Formal remote work policy needed

A University of the West Indies (UWI), Cave Hill Professor is proposing that a national remote work policy be implemented for the employees who are working from home.

Professor Dwayne Devonish, Professor of Management and Organisational Behaviour at the Sagicor Cave Hill School of Business and Management, made the comments on Wednesday as he delivered the inaugural Professorial Lecture hosted by the School of Graduate Studies at the Cave Hill Campus.

The title for his presentation was The National Workplace Wellness Policy for Barbados: Building Well Individuals, Well Workplaces and Well Societies.

Outlining the various components of the new policy, which was developed between 2016 and 2019, Devonish said it contained nine dimensions, ranging from physical wellness, psychological/mental wellness, environmental wellness, social wellness, intellectual wellness, occupational wellness, spiritual wellness, cultural wellness and financial wellness.

Each dimension comes with a set of objectives to be fulfilled, and the policy outlines a four-step approach to ensure its successful implementation, as well as an outline of a governance structure.

Insisting that environmental wellness was critical to any health and wellness programme, Devonish explained that the state of the work environment could affect all aspects of one’s health and wellness.

“Since this shifting to a remote working context, does it absolve the employer from any responsibility of taking care of that worker now in a new environment? No. The employer and the individual have a shared responsibility even within a physical remote work environment. There is that responsibility that has to be shared,” Devonish stressed.

“What this environmental wellness dimension does also is to recognise that we have to be preventative in how we set up our physical environmental spaces. It does not matter if it is at the workplace or in a remote context,” he added.

“Something as simple as having access to a laptop, should a worker use his or her laptop, rely on their electricity, their WiFi connectivity? What happens if those things fail, where is the employers’ contribution there? I think a conversation has to be had. It is an uncomfortable conversation, perhaps from the vantage point of the employer, to recognise that his or her tentacles go beyond a physical workplace into other types of environments. It is a serious conversation that needs to be had,” he suggested.

Pointing out that some workers did not have safe spaces at home and this would affect their environmental wellness, Devonish said “If you are asking or requiring your workers to work from home then it comes with responsibilities – the responsibility of the employer to intervene to ensure that home is a safe space, with the same energy, same commitment as if that person was working within the brick and mortar structure of the organisation itself.”

He said perhaps the time had come for there to be a “national remote work policy” to be implemented, as he renewed his call for organisations across the island to give serious consideration to putting formal remote work policies in place.

“I am seeing a national remote work policy in place which then allows organisations to kind of adapt that remote work policy to fit their given context, because the remote work policy for the University of the West Indies is going to look different from a remote work policy for a Massy Supermarket or any other organisation for example.

“But starting it at that national level I think is important and it would definitely be a wonderful addition to the national workplace wellness policy,” he explained.

Devonish recalled that the pandemic forced many companies into allowing workers to operate remotely and he said what currently exists is “a poor representation of remote work”.

“Really we were under emergency orders when we were foisted into remote work. So I imagine that in the short-term employers, managers and employees and trade unions work together, that whole of country approach, in terms of having healthier and more sustainable remote work polices,” he said.

Devonish informed his audience that the National Workplace Wellness Policy addressed a range of issues including workplace toxicity, regulations and restrictive policies that stymie creativity, appreciation of other cultures, balancing income and expenses and debt management, which he said affected the various dimensions of wellness.

He gave the assurance that the implementation and operation of the national wellness policy, which is available on the Healthy Caribbean Coalition (HCC) website, will be monitored and evaluated.

A procedural manual and guidebook for the policy is to be developed to provide specific guidance for its establishment, its objectives and mandates. A national awareness campaign is also to be rolled out in coming weeks.
marlonmadden@barbadostoday.bb