Reimagining the Workplace: Impact on the Youth

Remote working has swiftly assimilated itself into the work culture due to the Covid-19 outbreak which required agility among the employees. The ‘unprecedented’ situation has undeniably forced businesses to transform the way they do things creatively. It also creates an opportunity for businesses to consider remote working as a new norm which brought up a question; “Do we actually need the office?”. Removing the office will save the companies some overhead costs but will it benefit the companies holistically? Surprisingly, despite being fluent with technologies, approximately 90% of US young workers are struggling to work from home.

1. Distruption to team building

While remote working has impacted people differently, the youth has become one of the most vulnerable groups. Not only they must keep themselves relevant in confronting a rapid pace of automation technologies that continuously transforming the nature of work, but the remote working environment has also made the transition from school to the workplace severe. The physical office environment allows the youth to practice networking skills but forming work relationships has been found difficult virtually. Even the current employees who have been working together for years have found themselves detached from their co-workers, not to mention the new joiners who are mainly the youth.

2. Lack of informal training’s effectiveness

The virtual working environment has also reduced the effectiveness of informal training which can be gained through mentorship. Having a supervisor’s physical presence encourages the youth to engage better which results in greater productivity. Remote working has forced the youth to act independently in adjusting themselves to the new environment with fear of interrupting the mentor. While companies prefer graduates who can work without direct supervision, the line between directing and coaching, and sometimes delegating is always confusing to the managers. Lacking enough support will hinder youth development and consequently, the failure of leveraging the youth’s potential becomes inevitable.

3. Induces professional inequality

Besides that, the pandemic has magnified the professional inequality where the professional workers are less affected by the transition as most of them are financially stable while the new joiners especially the youth who come from poor backgrounds are at the disadvantage. They have no suitable facilities such as a proper working space, stable internet line and good electronic device which are highly needed to work virtually. Hence, their productivity will be affected and causes their performance to be reflected negatively when in fact, if given the right conditions, they will probably perform well.

4. Declining in the youth mental health

In order to meet the supervisors’ expectations, the youth work long hours to understand and finish the tasks despite many challenges that are mentioned above. Remote working has caused them to struggle alone and jeopardized their mental health. While everyone’s mental health is generally affected whether the employees are boomers or gen z, it does not mean the youth’s mental health can be neglected just because they do not have children to look after. The managers should address the mental health issue accordingly to maintain the productivity of employees. It is important for managers to exercise empathy towards their employees to retain the talent in the company for post-Covid-19.

So, back to our main question, it does appear the office is needed because the cost (decrease in productivity) is bigger than the benefits. However, this is based on the youth perspective who just joined the workforce. Some big tech companies such as Facebook expect half of the employees to work remotely permanently, showing the success of transitioning the workers to the virtual office (or else they will not risk it). It is possible for the companies to transform to virtual offices or perhaps, hybrid offices, however, it also requires some changes in the work culture which are the work-life balance, normalizing mental health issues, providing benefits such as internet and computer allowance, and many more. The pandemic has indeed prompted us to reimagine the possibilities.