Is remote work life the ‘new revolution’? See what Vaughan businesses say

Managers see surge in the IT and e-commerce business

Yorkregion.com
May 25, 2020
Dina Al-Shibeeb

Despite COVID-19’s disastrous and sweeping fallout, there is an increased realization it could lead to a lifestyle that’s more environmentally friendly.

“I think that more and more people will be working from home because a lot of companies are realizing that, you know what, it actually works,” said Connie Tatone-Haces, director of The Hub in Vaughan.

Tatone-Haces says some employees who live on the “outskirts of the city will not have the need to come” on a daily basis, decreasing the number of cars driven.

“It's just better for the environment; as we have seen, pollution has gone down in many places in the world,” she said. “It's something that's really going to be changing and it's going to be a new revolution.”

While working from home can give a great sense of flexibility and freedom, it is also proving insufficient when it comes to human interaction.

Tatone-Haces, a mother of three, is seeing this new “phenomenon” where people feel “isolated” and “lonely” and in need to “go somewhere” and to have face-to-face interaction.

What she expects to see is an increased demand for a “mixture” between office and remote work life, a trend she welcomes since The Hub offers about 30 different office spaces and a capacity for about 60 for co-working space.

Before the pandemic, Tatone-Haces recalls The Hub had rented out 90 per cent of its office space.

Michael Contento, founder and CEO of the Vaughan-based My Blue Umbrella, wanted to make his company the “first true Canadian or Toronto company to have a four-day work week,” where one day can be used to work from home.

What Contento has discovered is that the people who were looking forward to working from home, are, he says, “the first ones to say right now: ‘I hate working from home.’”

My Blue Umbrella, which specializes in managed information technology services, employees about 40 people and generates more than $12 million in annual revenue.

“I think those team members that welcome a WFH (working from home) need to be aware of what they ask for,” he said. “We are getting much smarter with machine learning and A.I. (artificial intelligence) that will help companies truly understand granular aspects of their outcomes and data overall.”

Working from home is expected to require software that monitors productivity -- which is already happening at The Hub.

Working from home isn’t always a good option for the various industries that make up the whole economy. Retail, generally speaking, would be adversely affected by employees working from home, Contento argues, saying he is more likely to got to Starbucks or out to lunch on days he drives to work.

Like Tatone-Haces, Contento, expects a boom in his own field.

In the past 15 years, IT has traditionally been placed in the “cost category for most companies with no representation at the leadership table,” he said. However, he is expecting a transformation that will see IT return to “revenue generating” and “part of the strategic leadership team making day-to-day decisions.”

“This will be for both SMB (small, medium business) and corporate environments,” he added.

Inching toward a remote work environment was already happening before the pandemic.

Canada Statistics show the number of employees working from home in Canada increased from 1.4 million in 2000 to 1.7 million in 2008, up from 10 to 11 per cent of the working population. According to a survey by Regus Canada in 2017, 39 per cent of the respondents said they worked mostly from home and 11 per cent exclusively from home.

Contento, a father of three, says he is a “little torn” about the potential of working from home being the “new norm,” but doesn’t see a “complete WFH environment” in the future.

But he “strongly believes” immediate changes will see companies “support and promote a better personal health program and award those that are working toward a healthy lifestyle.

“The office environments will be forced to be cleaner than usual and support those that have less clean environments/habits get changed immediately," he said.