The COVID-19 Pandemic has shaken humanity out of its complacency. People have started seriously looking into the way they lead their lives. Many have decided that jobs were dead ends, and have quit in the “Great Resignation” wave. This shows that people no longer want to spend their lives doing work that they don’t really like and rather search for other opportunities that offer better personal growth and a clearer future.
The new mindset has also influenced other areas in our work lives. The archaic 9-to-5 workweek is now doomed to go. The Pandemic-induced, remote-work, year-and-a-half experiment has proven to be an undisputed success. Corporations, with this new methodology, see record profits, their stocks hitting all-time highs. With employees working remotely for longer hours well into the night and even during weekends. Thus productivity increasing greatly.
Changed paradigm
Since remote work has proofed to be beneficial for both workers and the companies, it makes sense to fully adjust standard practices. People ask themselves: Why is it necessary to work from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., five days a week, in a sterile cubicle farm with harsh fluorescent lights, little access to window views, sitting in uncomfortable chairs, poor ventilation and either too hot or cold?
To get to your job, you’re obliged to support long, tedious commutes on decrepit crowded highways that may take long hours of door-to-door roundtrip. By the time you get home, you’re exhausted with little energy left. Some dinner, television and it’s time to go to sleep and prepare for tomorrow’s rat race.
Times have dramatically changed. Back in the old days, a worker was summed up by how many widgets were made during his shift. Being basically human robots. Workers would do the same task, hour after hour, day after day. It was pretty mind-numbingly brutal and boring. It’s not that different now, only that we’re tethered to a desk in an office setting rather than standing at a conveyor belt.
In the present, it’s only inertia holding us back from changing the 9-to-5, five days a week program. Its time to consider other options. Wouldn’t it be more humane to offer schedules that fit employees’ needs and wants?
In the past, we didn’t possess the technologies that easily connect people so that there was more of a need to herd everyone together in one place. With a variety of online video platforms, interactive and conversational software and the means to instantly send messages and communicate with people around the world, there is no longer a need to keep doing what we’ve been doing for so much time.
In the past century, it was rare to have two working parents. Now, it’s commonplace. Back then, one of the parents, usually the mother, would stay at home to tend to the children, help with school assignments and care for sick relatives. Now in 2021, both parents are working. This entails great pressure and stress to bring their children to school and pick them up. It’s a daily struggle to juggle the dual mandates of productivity and kids. There is a high degree of anxiety trying to make it all work out as a “working parent”.
Better sense
Instead of a rigid schedule, it would make more sense for companies to ask their employees what type of schedules would work best for them. Some may select to start the day later and stay a few extra hours, if needed. Others could request coming in early and leaving a little around 3 p.m. or 4 p.m. Maybe taking a couple of half days will help you recharge to do your best work. A four-day workweek could do wonders for a person’s mental health. It won’t take too much work from management, but would make the lives of workers significantly better.
The eight-hour work day isn’t eight hours. You need to add in the commuting time, following up with emails, texts and calls at night and weekends and always being on call thus—the long days at the office do not promote efficiency and effectiveness.
It’s been proven that people work best when they have control over their schedules. They are happier and can organize their days around their biorhythms, chores, home responsibilities and hobbies. It’s likely that they’ll actually spend more time working and their productivity will be enhanced.
The change in rigid schedule work dynamics will have to happen, sooner or later, one way or another. The Gen-Z and Millennial generations watched their parents burn out. They saw them laid off, passed over for promotions and leading lives of quiet desperation. They don’t want this for themselves.
Being stuck inside of an office for hours on end feels antiquated and barbaric to the younger workers. They want flexibility and control over their lives. Eventually the Baby Boomers, who have done the 9-to-5 grind for over 30 years and are so used to the toxicity of the grind and its negative consequences will have totally retired. Companies shouldn’t wait for the responsibilities to be passed to the up-and-coming future leaders. They should act now by initiating changes to the unfunctional old work structure.
The new reality
With the mass resignations taking place, it’s clear that workers are voting with their feet. If they feel unappreciated, they’ll walk out and find a new job. Smart, progressive and forward-thinking companies will scuttle the 9-to-5 schedules, in a bid to attract competitive job seekers.
The best and brightest will leave for a company that listens to them and makes their lives better and more well-rounded. The stodgy corporations will lose their star employees. As the smartest people leave to join rivals, the old-fashioned, resistant-to-change bureaucratic companies will fall by the wayside.
Remote Working in Costa Rica: Resonance
If you decided to change for the better, and Remote Working is for you, then Costa Rica is waiting with open arms. And in Costa Rica, there is a very special place that is like no other: Resonance.
Resonance’s ethos is simple. Less environmental waste, more personal growth. Resonance is uniting a conscious community of Digital Nomads, Entrepreneurs, Healers, Nature Lovers and Alternative Thinkers. All set on making this world a brighter place to live.
At Resonance, we aspire to live in harmony with the natural world as a reflection of our gratitude for life. With goals to live as an inspirational and integrative community. Committed to working, living and learning together. Here your dream of working online while enjoying a tropical paradise, embodying a lifestyle of conscious living and looking for similar minds and hearts to share with whom to share your dreams.
Take the decision that will change your life, find out more at: https://resonancecr.com/
