Working from home the new normal as the corona virus spreads well employees ever return to the office or has a new era dorm a wall will it take to adopt Remote Working long term this is inside story. Hello and welcome to the show im sam is a than pajamas a laptop and a comfortable couch at home thats todays Work Environment for millions of people around the world it was a far fetched dream until the pandemic made it a Reality Companies have been forced to embrace Remote Working to limit the spread of covert 19 but thats if the job doesnt require you to be there in person for those who can working from home could become permanent twitter for example is going to give that option to workers who wish to do so other firms are working out how to reopen offices while maintaining social distancing the way we work is being revision line stephen into the future post pandemic offices might look radically different than those of today. Working from home is not a one size fits all its mostly for knowledge workers with computer based in telecommunication jobs like presenters doctors aerospace and defense workers grocery clients cleaners and many other employees while they must shop for work not everyone finds doing their jobs from home a luxury though more than 90 percent of young tech fluent u. S. Workers of experience difficulties working remotely thats according to a new Workplace Survey by engine insights for Older Workers who lack internet skills and those who live in places with limited Broadband Access remote work is difficult if not impossible. Some politicians are considering integrating the right to work from home into law germanys labor minister who bertus il. Said last month hell port forward legislation later this year in an interview with german newspaper bill damn sontag explained that all employees should be able to request working from home where possible is also suggested some staff could switch to a home office for a day or 2 each week when companies wouldnt be forced to accommodate that the minister says the number of people working remotely is the estimated to have risen to 25 percent of the workforce during the crisis thats around 8000000 employees. I. Lets bring in the thoughts of our guest now joining us on the show we have from tokyo Mark Einstein hes an id strategy advisor in connecticut in the u. S. Hilary jacobs shes a psychotherapist and author of its not always depression and in rotterdam alley fenech hes a behavioral psychologist welcome to you all if i could start with alice so what do you think we do think well all employees ever return to the office says weve known it before coronavirus hit. Well i do think some employees will definitely want to go back to the office its not everyone who likes to work from home and so there will be people who just kind of miss the hustle and the bustle of the workplace and because it helps them to thrive it helps them to to be productive and a lot of them are actually facing you know the some issues around working at home affectively when theyre doing remote work so definitely theyll be people that will want to go back but what i also think has happened is that theres a lot of people now that have become accustomed. To working from home setups and theyve seen the benefits of not having to commute having much more productive and efficient meetings and also being able to manage a Work Life Balance so i think working from home is as you mentioned is part of the new norm and will only increase as we move forward into the future interesting hillary in the us the companies which have already said hey there employees can continue to work from home is it too early to put a number on it yet and drawing in visits what percentage of the workforce is going to remain distant. Yes i dont have a number just a speculation on how that will affect people. How do you think its going to affect people well the thing is that change triggers a wide variability of emotions that are what we feel is really based on a combination of our genetics are just position simple if we are more introverted and we like. And not leaving the house for more extroverted and we need to give us fuel and energy to try and also our Life Experiences affect what we feel so it may be that some people will experience a deep loss and a sadness that they that they cant go to work and other may feel that quite joyous about it because they get to stay home so that surely requires employers to start thinking about issues that perhaps they havent had to have thought about or at least havent had to of focused on so much in the past hillary. Well in terms of perhaps how it effects their weapons whether the the amount. And and the emotions that it brings up leads one to becoming more anxious for example charges pressed for example so if somebody really is not happy that they cant go to the office and socialize and moods and did triggers emotions such as sadness or even fear you know concern and worry and most of us i would say the majority of people dont know how to really work with emotions which are physical experiences and they block them what to do with these feelings that leads to anxiety and depression and were also seeing a major epidemic happening before this pandemic and anxiety and depression and now if its getting even worse and it demands that people really have skills to work with their feelings and to solve problems based on not only what theyre thinking but what theyre feeling inside well something our cultures are kind of phobic about going to but then i feel as is the missing piece for Mental Health interesting when we talk about you know the workplace of the future and continuing to work from home what sort of changes might be necessary for going to have well in some cases the bulk of workers continuing to work remotely is it just a matter of sort of continuing what were doing or do we need to make bigger changes to the icy infrastructure. So what i would say from my own companys perspective which is a small enterprise is that we are now asking ourselves do we even really need an office anymore at all because the rent that we are currently paying is about 20 percent of our op ex and weve transitioned to web meetings pretty seamlessly and now were even talking about Virtual Reality meetings and collaboration and things like that so i think one of the what were doing was talking about that mark about you know some people just need to be in the workplace and need to schmooze in the workplace they they need that kind of shall we call it security or confirmation of being in the workplace sure i do i think there certainly is you know a benefit to traditional Human Interaction but you know clearly by coping 1000 theres also a danger. I think that Virtual Reality and other Technology Solutions are increasingly. Very you know similar to reality and i think this is the trend and i think this is a trend that will see Going Forward does that mean though if were going to start incorporating sounds like covered 19 is going to accelerate the older my zation of the workplace and the incorporation of ai and v all right mark thats what were looking at absolutely i mean were going to be able to talk to Customer Service agents. You know visit hotel chains look at look at a new house that i might buy all of this is going to happen in b. R. In a safer and actually more convenient way absolutely ali thats going to have big impacts on what place behavior then right. Well absolutely i you know just kind of building on upon what both hillary and marc said on and terms of how this is going to affect behavior i think you know originally organizations when they thought about coming up with a working from home set ups they looked at this from a very technical perspective right so how do we adapt the technical infrastructure of the organization such as the i. T. Support how to come up with policies to make sure that working from home works well but i think kind of building upon what hilary said what a lot of people have forgotten or lets say a lot of managers have forgotten to do is to also think about how to build this psychological infrastructure and this is what i mean with this is more the psychological lets say the social and social psychological environments. In normally in the organization or in the workplace that actually affects peoples behaviors their well being and also their or their productivity so think of social cues emotional cues can textual cues nonverbal cues for example that help us to feel validated to help us us to feel acknowledged but also helps us to feel safe so this is you know i guess its not just the technical aspects of the functional aspects of redesigning the organization but its very much the psychological aspects that were actually missing when were working from home and i think this is what needs to be further designed into working from home setups if we want this to make it more effective in the long term so what what is the psychological infrastructure that needs to be for the developed in a nutshell than that alli. Well absolutely in this this environment is for example lets say lets get some practical examples here so how should leadership manage even think about how to build Psychological Safety in working from home in an organization you can do that because you have a sense of belonging you see each other and you can play up on these cues to help people feel productive and engaged but when youre working from home this becomes really difficult so how do you build this Psychological Safety in a Work Environment especially when a Work Environment is remote another thing that you can think of for example is policy design how can policy design make sure that employers our employees feel much more autonomy that they feel that they have the ability to make their own decisions for example when to do their work remember one thing when were working from home were also managing our life our family life and so we need to be able to do that on our own accord without having managers for example being on top of us and directing all micromanaging lets say how we do things so i think this is the elements of psychological design or psychological infrastructure that needs to be considered when working from home and theres different practices that we can do to facilitate this as well interesting hillary is sound saw as Like Companies are going to need to think of those companies at least that want the bulk of their workforce to continue to work remotely going to have to think of perhaps even a new sort of orientation. Policy based on new h. R. And professional policies and procedures. I think that would be wonderful and i think its much needed in our world anyway because there is not enough of an emphasis on on connecting on multiple levels not only intellectual levels but on very deeply authentic and emotional levels and thats part of the problem of why we have an epidemic of loneliness and not to mention anxiety and depression that we need to start to introduce education to people on emotions and connection because all humans are wired for connection were deeply social beings and all all of us men women have the same core emotions that come up without conscious control people dont realise that you cant control emotions you can only control what happens once they come up and that they have to be shared so that people can talk about their fears they can talk about their anxieties their can they can talk about. Their sadness and the last is that kobe has cost so im interested. When you hear people talk about you know acceleration of opposition intelligence and Virtual Reality in the workplace does it make you cringe will fail. I do feel fearful i guess i do i feel fearful for for people and in in so many ways not just a i but again the lack of community the loss of unities that people need so dearly and that we need tools to cope with the stress that comes with that and the emotions that come up that drive so much of our behavior and anxiety. That its a missing piece. If hes got that missing piece can any of the sort of software be developed to. Lack of physical connectivity. I think that it absolutely can and i think that its not really near where it needs to be but its on its way so for example there are. Software programs out there now were you can probe you can practice hiring or firing somebody in a are you can practice negotiating a business deal in a i so you can learn how to do that in a humane and empathetic way and thats what i can do today so just imagine what this is going to be like in 5 years so ai is going to be a big part of this picture Going Forward i believe but allie maybe we can hire and fire using ai what about all the sort of non verbal communication. Nonverbal cues that you pick up in the workplace the as a behavioral specialist you worry that the workplace of the future will be deprived of that kind of information and connectivity. Well i guess you know as Technology Advances one thing were seeing now that for it with zoom and skype and all the other lets say conferencing tools that we have to our disposal its not really good to kind of taste the air as they say right you want to pick up this these cues that are very important for us to to further understand how to communicate with each other remember one thing 93 percent of our communication is nonverbal so we rely on a lot heavily on social cues to to understand whats whats happening in an environment take for example countries like. Like japan which is a high context environment and very socially driven they need a lot they have they communicate in of a high contextual way so they use very little words but a lot of expressions but also they use the environment to help communicate the message this is going to be very important to further facilitate if we want to do this online but i have to also say that i dont think the virtual environment will replace all social contact at all think of high stakes deals. Mergers and acquisitions for example where you actually want to see each other face to face because we build trust and see each other face to face and i dont think Technology Facilitates it just yet to have that same kind of feeling that we would normally have in the virtual environments so i think yes social cues are so important for us to help facilitate our engagement but i dont think the technology exists as yet and maybe in the future maybe we will not might see more men this reality or Virtual Reality play a major role in that as it helps us to create more richness in the communication and will help to facilitate also picking up these nonverbal cues or maybe even emotional cues lets say that were now lacking with the Current Technology talk of technology if we go back to mont for a 2nd pass we should. Before we get too ahead of ourselves ask the question of whether i mean the i think the infrastructure ultimately differs from country to Country Place to Place Company to company right and whether you know that is going to be a big determining factor of how far you can go in completely. Making your workforce connect remotely were going to have a right to be 2 or 3 or 4 peer systems globally right so if if we all if all of us all the sudden all over the world start working at home immediately there is something that we call the Digital Divide in that you know that you know some of us have fiber optic access some of us in japan and korea and other places even have 5 g. Now. And many people dont and so this clearly becomes more important and i think that this will be more important for governments and and so i wanted to really understand is a part of National Policy so i do believe that you are correct in that this could be a potential issue might the Digital Divide hillary manifest itself in other ways not simply between countries in terms of i think infrastructure but between different types of people in the workplace those who are lets say i think competent and not so i proficient differences between people in terms of generational and and age demographics. It seems to me that it would the capacity to be adept on the internet and technologically is an advantage for those people who have better access and more skills and again and as an emotion educator i could see it creating shame and people that cant compete and that dont have the skills and anger thats its an injustice thats not fair and people have to be able to manage those emotions and constructive ways interesting what about things like Group Dynamics how one reads the sentiment of the majority in the office is all im going to change with people increasingly work from from home. Well i think you know as i mentioned before we need to have we need to understand the social aspects of work and specially when we get together and Team Dynamics play a huge role on lets say task performance and i Job Performance when were now working from home we can still work in a collaborative manner thanks to the virtual environment that were currently using now to facilitate lets say discussions brainstorming sessions innovation for example you know a lot of questions have been around can we still innovate because this is a group process when we do this online the good thing is we can and as we as we come much more equipped and were able to master our Digital Tools much more effectively and theres more tools out there to help us do this we can still be more innovative we can still work more collaboratively together and we can then kind of what have to replace lets say the physical dynamics that we have and start to build up some kind of virtual dynamics as it may so that we can still feel connected because you know being connected is so important for us as human beings but also it also helps us to feel motivated it gives us a sense of belonging a sense of security but its definitely something that i think we can still facilitate and as i mentioned before the as you know the Technology Start to further develop and advanced well see that collaboration and and the dynamics that we can get out of that online will help us to facilitate still kind of a virtual lets say that im it environment mom allie talked about the need of some people to be in the office to feel the house of them bustle to be productive from your experience what does working remotely all the more that you allow people to work. Remotely and its a time of their choice what does that do to the productivity of. So weve seen nothing but massive increases in productivity i mean i live in tokyo where many people are unfortunate way to travel 90 minutes to the office and 90 minutes back shoulder to shoulder to someone in a in a very very compact subway train this is all out the window now and i think the industry is waking up and realizing that those 3 hours every day could be put to much much better use and so were seeing massive interest in telecommuting solutions but also Virtual Reality solutions mixed reality solutions. Digital transformation virtual transformation i mean this is definitely the future what we thought would take 2 years has now taken 2 months amazing hillary maybe we should also talk about the situations in which some offices some factories theyll need to bring people back to work physically from the workplace but its still going to be likely to be a diff a slightly different workplace perhaps with more distance between employees maybe hot desking is out maybe theyll even be alternating shift patterns alternating work days its going to be some psychological impact from that loss of proximity right. I think so and tailing on whats just been said even on whether youre having decreased proximity at work or using Video Technology what is going to be lost is the kind of casual conversation the personal stuff that happens at work hows the family hows your mothers illness these things that create safety and come rotter e and that make us feel better as human beings and then were able to be more productive then and happier human beings and so i think you know even if we go into the lack of touch touch is such an important part of Human Interaction and soothing each other and connecting to each other that theres a great loss thats going to happen and again some people sorry go ahead of ours is going to say some people makes variance a great relief you know those who the huggers of the world and the non huggers you can even you know just like a lot of space so what i say for one person may be the opposite for another person and its all ok its all within normal limits go ahead and i think this is this been a really great discussion lets thank all of our guests for their insight theyve added to this show mark hillary and allie and thank you for watching you can see the show again any time by visiting our website aljazeera dot com for further discussion head over to our Facebook Page thats facebook dot com forward slash a. J. Inside story you can also join the conversation on twitter ill handle there is a j. Inside story from me sammy zevalin and the whole here and now thanks for joining us. Its the u. K. s biggest hospital with the eventual capacity for 4000 covered 19 patients built inside a London Conference Center it took just 9 days to construct with the help of Army Engineers dramatically expanding the Critical Care bed count and other similar sites on the way the actual london numbers could be much higher than advertised researches say that huge gaps in Testing Capacity that the government is now trying to close extrapolate that across the country and the spread of corona virus appears far wider than anyone saw. Political ideals of grassroots activists and call east speech to its lines takes you inside the battle for the democratic party. And asks if its base is too polarized to take home the white house theres a generational divide thats a real you might ironically see the outsider middle of the most corrupt incumbent president ever pulled langs americas divided democrats on out is there. A story of lost family and freedom calling for my living years old you were at school we heard the sounds of large explosions. And the hardships faced in captivity they came for me i mean that night they told me to leave my son i said how can i face him i saw so much pain in the eyes of the other female prisoners in the uprising. On aljazeera. Hello im daryn jordan in doha with the top stories here on aljazeera a whistleblower has told the u. S. Congress that the nation could be facing its darkest winter and modern history on this urgent action is taken to deal with a coronavirus pandemic dr rick bright was the head of the Agency Responsible for developing a vaccine he was demoted last month bright says he was sacked for raising concerns over the governments response to the outbreak have been more than 85000 coronavirus fellated deaths in the United States a White House Correspondent kimberly hulk it has more on brights testimony