Working from home
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Somewhere around the early part of 2000, a Sri Lankan company set the tone for what is driving the corporate culture today in these pandemic times – working from home.The company into management consulting and undertaking other assignments operated an office in a Colombo hotel where its fully-hired staff met just once a week to discuss work and projects and thereafter worked from home. The Business Times ran a story at that time to highlight this ground-breaking initiative with a picture showing a female consultant with a towel on her shoulder working on her laptop at home – to illustrate the work from home ethos.
More than a decade later, working from home has become a reality and with another bout of COVID-19 infections triggered by the New Year holiday rush, more and more companies are instilling a working-from-home culture.
As I pondered over these issues, laughter from under the margosa tree drew my attention. The trio was back from their villages after the long Avurudu week, swapping tales and eating sweetmeats.
“Api shok kalayak gatha kala gedara. COVID thibbata, api avurudu kreeda pavaththuwa (We had a wonderful time at home. Despite COVID-19 we organised a few games),” said Kussi Amma Sera.
“Gedara yana-kota bus tikak pirila thibba. Eth eka kamak ne, gedara ne giye (There was a bit of a crowd in the buses when I went back home. But it was worth it, as I was going home),” noted Serapina.
“Game nedeyo saha yaluwo hamu wunama santhosai. Goda kalekata passe-ne nivadu giye (It was good to see family and friends in the village. It was a holiday after a long time),” said Mabel Rasthiyadu.
The kitchen was filled with sweetmeats brought home by the trio and as I walked into the kitchen to pick up a ‘kokis’, the phone rang. It was Karapincha Perera, the tea-kade gossip on the line.
“Aiyo, though they say sugar prices have come down, it is the same price in the shops,” he said, beginning a conversation on what turned out to be on the rising cost of living.
“That is because the controlled price needs to be gazetted and that hasn’t been done,” I said, adding that the sugar tax (levy) was reduced to 25 cents but that change is not reflected in the cost of a cup of tea or food items using sugar. “What do you mean?” he asked. “Well traders won’t change the prices unless there is a gazette that gives legal effect to the controlled price,” I said.
He also spoke about dhal prices which have also been reduced to a tax of 25 cents and other rising costs of consumer items before winding up the conversation.
Thereafter, I picked up the work-from-home culture and found that many companies – particularly in the IT sector – have virtually gone permanent with this system for their staff. This week, Calcey Technologies, described as a Sri Lankan boutique software engineering firm with roots in California, announced its decision to transform itself into what it called “a remote-first company”.
Calcey said it was able to lay the foundation for a successful remote work culture that came into its own from the second quarter of 2020 onward.
“Though the entire country was locked down, we were able to support all our clients without any disruptions. Our performance in 2020 was outstanding on all fronts, with client satisfaction, employee satisfaction and our financial performance all reaching our best levels ever. That is why we sought to transform ourselves into a remote-first company, with the full support of our team members, who overwhelmingly voted in favour of the decision,” said Mangala Karunaratne, Founder and CEO of Calcey Technologies.
“Before the pandemic even started making headlines, we listened to suggestions by our employees and implemented a once-a-week work-from-home facility. It proved to be a great idea,” he added.
While there are huge benefits of working from home like not wasting time in traffic, being more productive and able to juggle work and home duties, one of the challenges is that Sri Lankan labour laws are not designed to cater to this type of work environment.
At a recent forum organised by the Employers’ Federation of Ceylon (EFC) to discuss ‘IT-integrated remote work culture: Pandemic and Beyond’, Sewwandi Jayatunga Wijesekera, Head of Solutions (Legal and HR) and Assistant Director General of the EFC, said that none of the labour laws of
Sri Lanka has specific provisions pertaining to new ways of work such as remote work, compelling employers to manage within the existing legal framework.
She observed that moving forward, laws and regulations need to be changed to ensure work agreements incorporate provisions related to remote work in case of such a necessity. “All remote work policies should be employee-friendly, feasible and practical without compromising on the safety of sensitive internal data and information,” said Ms. Wijesekera, adding that in formulating such policies, work-life balance, occupational safety and health and communication related challenges should be taken into account.
Working from the comfort of your home has many advantages as you can multi-task your office work with homework. But there are other challenges.
At the same forum, Udeshika Ratnavira, Vice President, Human Resources and Administration at WSO2 alluded to some of these issues. “Employees were missing out on the social experience, their mental health was affected, brainstorming sessions were difficult on the phone and there were domestic interventions impacting work which we had to take stock of,” she said, which implies that some employee interaction may be deemed necessary.
Nevertheless, with COVID-19 infections on the rise now with clusters emerging in several towns largely because crowds gathered during shopping and at bus and railway stations ahead and during the Avurudu, working from home is a reality for many IT firms.
The pandemic is unlikely to abate in the next few months since COVID-19 cases are surging in neighbouring India and a large part of Europe is facing another wave of infections and enforcing lockdowns. This is at a time when Sri Lanka is trying to attract tourists from India under a new travel bubble (though it was unclear whether this has been suspended or not, due to the surge of infections in India) and Europe.
As I sipped the cinnamon-flavoured tea brought by Kussi Amma Sera, I thought about the enormous business opportunities this has created for companies in the services sector from those seeking to work from home, like purchasing or hiring computers, setting up workstations at home with new furniture and the need for speedy telecommunication connections and related paraphernalia.