And ... if this pandemic lasts for many months

Dear Adrian
Thanks for sharing this opinion with us

I have heard and read interviews from CEOs of service companies about the productivity of employees working at home.

What they say, without exception, that there was an increase in productivity

Hi Luis,

I have also read such in an interview but from my experience in all the projects on which I have been involved and the teams were spread all over the world things did not go very well. When the team members (or at least some of them) got into the same office the work was done much faster.

It would be interesting to see statistics about this and not just interviews. Also I know some projects got suspended, cancelled or the scope reduced so maybe what's left is being done in a more efficient way.

I also know some people stressed as they can't concentrate while working from home. Also the fact that we are confined at home makes things worse in my opinion. If it was just working from home and being able to move unrestricted things might have been better.

Hi Daire,

In my opinion remote work is in most cases less efficient than office work. There are many reasons for this but I don't think they have to do with the ability of the project team members to self-manage.

For starters many people can't concentrate on their work when they are at home. Home is usually the place where you rest and recover after work and being focused in such an environment is very hard for many people. There are also a lot of distractions at home.

When you are at the office you are more focused on the work but also communication with your team mates and sometimes even with your stakeholders is much more efficient and a lot of work is done much faster.

As PMs are concerned most of them are not bosses have no formal authority over the project team members and many of them are less mature than them. Some PMs are fresh graduates in their mid 20s working with senior SMEs in their40, 50s, 60s with much more working experience and also at a much higher pay.

So I would not blame the lack of employee control the reason that remote work is less efficient, most PMs are not people managers and are not even responsible for controlling the project team members.

Less efficient communication and difficulty on concentrating on work, are in my opinion the main reasons remote work is less efficient.

Dear Alexandre
Thanks for sharing your opinion

I am convinced that email can be included in the tools of the past

Nowadays more platforms are used that have integrated video

As mentioned by Daire Companies are increasingly using platforms (in the most different versions: IaaS, PaaS, SaaS). They can track people who are working at home and hold online meetings with video

Since I heard about georeferencing, apps that detect the temperature of people and other people with whom they interacted, semantic web, virtual assistants (AI) I will not be surprised that companies can know what people who are working at home do

Dear Daire
Thanks for sharing this opinion with us

We are experiencing a real revolution in the world of white collars.
Older people who do not adapt to this new world will be joining the queues to receive unemployment benefits
Even working methods will change radically

Dear Luis,

I believe this is a great opportunity to reshape the work environment, remove a lot of the offices politics that exists in all organisations to make the work/life balance a reality.

Work should be made a place of a constructive forum as apposed to an open and in some case unstructured environment that is not being properly managed for everybody's interest as apposed to those in the know.

Daire