Before the pandemic, employees were already clamoring for flexible working hours and the opportunity to work from home. I can still remember working with the human resource department to formulate a policy that will be presented to our leadership team. It was indeed a tedious task to determine who was qualified to avail the benefit and make the initiative a good business case that shows cost savings. Before work from home became a necessity due to the pandemic, management saw this as a benefit. However, in recent circumstances, this very perception of work from home being a benefit has transformed to a responsibility that everybody must take seriously.

Who would have thought that a global pandemic will fast track the proposal and require companies to shift to a new way of working to continue business operations and safeguard the well-being of employees?