Coronavirus: Working from home becomes the norm for many companies

By George Peter Boyd

In the midst of the Coronavirus outbreak in the UK, many companies have elected to instruct all employees that can do so to work from home. 

With the rising pandemic comes store closures and restrictions on public gatherings, but one issue is being heard but not seen – the impact on office work.

Hristo, a Data analyst from Leicester has, like all of his colleagues, been instructed to work from home as best he can, with a ban on entering the office unless it is at a pre-arranged time to retrieve equipment he may need. 

When asked about the effects this has, he stated: “In my line of work, it hasn’t made a lot of difference to my productivity. In terms of socialising and focusing it’s made it worse as I get distracted a lot.

“The worst part for me is not being able to separate work from the rest of my day, I feel like when the workday has ended, it hasn’t really ended.”

Offices across the UK began to close early last week over fears that close contact in the workplace may lead to a spike in infection rates. 

Following government guidelines, companies have not only asked their employees to work from home, but some have shut down altogether for the time being. 

“The workload is exactly the same as normal, but I’m expecting that if this was to continue for more months it will go down as it’ll be harder to get more clients in. 

“Resources with my company have been good, they sent a form of what we need and tried to supply us with the resources so that we can work effectively throughout this period.”

As the Coronavirus pandemic strengthens and a country-wide shutdown looms, it is expected that this “work from home” period will continue for some time.