Five Practical Problems Making Work-From-Home Difficult During Lockdown

An extended lockdown has begun taking its toll on employees working remotely as well as the infrastructure. People are eagerly waiting for the lockdown to end as they are facing practical problems as they work-from-home.

Due to a hurried move to working remotely and an inadequately prepared infrastructure, employees working from home are increasingly facing glitches in smooth business activity, which is impacting their productivity.

We look at five problem areas that are making work-from-home difficult during the lockdown:

Poor network connectivity: Due to an unprecedented surge in online traffic, which includes online academic classes, entertainment and social interaction apart from video-conferencing and cloud-based access to official networks, most telecom providers are facing trouble coping up with the increased demand. Subscribers are facing bandwidth issues, which often makes online video conferencing meets incomprehensible. Since the lockdown restrictions do not allow technicians to visit the affected areas, the network issues cannot be resolved and continue to affect smooth conduct of online activities.

Non-availability of spares: Nobody was prepared when the lockdown was announced and hence did not arrange for spares--laptops, mobiles, chargers or accessories. Many people are facing problems with their laptops and mobile phones. For instance, if a spare part of a laptop were to need repairs during the lockdown, the neighborhood service shops are refusing to entertain repair requests citing prohibitory orders against opening the shops. What compounds the problem further is that e-commerce players are mandated to deliver essential items only. ICT products, being non-essential items, can therefore not be bought online.

Inadequate communication: In an office set-up, a lot of communication occurs in informal setups such as during coffee breaks. Such options are not available in remote work environments. Video conferencing does help to an extent, but such online meetings are more formal. Inadequate communication can, therefore, result in an improper understanding of the expectations and affect performance. A detailed, documented communication can help managers set the right expectations, but a majority of managers are not trained enough to do so.

Increased work hours: The boundaries between professional and personal lives are blurring with work hours extending well beyond the normal work hours. There is no clear distinction between work and home time, which causes difficulty in establishing a proper work routine, thereby adversely impacting productivity.

Increased screen time: Working from home is predominantly online. And as working hours have increased, there is a significant increase in screen time as well. A higher screen time is associated with many ailments including computer vision syndrome that causes blurred vision, dry eyes, and headaches. It also increases the risk of obesity and interferes with sleep cycles.

Making remote working successful

Remote working is believed to become the norm in the near future and organizations are already preparing themselves to embrace the trend. However, the issues mentioned above must be adequately addressed to make remote working successful.

The article has been written by Neetu Katyal, Content and Marketing Consultant

She can be reached on LinkedIn,