Companies struggling with work-from-home arrangements

Many Barbadian businesses are struggling to harness the benefits of remote working arrangements which many thought would emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Chairman of the Barbados Private Sector Association (BPSA) Trisha Tannis revealed that while some businesses continue to make work-from-home allowances, many, with the exception of senior-level and management positions, lack the adequate structure.

She said more mainstream arrangements would require a more robust framework that protects workers’ rights, promotes a healthy work-life balance, and accurately measures productivity.

“As you can appreciate, not all business models lend themselves to remote work. But those that do are certainly encouraged to do so, and from my observation, they continue to do so,” Tannis told Barbados TODAY.

“It then brings in a very interesting discussion in terms of the conditions of that remote work, the expectations, how we define productivity and how we carve out persons’ personal space just like we would if they were in the office physically. I think our regulations and policies need to speak to this,” she added.

Tannis also believes the successful transition to work-from-home regimes will depend heavily on a change of “consciousness” within the workplace. This includes the redefinition of concepts like productivity and punctuality and the roles that are eligible for remote work.

“There is still a mindset and a construct that says unless somebody is at work, they are not working. The whole issue of presenteeism goes through the window, where people are at work but they are not productive,” the BPSA boss said.

“I think this challenges that very traditional and outdated modality and it will force us as a society to articulate even the very definition of productive work and focus us more on output as opposed to the activities around work because, ultimately, work-from-home and remote working will demand that you define what output looks like in a way that we have not done before.”

Tannis said although there are “best-in-class” practices surrounding these arrangements, entities will be challenged to make determinations that suit their individual operation.

“We know that the conversation is starting, and even nationally, in terms of our labour laws, there is some attention being given to preventing persons from being exploited while they are at home, and so on,” she said.

“So we look forward to participating in those discussions, which I assume will involve the private sector at some point in time.”

Earlier this week, Prime Minister Mia Mottley expressed her intention to develop a world-class public service that embraces new, more flexible work arrangements. She said that next week, two Permanent Secretaries would be “dealing with two different things that are intended to streamline and bring about efficiency”.

“The flexitime, which we used [well] during COVID…we need now to use it in a non-shutdown environment so that everybody understands how it can work, and then we need lieu days. This notion that if you want a day off, you have to go tell somebody you are sick or take a vacation day is foolishness,” Mottley said at the time.

“In other organisations, you can take up to five lieu days. In other words, it’s my birthday, I want the day off, I’ll take it back and give it back to you another day so that you can make those flexible arrangements instead of making big adults feel as though they are children or criminals,” the PM added. kareemsmith@barbadostoday.bb