Sri Lanka’s well-established and booming IT sector was compelled to re-evaluate its processes once the Covid-19 pandemic hit. This was not unusual; globally, many companies had to do the same. The ‘Work from Home’ culture had to be embraced, and online connectivity became key to idea generation and innovation. This led to the shut-down of physical office spaces that were sapping money from bottom lines.
Now, however, around the world, IT companies are rearing to get back to work in their traditional office spaces, although employees have stipulated that they want this to be within certain limits. Having had a taste of autonomy over one’s working hours, IT sector employees have discovered that a hybrid solution works best, where working from home saves time and money spent on traveling. Yet, at the same time, they appreciate the need to step into the work place to touch base, meet clients and consolidate. This, at the beginning, did not prove easy for many companies to facilitate. However, now the idea is gaining ground with the rise in popularity of shared work spaces.
Companies that previously housed large numbers of employees, now find that this number has reduced drastically. At any given time, only a fraction of employees works inside the office. Hiring co-working spaces has been ideal in assisting in this endeavor.
While many IT companies around the world threatened employees who showed reluctance to return to the office with pay cuts, this also simultaneously threatened to result in decreased efficiency. IT employees found the hours working from home to be more productive and wanted to visit the office mostly for a change of setting. In this backdrop, IT firms have begun to realize that a hybrid system works best for both employer and employee, with cost savings and optimum productivity.
This is where furnished co-working spaces have helped everyone concerned, by providing a ready-to-use office space that facilitates a certain number of people at any given time, and offers important amenities such as electricity, WIFI, conference rooms, meeting spaces and so on.
Still, especially for IT sector companies, the ‘work from home’ option is a risk. Data security, being paramount to these companies, the onus has been on ensuring absolute virtual safety alongside increased productivity. Knowing that employees working from home or in cafes can compromise on information security, companies were forced to think of ways to troubleshoot this danger. The hired workspace was then discovered as a means to enjoy the best of both worlds, provided that the management of these spaces have taken measures to ensure data safety for their clients. The more organized co-working spaces allow for better security and storing of data through optimized firewalls that can only be accessed via the right channels and procedures, facilitating client and company trust.
In Sri Lanka, shared work spaces have rapidly picked up since its inception, and many individuals and companies now opt to work in such places. The flexibility to choose and boosted morale and paved the way for more to be achieved.
