Chinese people adapt to working from home 3
Tao Yu, a 28-year-old female employee of Germany’s Porsche car marketing department, has not been to the office for more than a month, like tens of millions of other Chinese workers.
She comes from Hubei, the province where Covid-19 originated in China.
Tao is not a fan of working from home, but that’s what many of her neighbors also had to do when the city was placed on lockdown.
A man wears a mask in front of a luxury shopping center in Beijing, China on February 8.
In China, the culture of working from home is not as popular as in the West.
The normally bustling streets in big cities like Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou are now unusually quiet, and the demand for online meeting applications has also increased significantly.
Some people complain that their bosses don’t trust their employees to work from home, while others say they have difficulty concentrating or are distracted by family members.
Sun Meng, 32, is originally from Liaoning but works for an online education company in Beijing.
`It’s great, because normally I spend 4 hours on the road every day,` she said.
Sun was given flexibility by the company to work from home two days a week before the Covid-19 outbreak, but she did not apply it effectively.
The internal way of working also changed significantly to suit the new situation.
`We are now forced to work from home, and human resources administration is also forced to adapt to new ways of supervision,` Sun said.
Alibaba Group employee in Hangzhou, China.
However, Xin Sun, 36, a manager at Ping An Bank in Shenzhen, feels it is more difficult for him to control his subordinates when they are out of the office.
`When working from home, my team members sometimes take a long time to respond to me, which makes me feel out of control,` Sun said.
Yang, 23, an employee of Chinese game production company NetEase, said she had to receive more online calls when working from home than when working in the office.
`Before the epidemic happened, at work, I was not required to report my work every day, but now, I have to report in detail and send it to my boss. I’m afraid this will reduce my efficiency.`
Qun Li, associate professor of Corporate Culture at Beijing Jiaotong University, said that working from home could change workers’ needs.
`They have limited time for family, taking care of children or spending time with their parents. They also have difficulty arranging their personal lives. But now, when many people work from home, they
Cindy Song, 29 years old, PR manager for Ruder Finn company, said she and her husband had to share an office because the house was cramped, but the positive thing was that she had more time with her husband.
Mai Lam (According to BBC)
