Corona ordeal a chance to implement ‘work from remote’ scheme

TDT | Manama

Yaqoob Al Awadhi, the CEO of “NGN” global information systems said that the current plight of Coronavirus represent a favourable opportunity to accelerate the implementation of the “work at home” policy in Bahrain, especially while taking preventive measures by limiting public gatherings, and it is unclear whether these measures would have been tightened in the future by disrupting the work of some government and private agencies compared to what happened in schools and universities.

“Last September in Bahrain, we witnessed a serious trend towards implementing work at home policy. The Civil Service Bureau held in October 2019 an introductory workshop for managers and heads of human and financial resources in government agencies on the implementation of the trial period of government work at home policy.

“A trial period that started last November and lasted for two months, and included about 200 employees within 83 job titles,” Mr Al Awadhi said. He called for moving forward with this trend in Bahrain, as it would contribute to reducing government expenditures, increasing productivity and speed of service provision, in addition to increasing job satisfaction, employee affiliation, excellence and innovation in government work.

“British officials are currently studying a series of stringent measures, including that workers may be required to stay at home for up to three months as the UK anticipates the spread the Coronavirus within weeks,” Mr Al Awadhi added. He pointed out that with the spread of the Coronavirus in different regions in the world, giant corporates such as Google and Twitter are asking some of their employees around the world to work at home.

A recent survey showed that a third of companies’ managers in GCC started planning to direct half of their employees to work at home, indicating that, according to that survey, Bahrain recorded the highest rate of remote work plans in 38 per cent of companies.

As the CEO of “NGN”, Mr Al Awadhi stressed the importance of providing the necessary technical environment for work at home and said that Bahrain may become a forerunner in creating a single platform that serves all government agencies whose employees can work at home, and the private sector can benefit from this platform or build a similar one.

“In every ordeal lies opportunity, there is no doubt that we must invest in opportunities while tackling coronavirus, including speeding up plans and creating new ones that help us to develop our business and society, such as the effective application of home-based business policy in the public and private sectors,” Mr Al Awadhi concluded.