We squander your thoughts were when you saw that document the story we listen to after world war saying youll be in to go build United States of you but we will not be with you we meet with global news makers and talk about the stories that matter on the ground 0. With cities in lockdown because of the Global Pandemic working from home has become the new normal for many so what are the benefits and challenges and will this oh minutely change the way we work this is inside story. Hello welcome to the program im burnitz. The coronavirus pandemic has fundamentally changed the way we live in just the last few months governments trying to hold the spread of the disease have imposed strict lock downs that means hundreds of millions of people are now working from home away from the office Video Conferencing services for example have experienced a huge boom but working remotely has created immense challenges for businesses and employees alike will bring in our guest in a moment 1st this report from Alexia Obrien its the same message across the world you must work from home if you can do it full smoothly houston where possible we should continue to work from home. 2nd i do know what it is that i mean in order for society to work we asked you to work from home. From Small Companies to global bodies like the United Nations home is now the office as governments urge people to avoid commuting and going into crowded spaces take Companies Including zoom and microsoft have reported a huge spike in demand for their Video Conferencing software while its convenient Remote Working has its challenges kind of my work are going to go ok its blowing the divide between home and Office Internet firm nord v. P. N. Found people are working up to 3 hours more a day than before and with many schools shut as well parents have the extra stress of looking after their children while conducting business so many people are in the house. And the same time people are preoccupied working and focusing on that as well as. Analysts are urging companies to be more flexible and we do anticipate during this period as Companies Invest in the infrastructure the software the policies around work from home that in the future there may be a larger swath of jobs that are able to work from home as and porters and employees demand it with countries extending lockdowns to stop the spread of covert 19 many people are unlikely to return to their Traditional Office anytime soon and the pandemic may forever change the way we work and conduct business and excel brian inside story. Lets introduce our panel in hong kong we have mabel chang shes a counselor and Research Officer at the university of hong kong in rotterdam in the netherlands ali thetic a professor of organizational behavior at Holt InternationalBusiness School in woodbridge virginia in the United States avis jones to weaver a career reinvention strategist welcome to your wall and one question for all of you know start with you mabel how of you had to adapt the way you work because of the restrictions imposed by coronavirus well actually its been quite hard but we have figure out ways to cope with this situation. As a psychologist i switch my practice to online so. My company developed on a platform for me to see my patients that spend difficult because a lot of kids or sometime later dont know much about how they used at knology and on on the other hand for my research job were able to work from home but not as efficient as the new person and allie what have you had to do to adapt to the new way of working. I have to say that the patient has being fairly easy you know being a professor or a university we you know disseminate knowledge and only that happens in the classroom but now its happening online and i think oh for a lot of universities that has to make the switch to go from offline to online and so far its been very exciting and for me at least being the its made me see that there is a i guess a big audience you can speak to a weapon are so the transition has being i would say a very exciting one but it has been challenging a little bit too to be able to deliver the same message with the same impact in the same way so but overall its been very positive posts if you ever says to avis as well what do you have to do have you learned anything from it well you know im in relatively speaking a fortunate position because not from your part of my business on the very beginning has been online. It has always been a strategy of my business was sure that i had an online aspect and so i am work for others who are sort of delving into the play for for the 1st time now however i found in hans not the client who are having to make the transition right now and they are experiencing problems with the city theyre experiencing problems with focus they are experiencing problems with that how do you manage people remotely i mean is a very different thing than if youre right not all of them dont want this so for those who are just now beginning to make this transition from how they do business and how they. Can be a rather significant transition so it is what rules do we set for ourselves what ground rules do we now have to set when working from home. For me i think its very important that we teach my clients to specifically delineate where you want to work and that will be your work day like for example in an office right now and what i find is that for people who are just making the transition they might be in front of the you know t. V. You know im out they might be in there and they might be here and there and the problem with that is that it doesnt really train your brain and really engaged in work when in the same way that if youre really a one that is that it also creates a safe where you are able to really cut it off i mean if you are bringing your laptop in then you where do you get a place to eat and so its really about being able to live he a. Physical they that you dedicate your working hours there are so that you can make a better transition and delineation between your professional obligations and still your personal responsibility enjoy it with your family and work and so all of us what boundaries would you say people should should set how do you separate work and family time and how best to manage all of that. Well i like what eva said physical boundaries are absolutely important and the reason behind this is because work and private life can easily blur where you start to work from home and a lot of us have not learnt yet or develop effective habits of how to work from home i think id like to add here that not just physical boundaries but i also think we have to have mental boundaries to help us to to make this you know the clear cut between work and private life in the work space so what do i mean with this physical boundaries means serious psychological boundaries are our mental boundaries are those that we can kind of you know our routines and daily scheduling or our approaches and habits these are really important because we have to be mindful of the fact that not everyone has a physical space to go and work i for example i do i actually dress up as you can see right now i do this because i want to create also mental boundaries so when i finish my work i finish at 6 oclock or 7 and i physically or kind of mentally also leave and go back into my private life so more than what i would do when im working in the office when im working at home i ensure that i really live up to my schedule so i have my morning routine as my afternoon routines and when i have a hard stop i really stuck with work and i actually get changed to put on other clothes so that i dont need a move away from the physical environment but i also move away from the mental environment and the reason for this is that we have different identities that dad but also the lets say the manager and i think we also mentally have to switch identities to be able to make this transition work effectively mabel in home calm we have you have People Living in tiny apartments often mum and dad grandfather and children how do your how do you tell people in hong kong to manage working from home in such very challenging environments. To be honest basic cause this has i mean physical space has been a great challenge for us i think thats one of the reason why its been hard for us to cope with working from home and many people actually looking forward to going back to the office because the house is packed and people like the school space i know a lot of parents they have to work in the night because during the day time to have to take care of their kids and to do their kids dont have school right now and they spend a lot of time holes wearing. Their kids so its been hard for us to set such boundary avis before a lot of us were forced to work from home people like the idea of it but it doesnt always work does it one of the limitations for productive activity for companies when people are all working from home and not physically in touch with each other. Right i mean ideally you know as you mentioned for many years people have been pushing for more flexible not only Work Schedules but being able to have that ability to work from home in the area and i do think that it is good option for some people for some companies and something employees but in this particular scenario where everyone has and has to make the abrupt shift it has become more difficult for a sub manager to really be may think that the environment that youre free to create when everyone is physically in front of them yes they can have Conference Video meetings and all of that but its still not the same sort of. Emotional maybe even and professional conduct that you have to be seeing them safe to say but on the other end of the spectrum there are some folks who are now overwhelmed and is never right and theres a lot there always a 2nd call of their manager now you know texting them an email and then want to do you know a Video Conference at 9 pm et cetera you know between the regular office hours and so on the one end of the spectrum there are some there have been difficulties that maintaining levels of productivity and then there are some who i believe are taking advantage of this relation and in fact have employees that are at their beck and call 24 hours a day 7 days a week olesen most creativity and innovation done when people together banging bouncing ideas off each other come we compensate for the old stuff thats yeah you know there is actually if we look back in history we actually see that there is when people were put into solitary also because of viruses and other issues that were happening that some people really rise to the challenge and so what happens is that there is actually a lot of power in solitude our ability to be creative in a lot of creative works where actually created by people when they were put. Into isolation were had to self isolate because of external circumstances so its not unusual to see a heightened level of creativity happen when people are kind of isolator self isolating them from home and the reason behind this is because in our day to day business when we were in the business of our work we are kind of in a in an automatic state of mind our habits drive a lot of our behaviors more than 80 percent so we dont really get to tap into that part of the mind that is the most creative part of that and so this is the beautiful thing about now and this is another way of looking at being self isolated a lot of people be now writing theyll be trying trying out new hobbies or actually picking up old hobbies and theyll find that theyre actually pretty good at that so i would say that there is a you know theres other sides of the spectrum of working from home is that it does heighten the abilities creative abilities of individuals really early because you wouldnt have things created like the i phone wouldnt have been done by an individual obit needed collaboration it needed people to Work Together didnt it as one innovation it does look yes look at that and i have to say this 2 ends of the spectrum innovation never happens alone right so innovation does happen through collaboration and the example that i just gave here was much more of our ability to actually heighten our own individual behaviors but youre completely right i mean in terms of when it comes to like Product Development a new idea or generation you know more is better than want especially when we can bounce off and leverage different perspectives and again from an internal like an individual perspective theres an opportunity to once we do are freed from the fear and uncertainty of working from home we can absolutely start to embrace this solitude and therefore also be more creative but at the same time the collaboration is can still work because we have technology we have to vices that help us to facilitate. Collaboration across the board mabel what are the Biggest Mental Health challenges for people working from home youve either got people lonely and isolated or youve got people trying to cope with kids and work at the same. What do you how do you how people live. So on one hand i see people have more time to connect with each other i see love online as to place going on and some people do have more time to rest and come to a charter but on the other hand in hong kong here as i mentioned we have the housing problem so i restamp last up and cry or worry about some late dynamic people tend to be annoyed by their family members parents grandparents as we mentioned with the limited space they tend to feel a little stressed because they dont have their own room to study and parents were unable to work at home so that would be the downside of working from home. Avis weve seen a lot of people having to turn to the gig economy for work out as more people lose their jobs and join the unemployment lines will more people be tempted to join the gig economy and will more people have to work from home because theres no option of will they that will be more vulnerable to working in the gig economy how do you help people whine about exactly. This moment we knew we arent going to step in and to where the labor demands are and so yes for some people that we meet in spring that is economy which can take place in several several levels doesnt just mean for example you know looking at other sort of you know being someone who delivers groceries for example people homes they could be if you are a professional skill these can go online to a you know an Online Outlet that provides lives or services this is it we like that one or do you like the services or a you know her good thing that she do it also it could be a great place for innovation i mean i also work with austin or people who are using this moment even people who themselves have been laid off or one of their family has been laid off when theyve had a sizable that theyve done for many years and now they want to ramp it up for example one of my clients is a Fashion Designer but right now shes using very beautiful very very you know full fabric. That hes part of this is still pretty mad hes had this whole new thing that hes doing to drive revenue into her so this is the home of innovation and most of the critically for the moment at that pace and the challenge is to figure out where your fields are talent. Your interest my interest where the needs are today and shift in that direction. But avis own people some of the most vulnerable in this particular ethnic minorities as well who may have before. To the gig economy to working from home the more vulnerable of it all from exploitation process less protection in those jobs oh absolutely absolutely less protection those. You dont have in the not for example you dont have access to Health Care Coverage there are definitely there are no guarantees there in many ways but the bottom line is theres no guarantees in the regular Employment Situation either i mean in that situation you know the regular Employment Situation in america your life is at the whim of a Balance Sheet and thats why were having millions of people being left you know being let go in this nation week after week after week and so there unfortunately is no they 100 percent i believe that the idea though is that in this moment 5 there will have to be shifts into how you are able to bring income into your family for some people d that might mean taking for example their real job that are hiring but they might be very different than what you built that is or you might need to look at other ways of getting into the online economy starting or growing your business intersect with a need that going on right now being at the moment it needs to be one that met with creativity and i swear opportunity to be the biggest challenge that were thing in terms of the increased death rate in america id like to Community Color it are separate the whole lot of other disadvantages that have impacted that Community Like environmental racism that is left of things like increased prevalence of asthma for example within the black community and we know that is one of those things that it increases your mentality great so there are so many issues that underlie this but the bit of optimism that i want to give people is less think about what do you have the option if you do have that act that you have and less figure out where that intersects with the needs that do still exist in this. You know how you can fill that need and still be able to bring home on some level and thats. Ali we were told 2025 years ago at the dawn of the internet by now wed all be working from home but it took this pandemic to give that idea a boost why did it never really take off and so will it enjoy when we can try and return back to normal whenever that time might be i think 1st of all the way back to normal is almost in a sense its like in denial of whats happening today and we can see this already happening with the transition with whats happening with people now working more from home to developing new habits of how to work for more more effectively but not eve