January 7, 2021, by Communications
Working from home during the CMCO
Most of 2020 was spent working from home, with the advent of the Movement Control Order (MCO) on 18 March 2020 and with Controlled Movement Control Order on 26 October, as has been the case for both academic and administrative staff. Never having had such a drastic shift in their routines, we talked to four members of staff about how they have adjusted and the benefits they have gained from working from home.
Jeffrey Foo, Senior Student Association Officer, highlights the difficulties of having to balance both his familial duties, such as ensuring his children attend online schooling and attending to household chores, as well as his own work. Thankfully for Jeffrey, adapting to working from home from a technical point of view was not an issue.
School of Education Assistant Professor Dr Csaba Zoltan Szabo, tries to see the positive side of things: “It saves time in getting ready and commuting to the office. There are also fewer last minute requests, where people pop into the office and ask you to do something urgently. This helps with the planning and delivering of projects and tasks on time, and is also effective and efficient.”
Unfortunately, he admits that online teaching is sometimes frustrating especially during lessons when students tend to be unresponsive in class. However, finding ways to overcome this with the multitude of affordances provided by technology makes the process exciting for him.
Siti Ruhaizar Mat, Finance Manager, collected feedback from her staff, who wished to remain anonymous, with regard to their experience. One staff member tells us that adjusting to the shift of having to deal with both new technology and the demands of the job was difficult at the beginning. Whereas, another expresses that technical issues needed to be sorted out in the beginning such as limited bandwidth, which made it difficult to coordinate meetings online.
Having to turn your microphones and cameras on in the comfort of your home may be the reason for many embarrassing situations, and the Head of the School of Biosciences, Dr Winnie Yap, admits to having been caught eating a bag of chips when she had thought she had logged off from Microsoft Teams.
Despite it all, our staff also saw the positive aspects of working from home, such as needing less time to prepare for the working day and getting a chance to spend more time with their family and in Jeffrey’s case, he will be able to spend more time with the new child he is expecting with his wife. However, working from home can get draining and everyone ultimately agreed that they were looking forward to working in the office when the orders are lifted.
Dr Csaba Zoltan Szabo
Dr Winnie Yap
Jeffrey Foo
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