The Challenges of Being an Employer During an Ongoing Pandemic
The Covid-19 pandemic brought with it an abundance of challenges, especially in the workplace. Employers were forced to quickly adjust their normal business practices to reduce the spread of the virus.
The lockdown restrictions forced many businesses to move employees to remote working. At first, the adjustment to remote working was unsettling as many employers and employees had mixed feelings towards the new work from home approach. But after a few months, the work from home life started to become acceptable and many employees started to prefer it. However, now that vaccines have been rolling out, governments are starting to allow employees to return back to work. But some employees are not happy with the idea of returning back to in-office work life, some of whom are using Covid-19 as their excuse not to return to work.
We look at some of the challenges that employers are now facing as a result of the pandemic:
Employee Productivity
Whilst the work from home lifestyle may, in some cases, be just as productive as working from the office, the majority of the time this is not the case. Naturally, working from home increases the chances for distractions, ultimately making the employee less productive. Things like TVs, pets and household chores are some of the leading distractors whilst working from home.
In many instances working from home makes it extremely difficult to separate work and nonwork life. Many employers are not happy with the idea of employees working from home because there is no senior management watching over them to ensure that work is done efficiently and in a timeous manner. Many employers are getting frustrated because of the poor performance by employees working from home. The process of managing poor performance is often challenging and stressful on an employer, this is why many employers are turning to outsourcing.
The Employer-Employee Relationship
The relationship between employers and employees has been somewhat affected by the adoption of the work from home life. In many instances, employees are becoming resistant to return back to the office and do not want to give up the freedom that the work from home lifestyle gives them. This has the potential to create unnecessary tension on the employer-employee relationship, which may lead to internal conflict.
In order for a business to run smoothly, there needs to be a good employer-employee relationship. Employees not wanting to return back to the office has the potential to adversely affect the employer-employee relationship, which could ultimately lead to a number of unfavourable situations.
Employee Retention
Before the pandemic, many employees had never experienced the comfort of working from their own homes, and after getting a taste for the work from home lifestyle, they no longer want to work in an office environment. Some employees are simply looking for jobs that will allow them to work from home. The concept of employee loyalty is slowly diminishing as many employees are happy to move over to a competitor simply because they will be able to work from home. This puts immense pressure on an employer, not only with regards to the monetary costs associated with hiring new employees, but it also distracts employers from focusing on their core business needs.
How Can Outsourcing Help?
Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) is by no means a new concept, it has been around for many years. Some of the world’s largest and most successful companies have been outsourcing for years. We explore some of the benefits that come with outsourcing:
- Cost Savings
The number one reason for outsourcing is often to utilise the cost saving benefits associated with it. Top outsourcing destinations like Durban, South Africa offer major cost saving benefits to source destinations like the UK, US, and Australia of at least 40–50% on a steady-state operating basis (including overheads). Outsourcing also provides a viable and sustainable solution to the challenges and costs related to recruiting, training, pension contributions and equipment, with savings of nearly 50%.
- Performance Management
When it comes to employees working from home, there is no management of staff, there is no guarantee that staff are working to their full capacity and up to company standards. However, by utilising a trusted outsource partner, like Affinity Group, you will have peace of mind in knowing that all agents are supervised by experienced and highly-qualified senior management at all time, ensuring that the best quality of work is produced in a timely manner.
Furthermore, all agents appointed by Affinity Solutions are managed by middle and senior management in accordance with a Service-Level Agreement (SLA), reducing the ‘internal’ frustration and stress, for you as an employee, of having to manage staff or deal with any poor performance.
- Compliance
Working from home can create a number of compliance issues, especially around General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Employers are having to make sure that employees who are working from home are GDPR compliant, this creates additional stress and costs on the employer’s behalf.
Affinity Group is compliant with all General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Data Protection Act (DPA), California Consumer Protection Act (CCPA), and Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) regulations and requirements.
- Access To a Skilled Workforce
South Africa has an extremely high level of unemployment, 32.6% in Q1 of 2021. People in countries with high unemployment rates like South Africa are often overqualified and cannot find work, which means that by outsourcing to South Africa, you gain access to a highly skilled workforce for a fraction of the cost.
- Focus on Core Business Activities
Outsourcing allows your business to completely focus on revenue generating activities. By not having to worry about managing staff performance, recruiting new staff or any of the other stress that comes with in-office staff, you will have more time to focus on core business activities.
We believe that every business should at least consider outsourcing as a part of their business strategy. Even if you do not choose to outsource yet, why not at least explore the logic and benefits behind outsourcing to Durban, South Africa?
If your staff are already working from home, why not consider outsourcing? Not only will your agents in Durban be working from the office under supervision by senior management, but you will also open the door to take advantage of a variety of benefits including the incredible cost saving benefit attached to outsourcing.
Partner With Affinity Group
At Affinity Group, we are uniquely positioned in Durban, South Africa and provide a wide range of BPO services for countries around the world including the US, UK, Australia and Canada. We offer professional outsourced business support to companies involved in insolvency, finance, accounting, insurance, law, inbound/outbound telecommunications services, lead generation, sales activation and niche customer service markets.
If your business is considering outsourcing to Durban, South Africa, we are happy to discuss your needs, please do not hesitate to contact us.
