Should We Work from Home and Keep on Having Flexible Working Hours Even After the Pandemic?

The statistic shows that women had a more difficult time with work from home schedules than men did. Yet women are more likely to choose to work from home than men.

Now that the pandemic is subsiding schools and offices are re-opening and things are moving from online to offline. But children and adults equally have got a little too used to the work-from-home, everything online nature of things. So, should we continue to have a work-from-home arrangement even after the pandemic is over?

The statistic shows that women had a more difficult time with work from home schedules than men did. Because the household chores and childcare were not evenly distributed between the spouses and came solely on the woman. Pandemic brought all the kid’s schooling home. And mothers needed to manage the kids’ online classes and class assignments and homework and also make sure that they study. This is along with the housework and their office work. This obviously did tire many mothers out. Also, it was not easy to concentrate on work when you are in the middle of the chaos, with your child running around and house chores left to do.

Men easily retrieved into the corners of the house or in a closed room to take their meetings and do their work. It was more likely for a child to appear in a mother’s zoom meeting than in their father’s meeting. And hence a large number of men admitted that they had considerably an easy time with the work-from-home facility.

However, even when women were the ones having a more difficult time with the work from home facility, women are more likely to opt to continue having work from home facilities even after the pandemic. Because women have more to do. And the flexible working hours that come with work-from-home is a blessing for them. They get to do many things related to the house and the kids along with their work.

In a survey done in New York, Men wanted to return to work in order to be seen by their senior officers, to get more recognition, whereas women missed their socialisation at work and wanted to return to offices to see more faces and to hang out with their friends from work. Because women were tied up with housework and office work altogether for the past two years and hence had little to no time to just relax and enjoy with a friend.

The end of the pandemic will bring back the socialisation part, hopefully. As schools reopen mothers will have one duty less from their usual list of work – that is homeschooling the child. Even though mothers will still be the ones who make sure their child is studying properly and doing their homework, at least she will not have to take photos of homework and sent them to the teacher every day.

The best idea in the coming years would be to have the option to choose if you want to come to the office or work from home. Those who want to go to the office to work can go and those who want some more flexible arrangement can work from home. Although this applies only to some selected number of industries in which online work is possible, a more flexible working system would be a blessing to the women and many may choose to work from home even after the pandemic.  

-Staff Reporter