The pandemic forced many people to adopt remote work "in fright", with no previous experience in this modality. Now, a year and a half after that unforgettable March 2020, it is clear that the home office will continue to be adopted on a much larger scale than it was before covid-19.

Many companies have realized that the new arrangement can be productive – in addition to providing considerable savings in fixed structures. And most professionals are clearly demonstrating that they do not want to return to the 100% face-to-face model. The most evident example of this is in the area of Information Technology. Extremely requested in the current market, these professionals are in a position to choose how they want to work. And 86.6% of them prefer to work remotely full-time, according to a recent survey carried out by the Vulpi platform with more than 30 thousand registered developers – 6.9% pointed to the hybrid model as ideal and only 6.5% prefer to work in person full-time.

The challenge of engagement

As it consolidates itself as a choice – and no longer as an inevitable circumstance resulting from the health crisis – the home office needs to change levels. The phase in which improvisations were tolerated is passing. From now on, certain attitudes and situations will no longer be seen as natural. The lack of adequate infrastructure in the home office, for example, will no longer be accepted. There has been more than enough time to improve the internet signal or buy a suitable chair. Likewise, managers no longer have justifications for disrespecting schedules and calling the team at any time. There is a growing concern about health problems that may be silently worsening as people immerse themselves in housework. Long periods of screen time without breaks compromise eye lubrication, the legs tend to suffer circulation problems, greater sedentary lifestyle contributes to overweight, and the ergonomic inadequacy of the infrastructure causes pain and injuries, such as tendinopathies. There are also emotional difficulties, the gateway to diseases such as anxiety, stress, and burnout. People working from home often feel isolated, directionless, and exhausted in the face of the unruly mix between work and personal life. Meanwhile, one of the biggest complaints among managers is the difficulty in engaging the team remotely. Not by chance, this has become one of the most evoked verbs by the HR area. A recent study by the Gallup Institute emphasized the relationship between employee engagement and increased productivity, with up to three times more revenue generated per professional and a 40% lower turnover rate.

HR Technology

Technology presents itself as an ally for the consolidation of more stable and rational procedures in the management of people in the midst of remote work. These services are offered by startups specializing in HR services, the so-called HR Tech. The prospects are extremely positive for this type of business. An example is Mereo, founded in Belo Horizonte by three partners from the Falconi consultancy, which has just received a contribution of R$ 5 million from fund managers KPTL and Cedro Capital. The objective is to boost the platform that evaluates personal performance and calculates variable compensation, among other features. For the CEO, Renato Ramalho, one of HR Tech's missions is to try to anticipate solutions to the problems that will arise with the rapid transformation of labor relations. "This process was certainly strongly accelerated by the greater dissemination of remote activities as a result of the pandemic," he points out. Another company that offers technological solutions for HR is Colorkrew, creator of Goalous, goal management software that, in practice, works as a social network. The results of each team are shared, while the platform facilitates communication between departments and different hierarchical layers of the organization. Pontomais, on the other hand, offers HRs online time and attendance control and other solutions for remote management. By automatically tracking the working day, the system provides greater control of the hours worked. "The most important thing is that the HRs of companies can get rid of some bureaucracies and focus on the strategic part of the activity, including the team's career development," says the company's CEO and founder, Hendrik Machado. Talking is essential In addition to the tools especially dedicated to remote work, what is at stake is a cultural transformation, which will require new skills on the part of professionals and managers. To help them develop these attributes, SmarTalk – a company specializing in impact communication and corporate storytelling – has just acquired inco, a school of behavioral skills. One of the goals is to offer more services related to remote work, such as leader training and customized solutions to reinvent traditional learning models. Technology is certainly important in this new phase of labor relations, but the newly created startup BrandOn is really betting on the good old conversation to overcome the behavioral bottlenecks that have been manifesting themselves throughout the pandemic. "Our proposal is to put all the members of a team on the same page," says one of the founders, Paulo Vieira de Campos, a professor in the Executive MBA courses at the School of Advertising and Marketing (ESPM) and Insper. "This alignment, done with frankness and openness, is the first essential step to establish the agreements that will lead this team to obtain good results in remote work." The product offered by BrandOn to companies are the so-called "uncomplicated conversations", workshops held remotely and based on the Liberating Structures methodology. It was the shared interest in this methodology that brought Paulo together with BrandOn's partner, Aldo Wandersman, CEO of the Hans Donner Group and author of the book "What if You Were a Brand?". Aldo lives in Rio and Paulo in Curitiba. "We haven't even met in person yet. BrandOn itself is a direct result of these new times of remote work," says Aldo. For Paulo, the epicenter of the difficulties related to remote work is a generalized crisis of trust – and without shared trust it is not possible to have genuine and productive engagement. "We see in the market a very big concern with operational tools related to the home office, but the problem is certainly before that: it is behavioral", evaluates the professor and partner at BrandOn.

Original post: https://6minutos.uol.com.br/carreira/home-office-veio-para-ficar-mas-era-do-improviso-vai-acabar/