amused and are keen for their employees to fully return to ‘normal working arrangements’. This as those working from home find themselves being unable to turn work off.  They’re logging on from the kitchen table or home office as they take care of house chores, often forcing them to send emails late at night and on weekends.

Convinient and cost effective

“It has become a convenient and cost-effective way of working. We only meet clients when the need arises,” said Nelly Kamau – a Nairobi-based interior designer who also Co-owns All-space Designs Limited.

LinkedIn’s 2022 Global Talent Trends report noted that many employers, having either seen no measurable change or even increased productivity, are embracing, or at least tolerating remote or hybrid work.

“Flexibility also serves as a forcing function that drives companies away from presenteeism and toward performance,” commented Nickle LaMoreaux of IBM, who believes that companies must now measure outcomes, not activity.

However, the now widespread drift in most workplaces could be costly in the long run, warns the report, as it foresees resignations among employees. This means that more companies will be forced to hire and train new talents to fill in such exits.

“Employees may be filling in for peers who cannot work or former colleagues who have resigned. It’s unsustainable in the long run,” the report says.

The report puts human resource professionals on the spot since they are now tasked with the role of challenges facing employers right now,  noting that they will face the challenge of evolving and tweaking hybrid working models to facilitate a culture of connection to deliver engaged employees and a successful business.

Experts point out that those foreseen costs have seen multinationals like Google, Microsoft, and Apple walking back to those arrangements and recalling their staff to the office, even though statistics show that tech firms flourished while employees worked remotely during the pandemic, says the 2022 Trends Shaping the New Normal for Employees and Organizations report.