KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 27 (Bernama) — Before the saga of the COVID-19, people were generally attuned to an idea of what working life was all about, with structures and systems in place, specifically in their work places, with workers strictly having to physically go to their offices at the set times to get work done.
There was a clear demarcation between work life and personal life but the pandemic and the ensuing lockdowns have blurred the lines and radically changed this “normal” working style in many areas, said Rajesh Mishra, Head of HCM, Oracle Malaysia.
While the front-liners in the medical sector, and other essential services like transportation, food, retail continued their operations physically, working-from-home has become the only option for many to ensure the continuity of operations and services in various sectors including banking, financing, as everyone sought to reduce physical human contact and the spread of the virus.
For some, the transition to working from home has been smooth but for many there have been challenges, among them the stress that comes from not having a cut off point between work and personal life, said Rajesh.
Citing the findings of the Oracle AI at Work survey, Rajesh said 70 percent of those survey believed that 2020 has been the most stressful year ever and that the pandemic had negatively affected the mental health of 78 percent of the global workforce.
A majority of them have also said mental health issues at work negatively affected their home life through things like sleep deprivation, poor physical health and disturbed family relationships
Rajesh said many workers had also expressed that AI has helped their mental health at work by giving them necessary information for their jobs, automating tasks, and in the process helped reduce their stress.
Rajesh said companies were in a position to do more to help protect the mental health of their workforce with many remote workers facing serious challenges to their mental well being.
For instance, families with young children who face high levels of stress as they balance working at home.
No doubt the CoVID-19 raised the level of business survival tactics to greater levels with optimum utilisation of the internet technologies, and the enhancement of staff’s skills, but working at home is the trending culture and more must be done for its careful adoption and sure path for increased competency, productivity, and performance, Rajesh said.
Pointing out the various solutions that have been helping companies help their staff cope with working from home, be it marketing meetings or sharing files and data, Rajesh said some AI solutions offered by Oracle include the Oracle Digital Assistant and connected people analytics via Oracle Fusion HCM Analytics.
