I was forced to telecommute because of COVID-19

The news of the coronavirus outbreak had been raging on since the first case in the Philippines was reported on January 2020, and I still had to go to work despite the increasing fear and risk of the virus. Headlines of the outbreak dominated the news almost every day, and the cases of COVID-19 gradually rose that the first case of local transmission (the first coronavirus case in the Philippines was a 38-year old Chinese woman who had travel history in Wuhan, the ground zero of the pandemic) was reported on March 2020. From that point, the Philippine government realized that the virus is spreading fast in the country which prompted them to place the entire island of Luzon under enhanced community quarantine starting March 17. Initially, the quarantine should last only until April 12 but upon the recommendation of the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases or IATF-EID, the quarantine was further extended until April 30. After that, the quarantine was then lifted in some areas but in Metro Manila and other "high-risk" areas, the enhanced community quarantine was further extended until May 15. Nevertheless, the government encouraged companies from different sectors to set up flexible working schemes for their employees, including work-from-home and lodging.

I work in a business process outsourcing (BPO) company where I was assigned to a fitness tracking account and my responsibility is to provide assistance to customers through email and chat. BPO companies in the Philippines are known for their "business as usual" attitude when it comes to work, so even if there is a natural disaster going on, such as typhoons and the like, employees are still expected to report to work on time. However, when the BPO industry realized that it could no longer sustain its "business as usual" outlook in the middle of a global pandemic, many companies were forced to provide flexible working options for their employees. In the case of my company, we were given two options: Work from home or work from our office but we would have to stay in a temporary in a designated lodging site. Many of us who were capable to work chose to work from home and some still chose to work from our office while several employees were forced to go on "no work, no pay" status due to their incapability (e.g. lack of transportation, no access to internet) to either work from home or in our office. I was lucky enough to have a good internet connection and a laptop at home, which allowed me to work from home.

Initially, telecommuting was a challenge as the tools that we had to use so that we could work did not function as expected. With that, some of us had to wait for almost a week before we could finally work. When the tools needed for work became fully functional, we wasted no time and started working immediately. As I started to grasp what working from home was like, I would usually compare what it's like to work from home and to work from the office. The biggest differences that I could think of are the routines and the communication. As for the latter, I would usually just approach my manager or my workmates if I needed help for a certain matter but it became more difficult when we had to work from home, as we lived far away from each other. With that, we used different methods of communicating with each other while doing work, such as sending messages in Facebook Messenger or doing video calls via Skype. In fact, when I had to undergo training for a new product that the account I worked for launched, we had to conduct it via Zoom. Important meetings and discussions were also held via Skype and Zoom. This made reaching out to other people in the company both easy and hard. It became easy since you can get your message across without having to stand up from your station and inform either a manager or an employee about something. What made it difficult though is the response time, since not all of them could respond to messages immediately. With that, I often reach out to my workmates and to my manager via Skype if I needed assistance. As for the routine, I would usually eat and use my phone during my one hour lunch break, but since I started to work from home, I would only eat before I start my shift and a few hours before it ends.

Another hurdle that I experienced while working from home was efficiency when it comes to doing my work. Since the internet I was using for work was not that fast compared to high-speed DSL internet connection available in the market, there were instances when the tools I use would get slow or worse, lose connection. This can be a huge inconvenience especially when I do chats with customers. But as the days passed, the latency occurred less frequently although it could still happen for at least one to three times a day. This could be solved by installing an internet connection that has higher upload and download speeds. However, based from what I heard from my workmates who use a wired internet connection, the latency that I would experience while working would still be there. Nevertheless, I think that this arrangement could go on until the risk posed by the virus decreases with the development of new drugs to treat the symptoms of COVID-19 and possibly a vaccine.

COVID-19 has transformed working that it actually forced companies and countries to experiment on telecommuting since the term was coined in the 1970s. Nevertheless, it is more likely that working from home would be a part of the so-called "New Normal" even when the pandemic ends. There are still arguments as to whether telecommuting allows people to be more productive at work. This is the perfect time for everyone to see if telecommuting would soon become the future of work.