Tag: WFH

As the pandemic is moving to a later stage, you started to see headlines like “Tech giant A let xx thousands of employees WFH permanently” or “Company B decided to become an entire remote-working company”. I have not received any official questions on this topic, but I thought some of you may have slight wonders. So I would like to share why the management team still expects the Office team to come to the office when you can.

Regarding Productivity, we will fall into 1 among 3 groups while WFH:

1. You can’t manage your time well, or you’re affected by external factors (like your child is running around or your internet is down), which lead to lower productivity
2. You manage everything well and productivity is just the same as you’re working at the office
3. The line between work and personal life becomes blur than ever. You work whenever you can. While productivity is even higher, you will get burn-out soon.

Among the 3 scenarios, only the b) is good. Both a) and c) are not good. Unfortunately a) and c) will certainly happen, to someone or at some point in time.

Secondly, the team designed to work at the office is the team involves in a lot of communication and interaction. After 2 years, we realize that Zoom or any online platform can just cover the informative part of the communication. The human touch is irreplaceable. By seeing our colleagues’ faces, we understand each other a lot more than “cold & flat” chat text or video voice/image. That’s extremely important, especially if you’re working with a new team member who you have never meet in person before.

Not to mention when we have technical issues (which are unavoidable) and all the working mood just goes down uncontrollably after 20 times of “Can you hear me now?”.

That’s said, GTE does not oppose the benefits of working remotely. We have 30% of our current workforce WFH permanently, long before “WFH” became the buzzword. The number of WFH members will still increase in the upcoming time, both inside and outside VN. Financially, letting you all WFH will cut a very big portion of our cost structure. But at the end of the day, long-term work results are what matter.

Overall, the WFH option only works best when it’s applied selectively.

Hope to see you all at the office in one nearest day.