A "workplace" traditionally refers to a space in a building where people engage and interact physically when they perform work. But technological advances and, most recently, the global Covid-19 outbreak have changed the way organisations distribute work to ensure business continuity and safety of employees.
Overnight, organisations had to pivot to remote meetings and channel-based communication, as well as scale up security to combat new cyberthreats now that their staff were logging into corporate sites from home.
This transition not only affected organisations but also employees who found themselves wearing different hats in the new remote reality -- as parents, educators, entertainers and business leaders.
"I and the team have been working from home since the last week of March 2020. When the Covid situation was better in the second half of 2020, we were able to go to the office from time to time, only when necessary, with up to 25% [of normal occupancy] allowed," said one Bangkok corporate employee whose company's business spans the globe.
Then, it was back to 100% work from home in April this year, when the third wave of the pandemic hit Thailand. "This policy has been applied with everyone at head office, while each plant, either in Thailand or overseas, can consider the appropriate measures. However, social distancing is a great concern," he told Asia Focus.
Two regular virtual meetings are conducted daily within teams. Management also has online meetings, many of which are across regions, so choosing a convenient time is important. "The most important thing is regular communication with stakeholders, both formal and informal, to ensure things are mutually understood," he pointed out.
"Some areas of my work require building relationships and experience with stakeholders. Those can be done virtually but the results are presumably different from face-to-face meetings. Still, we all need to adapt and try using other means."
Now, well into the pandemic, several organisations are beginning to see gains from remote working to the bottom line, from reduced overhead costs to greater employee productivity and morale.
What started as an emergency measure is now starting to make sound business sense for multiple reasons. With many multinational corporations looking into making remote work a more permanent feature, it will not be long before other organisations follow suit.
"I don't think it is compulsory for companies to continue with the work from home (WFH) approach post-Covid, but it's good to have a hybrid working mode," said the 33-year-old, who asked not to be named.
"WFH does have pros -- say, more focus for individual tasks, reduced travel times and company costs. But, working at the office is still effective for collaborative tasks."
While remote work isn't without its drawbacks, broadly this shift allows employees more time with family, less commuting and travelling, and more flexibility to balance work and life, according to the consulting firm Deloitte.
"Working in remote formats will also allow for greater autonomy and time to invest in learning new skills. Employers will gain advantages in cost, productivity and flexibility/agility," Deloitte noted in a recent paper titled "Remote Work: A Temporary 'Bug' Becomes a Permanent Feature".
"Eventually, as remote working becomes the norm for some employers, the geographical limitations of talent will disappear, allowing employers to access talent in international locations without the burden of mobility costs and complications."
Governments will benefit from less traffic on the roads, revitalisation of suburban economies and ecosystems, and a rapid transition of digital production and consumption, it added.
"It is crucial for employees to understand that dedicating time to themselves outside of work is equally as important as managing their responsibilities at work," says Ekpawin Sukanan, country manager for Thailand of VMware. Supplied/VMWare
GROWING TREND
As the world recovers from the pandemic, the new normal for the workplace will reset. Many will choose, or be required, to work remotely. Conditions for working from home and practices for working remotely will improve.
Deloitte expects up to 47.8 million people in the Asean-6 nations -- Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam -- could shift to working remotely over the next few years. This is based on assumptions about the occupations for which remote work is feasible, the proportion of the workforce in these occupations, and the likely timeframe needed to provide the appropriate infrastructure and environment.
Singapore and Malaysia will lead the region with a potential remote workforce of up to 45% and 26% respectively because of the relative dominance of service industries. The business case for Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam is also strong, given the massive productivity losses related to urban commuting time, Deloitte said.
In comparison, around 200 million people or 25.5% of the Chinese workforce were working remotely by the end of the Chinese New Year holiday in February this year, it added.
"Seen side by side with the China perspective, our estimates for Asean appear fairly conservative," the authors of the report wrote. "We believe that Asean will get there but only if we are able to transition infrastructure, skills and policy simultaneously, over the next two years."
While the trend might be expected of digital natives, other early adopters are stepping up as well. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), headquartered in India, is preparing to have 75% of its workforce working from home by 2025.
"The technology [for remote working] has been available for a while, but it took seeing it in action for companies to truly feel comfortable with the idea," says Omer Kucukdere, founder and CEO of Nestpick. SUPPLIED
"We don't believe that we need more than 25% of our workforce at our facilities in order to be 100% productive," TCS chief operating officer NG Subramaniam, was quoted as saying.
The telecommunications giant Optus will continue to have its Australia-based call-centre staff work from home on a permanent basis. A recent survey of workers across Australia found that over half were using the time previously spent on commuting to do work, and 70% felt they were either as productive or more productive working from home as in the office.
However, most Asian cities are far down the list of the best spots to live and work remotely, according to a study by the European online housing platform Nestpick.
Tokyo placed sixth and Singapore seventh, as the region's only destinations in the top 10 among the 75 cities ranked by Berlin-based Nestpick.
Melbourne topped the table, scoring high for liveability factors like safety, healthcare and cultural and leisure activities. Hong Kong, Bangkok and Shanghai ranked 14th, 59th and 73rd, respectively.
The four leading cities -- Melbourne, Dubai, Sydney and the Estonian capital Tallinn -- are in countries that offer "digital nomad" visas or similar permits that allow people to stay longer than tourists and work independently.
"The pandemic has really proved to many companies that remote working is not only a possibility, but actually something that can be beneficial to everyone involved," said Omer Kucukdere, the founder and CEO of Nestpick. "The technology has been available for a while now, but it took seeing it in action for companies to truly feel comfortable with the idea."
"One of the biggest fears was that there would be a drop in productivity, but many studies have shown the exact opposite -- that giving employees the freedom and flexibility to work remotely actually increases output."
Mr Kucukdere said his company's study sought to show which cities make the process the most seamless for remote workers and therefore stand to attract high quality talent from around the world. "Digital nomads are motivated by the desire to experience new cultures while working in a fulfilling job, and Indonesia and Thailand's strong cultural fabric and beautiful landscapes make them highly attractive options for relocation," he was quoted as saying by Nikkei Asia.
Many Japanese employees are cool to remote work because they are unsure "whether employers would evaluate their telework performance correctly and fairly", says Peter Chambers, managing director for Asia Pacific & Japan at AMD. SUPPLIED
SECURITY MATTERS
Fast, reliable and ubiquitous internet connectivity nearly everywhere has been a key driver of remote work, along with video chat and online collaboration applications.
The cloud-based video conferencing tool Zoom went from 10 million daily meeting participants in December 2019, to over 300 million in April 2020. Microsoft Teams, a chat-based collaboration tool, had 70% monthly growth in active daily users in April 2020 alone.
While the nature of work plays the biggest role in determining the potential for a remote workplace, culture and technological adeptness are both "crucial factors in determining how the concept of a hybrid workplace will be embraced", said Peter Chambers, managing director for Asia Pacific and Japan at AMD, the US-based multinational semiconductor company.
For instance, citing a culture of "presenteeism" in the Japanese workforce, researchers have identified that many expressed reluctance toward remote working because employees were doubtful as to "whether employers would evaluate their telework performance correctly and fairly", he told Asia Focus.
Despite some concerns, Mr Chambers said it is clear that some form of hybrid working is here to stay. At the same time, there are growing concerns about cybersecurity threats as hackers have taken advantage of the abrupt shift, which has left many businesses without adequate security and cloud infrastructure vulnerable.
A study commissioned by Cisco, the American technology conglomerate, revealed that cybersecurity threats or alerts have increased by 25% or more according to six out of 10 businesses surveyed. Ensuring secure access was cited as the top cybersecurity challenge by 62% of companies surveyed.
This is a valid concern, said Mr Chambers. Cyber attacks on domain name systems (DNS) in Asia Pacific have increased sharply since the outbreak, according to an IDC InfoBrief. Malaysia saw the sharpest increase in damages at 78%, with the average cost per DNS attack growing from US$442,820 in 2019 to $787,200 last year, it said.
The image of the digital nomad in paradise is a seductive one, but the reality for millions is not quite as glamorous. Supplied/VMWare
Phishing attacks have also seen an exponential rise in the region -- Singapore has the second highest phishing rate in Asia at 46%, followed by Malaysia at 43%.
While video conferencing tools have a certain level of security in place, there have been high-profile instances of malicious actors accessing private conferences. "Businesses should remind employees to consciously check meeting links and call for multi-factor authentication (MFA) to confirm the identity of all meeting participants," he said.
Security worries and the performance of applications used remotely have historically prevented companies such as Toyota from allowing staff to work from outside the office, said Justin Hurst, the Tokyo-based field chief technology officer for Asia Pacific at Nutanix, a cloud computing services provider.
But the events of last year forced a dramatic change in mindset. Toyota turned to the Nutanix cloud platform as a base to build a virtual desktop environment to support applications and design software, and realise a new way of working.
This virtual-first approach helps simplify IT management and empowers employees to work from anywhere without compromising on security. It also resulted in phasing out of paper drawings and concurrent viewing of 3D design models, making discussions more fruitful and raising efficiency, he explained.
"Until the Covid pandemic, [remote working] was a curiosity reserved for executives, mobile employees and a few forward-thinking companies," Mr Hurst said.
"The 'on-demand office' model repositions work from a fixed location to a consumable activity, accessible anywhere at any time," says Justin Hurst, Asia Pacific chief technology officer for Nutanix. SUPPLIED
"In the corporate world, we are finally seeing a similar evolution in thinking about where and how we work. We could call this shift to more flexible working arrangements the 'on-demand office' -- a model that repositions work from a fixed location to a consumable activity, accessible anywhere at any time."
Ekpawin Sukanan, country manager for Thailand of the California-based cloud computing firm VMware, said many organisations are embracing policies to support remote work even after they begin to safely welcome employees back to physical offices. Yet, companies now need to redefine work and fundamentally reimagine how teams function and collaborate to get work done.
First, he said, they have to establish a "remote-first mindset". "At the core of a remote-first mindset, business leaders need to make sure that their teams are engaging with their work in the exact same way no matter where they are. This extends to colleagues who may be sitting six feet apart, in a coworking space or a client's conference room," said Mr Ekpawin.
When virtual teams approach collaboration the same way, it helps eliminate "proximity bias" -- a tendency to overlook the role of remote workers or, on the flip side, the feeling among remote workers of being left out, he added.
In remote work, overcommunication is a rule not the exception. To support this shift, teams should use all the communication channels available to them to overexplain, ask extra questions, offer continual updates and otherwise engage with coworkers, he stressed.
"While it might feel unusual at first, overcommunicating just gives people visibility into each other's workdays that they used to get by visiting hallways, offices or cubicles onsite."
Video collaboration platforms are a crucial enabler of remote work. But almost as soon as workers get comfortable with software such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams, camera fatigue can set in. "While video calls might be a great way to collaborate in real time, they can also dent productivity," Mr Ekpawin said.
As well, employees need to develop new boundaries to indicate when it's time to be productive. "With 39% of employees reporting that they were less effective at work than before due to work-from-home arrangements, it is crucial for employees to understand that dedicating time to themselves outside of work is equally as important as managing their responsibilities at work," he said.