During the pandemic lots of clinical trial companies and even some administrative staff of the sites were literally switched to home-based regime of work. Since every crisis is believed to be a combination of ‘danger’ and ‘opportunity’, forced working from home (“WFH”) really implies a danger, potential or actual, for a well-established normal way of work as well as an opportunity for the companies to efficiently respond to the pandemic, save business and employees.
After many weeks of lockdown in many countries of our global coverage we accumulated some experience on how the out of the office (“OOO”) life impacts our usual routine. Let’s highlight some points.
Opportunities
Might not be applicable for all, yet for a big number of employees it is an opportunity to be more concentrated and less disrupted. Contract and budget review often require 100% focusing on the subject and any tiny disruption may result in some pity error.
Flexible working hours. You know yourself better than anyone else. You know when you are most efficient, whether you should start earlier or finish your work later. Reasonable flexibility is surely a benefit.
Timesaving. Working from home there is no need waste time to get to/from the office, not mentioning all the office-related daily rituals… you know, what we mean.
Employee becomes more current costs-effective for the company, especially if the company enjoys rent holiday.
Danger
Limited availability of site’s staff impacts negotiation timelines – what could be settled within minutes in before-lockdown times, now can take days or even weeks.
Stressful environment. WFH is generally not a big deal and is full of advantages, however some employees have to combine job responsibilities and personal ones that they used to delegate, for example, to schools, kindergartens, babysitters etc. Keeping background noise at zero level during teleconferences is quite a challenge in such circumstances.
Lack of face-to-face interaction. Sure, it is not that big issue in the era of voice and video messengers, still it is hardly possible to digitalize some quick discussion with a colleague during lunch or coffee break.
There may be IT issues caused by the increased traffic load and limited capacity of some local providers and IT infrastructure.
Well, lockdown will go away sooner or later, yet the world already changed. We believe opportunity will win in this crisis battle and we will get to the normal life very soon, enjoying not business-as-usual, but business-as-better.
We encourage you to share your view and stories on how home office changed your life during the lockdown!
2 thoughts on “Negotiating from home”
Buen artículo! Gracias.. Renie Yvor Eipper
Your blog is a success, very complete. Ahhh when passion is there, everything is 🙂 Kaylyn Brendis Kimmy