Working from home at first sight seems the perfect solution while we sit out COVID-19. We can shelter, earn the same money, save on travel and wear what we like. However, remote working is not for all of us during COVID when we look more carefully. Perhaps that’s because society hard wired us to work at the office in a team. Let’s find out!
Why Remote Working is Not for All of Us
Some IT programmers have been closeted in their homes for years, because they thrive on self-sufficiency. The nature of their work also benefits from seclusion. They don’t appreciate interruptions when in the middle of debugging miles of code.
However, remote working is not for those of us who need what BBC correspondent Christian Jarrett calls the social nuances of face-to-face contact. He wonders whether work teams will be able to function at a distance, and turns up some interesting research. In a nut shell, new teams will struggle. Whereas established ones may cope.
Why Established Teams May (Sometimes) Cope Remotely
Reporter Christian Jarrett found research by Sandy Staples dating back a few years. She was working at Smith School of Business at Queens University, Ontario at the time. She and her colleagues observed how newly-formed virtual teams became dysfunctional.
Whereas established teams adopted the ‘new normal’ of remote working because they understood each other. And moreover they appreciated how their tasks interconnected, in the pursuit of their common goal. Chris Jarret overlays this information with another factor, this is our adaptability to accept change and thrive on it.
We imagine this does not apply to programmers, bloggers, and other solitary people continuing as before. Some may have hardly noticed the changes around their closeted world.
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