The practice of remote working is not new and has been in prevalence in  several countries for many years. The current pandemic made this flexible-work arrangement common-place across the globe, and the Middle East is no exception.  

It appears the worst is behind us and as the dust settles down,  organizations need to re-visit their decisions and actions that were taken  to ‘manage’ the operations to sail through the sudden and massive disruption caused by Covid-19, so as to rev up again and move forward in  this ‘new normal’. 

One such aspect on every CHROs must-to-do list is to appropriately manage the advent of ‘Remote working’.  

Our recent GCC-wide survey titled employment and work-life outlook 2022 touched upon some key aspects of remote working. While the full  report is expected to come out by the middle of next month, the following  two strands of employee view stand out for white-collar professionals in the region : 

• most employees believe their ‘work-life’ balance has improved since the onset of covid-19 on account of flexibility to work remotely (either fully or in a hybrid few days a week model). 
• most employees and most of their managers believe the  employee productivity has remained the same (as before when  there was no remote working) or has improved since they started  managing their work/business operations working remotely (either fully or in some form of hybrid model of few days on-site  and few days remote working).

Given this backdrop, it is no brainer that ‘remote working’ is already on its way to becoming a key ‘must-have’ for any impactful Employee Value  Proposition (EVP) when looking at the white-collar workforce in the region. No surprise here – this is no different from the rest of the world. 

It means, the HR fraternity in the region now needs to consider ‘remote  working’ as an important and common HR policy for their companies unless it only deals with blue collars. 

Here, we touch upon the key aspects that need to be managed, and managed well, to have a smooth and effective remote working arrangement at your organization. 

• Eligibility: Who is eligible for Remote Working? It is important that the company defines the criteria of remote working objectively. Simplistically put, this could be done by answering the following three basic questions: 
• Can the employee do most (if not all) of his/her work while  remote? 
• Is the employee’s presence at the office (on a daily basis) needed for the successful performance of certain  operational jobs or compliance needs? 
• Is employees’ presence at work or in the field (on a daily  basis) important for the customers?

It is critical that your criteria of remote working are objective (and is  also seen as objective by employees). A loose policy that leaves the  decision with Line managers or is perceived as an HR prerogative  can be detrimental to the overall employee motivation of your  workforce. 

• Employee Performance Management: It is vital that a thought through process around employee performance management is  implemented to manage remote workers. If left unmanaged or  assuming that your existing performance management process, which was designed with no remote working scenario in mind, will  be just fine – you are deeply mistaken. Slowly, but steadily, the  productivity of employees and the team will drop to lower levels. 

At this point, it is important to highlight that while your Performance Management (PM) solution needs to leverage IT Tools, the key is  not to get drawn into what all the technology can track and the level  of granularity of such tracking (such as mouse clicks or mouse  movements). It is important for the CEO and CHRO to be clear as to  what needs to be measured, reviewed, and guided to help  employees perform at their best. A cliché, but important to remind  that technology should just remain the enabler and not become a snooping tool that invades the privacy of employees or makes them  feel too suffocated at (remote) work.  

The design of the PMS, in particular, for the remote working  scenario, needs to involve the line function at the design stage itself. This is important because the workflows, milestones, and associated  processes have varied nuances in the online remote-working setup. One-size-fits-all PMS will not be your best bet in remote working  situations.

• Sustaining the corporate culture: While employee performance and  metrics achievement by remote workers can be managed with a  well-designed PMS, the company leadership needs to introduce and  schedule opportunities of intra-team and cross-functional  engagements, including leadership interactions such as town halls, to ensure sustaining the Company’s corporate culture as well as to  ensure organizational synergy. The key is to balance employee  performance management with events that help reinforcement of company values and team spirit.

• Technology beyond remote connectivity: Remote working cannot  be thought of without the underlying technology that makes it  possible. However, limiting ones thinking to just the technology of  remote connectivity such as that of Zoom or MS Teams is a very myopic view of the situation. HR leadership needs to work with their  IT teams to help migrate as many employee/people processes as possible and reasonable to online platforms so as to ease the work life of their employees. The idea is that employees get a platform  where they thrive, and associate with their organizations, through various touch-points, irrespective of their location of daily work – whether in the office or at home or at any other location.

• Total Rewards: The onset of the pandemic was sudden, which means that organizations were forced to move into a remote  working set-up for their employees suddenly. Remote working  means, no commuting time or travel costs for the employees or  arranging of such facilities by the businesses; similarly, it means  saving on the workspace and associated infrastructure for the  companies usually in commercial or business hubs while adding new  costs of setting up home-office spaces for employees; in many  cases, availability of remote working means the flexibility for employees to relocate to lesser populated/less costly/smaller  cities/towns instead of continuing to stay in the metropolitan cities  where their offices were based. Organizations in the region reacted  in different ways – some cutting down on transport allowances,  some on slashing overall allowances, some by providing allowances  to set-up home offices, some provided employee health and well being programs, while others arranged no such initiatives, etc. It is  time to revisit and formalize what is right and what will keep you competitive and an employer of choice.

While geographical pay differentials are common in the western world which has had remote working as a prevalent practice for  several years now, and employees in such countries usually relocate  between states/districts, in the workplaces of the Middle East and  GCC, this may not be very relevant given the predominance of the  expatriate population that primarily resides in the city they are  employed or visa sponsored. Having said so, the factors of no or less  commute or desk space-saving are aspects that apply equally to the workforce in the Middle East as in any other place in the world.  

As such a re-think on the salary packages, balancing it with the aspects of employee engagement is an exercise every firm needs to  undertake to remain competitive and relevant. To formalize what  will make them thrive in the coming future. Else, one runs the risk  of becoming uncompetitive on wage bills or worse even, you are left  with a set of outdated pay and benefits policies that breeds internal inequities and resulting demotivation at the workplace. 

The advent of remote working has provided us with opportunities to revisit our Total Rewards set-up, where, for example, savings  from one aspect/allowance/benefit could be used to beef up other  levers of employment to enhance your employee engagement. The  choice is yours – to rejig your pay and benefits structure and policies to become more competitive and appealing as an employer or to  keep running on an outdated structure that does more harm than  good. 

• Keeping an eye on employee engagement: While our survey findings do seem to indicate that employees, in general, believe  their ‘work-life’ balance has improved since the availability of  remote working options, the survey findings also suggest that the  overall employee engagement levels are tending to be between  ‘neutral’ or ‘dissatisfied’ for a large population of the workforce.  

We must realize that it is one thing for employers to move to ‘remote working’ to ensure continuity of business and another thing  to consider as an employee total rewards engagement tool that  creates solid EVP. The latter approach means you consciously work  towards making it a successful employee offering instead of letting  it simply exist as a work arrangement forced upon you by the  environment. It is no surprise that companies that supported  employee health and well-being for remote workers already show higher employee engagements as compared to those that did  nothing. 

Organizations that consider remote working as a fact of operations  and not a potent lever to manage employee engagement are losing  out on a great opportunity. They are also unknowingly allowing disengagement to creep in by not proactively implementing tools  and processes that engage this set of ‘remote working’ employees. 

It is only a matter of time before employees and the job market starts  reacting to the actions we took to ‘manage’ the operations during the  pandemic – for organizations that planned and executed the above  aspects with care and as well-defined processes, the journey would be smooth, and for those who are yet to figure out the answers to these  questions, the coming days would be challenging. We at People Prudent would be happy to guide you through these important aspects of remote working and to help you leverage it as a strong lever for your organization’s EVP.