Will load-shedding be the death of WFH policies?
Will load-shedding be the death of WFH policies?
As loadshedding continues to disrupt the productivity of the South African workforce, returning to the office becomes the obvious solution.
Generators and other backup power supply solutions are costly and are often not affordable to the average homeowner. This means that those working from home are having to deal with continued disruptions to work productivity caused by load shedding, which has left some residents with no power for up to 9 hours a day.
Companies are investing heavily in backup solutions and this will bode well for them in the future with many tenants looking for properties with backup power. In addition, it provides a stable environment and ensures sustained business activity.
This means that it is now a necessity, no longer a luxury, to acquire a backup power supply at your place of work.
An array of power solutions available to employers
While generators and the cost of diesel to keep it running are prohibitively expensive for many small businesses, a heavy-duty Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) device or an inverter may be a more affordable option.
For many businesses, all that is required for continued operations is a strong internet supply and plug-points to charge devices and desk lamps,” he says. “A UPS or an inverter can keep the internet going and power the plugs until the electricity comes back on and it costs less than a generator to run.
How will this impact demand in the commercial real estate sector?
We predict that an increased employee reliance on company office space for continued power supply will encourage many companies to renew their leases and even take out more floor space to accommodate the return of their staff to the workplace.
The bottom line is that the costs of lost productivity and reduced output are far more deadly to a business than the costs of investing in premises with an uninterrupted power supply where employees can work as normal.
In cases where a company has given up its physical premises and allowed employees to work fully remotely, we are seeing a trend of employers paying for their employees to work from co-working spaces with generators or other continued power supply sources.
This enables employees to benefit from the uninterrupted power supply they could access at an office while retaining the flexibility of their current working arrangement
The bottom-line? While COVID-19 restrictions decreased the overall demand for commercial office space, loadshedding will likely have the opposite effect.