MUHAMMAD AREEB

19P01954

ASSIGNMENT 1

FLEXIBLE WORK ARRANGEMENTS

NESTLE PAKISTAN

Interviewer: How has this pandemic changed your daily working?

Interviewee: The pandemic has changed my working routine, since everyone person in sales
department has to report to their immediate boss by gathering data from the team working under
him. So, there is a constant flow of communication and coordination is required from lower level
to upper level to push and drive the sales. Many MNC has started that they split the employees
into two teams, Team A and Team B. One-week, Team A is giving the flexibility to work from
home, while team B has to attend the office and vice versa. This has changed the overall time
frame of working that creates a different working environment and changes the mind set of
people every week. Each day there are two meeting held in B2B sales, which were scheduled at
morning and evening along with my team members. The head of team B who is attending the
office, he will call the meeting at 8 a clock for DOR (Daily discussion) and after the meeting he
will try to have break, socialize with other departments and do some smoking. While head of
team A will call the meeting for DOR at 9 or 10 a clock since he is at home and given the option
to work in flexible hour, but at the same time he will be working in a scheduled timeline in
which everyone is expected to be organized and bound to attend that meeting in certain defined
hours. If the meeting is held by the manager at 10 a clock, everyone has to be present online over
there on time. So once the day has started for team A at 10 a clock, back to back meeting are
called. Since everyone expect that the individual is working from home, he might be available all
the time. However, this has increased the productivity and completed number of tasks but at the
same time the work life balance has affected a lot. Since I cannot escape from those meeting
once been locked and make any excuse. So, concluding the answer I can say that the work life
has become intensive, daily task are increased and I feel over work.

Interviewer: Do you prefer working from home?

Interviewee: For me I would not prefer working from home. Firstly, the reason behind it is that I
am a salesperson and I like to socializing with people, going in the market, visiting customer,
creating relationship and interacting with other. Secondly, I can better manage my work life and
could easily balance it while working at office and feel more satisfied with what I am doing.
However, there is one advantage while working at home is that I can sit alone at home and work
on making any financial model or any new strategy. But this I usually do when I come back
home after visiting the market.

Interviewer: Does working from home affect your productivity and sales target?

Interviewee: Yes, it has increased the productivity and tasks that are to be completed on time,
but at the same time I am working constantly for many hours. While if I was working at office,
its human nature that I will tend to have some breaks after any task every is completed, which
would eventually decrease my daily productive working hours. Talking about the achieved sales
target, it has decreased but not because of working from home but due to Covid-19 effect. I went
to 20-25% of my potential of bringing the sales because mostly people are working from home,
many businesses are closed due to lockdown and even many winded up their business due to the
loss that they catered.

Interviewer: Did you find any communication gap calling out the employees and directing
them?

Interviewee: I didn’t find as much communication gap because being a sales person it is in our
nature that, we remain connected with each other. On daily basis I call my team and the third-
party distribution center many times. However, during the pandemic some of employee has
developed an understanding and moved to an automated working system. If the boss is not
present, they know how to work and make certain decisions on their own without any direction
being given. Before Covid-19 I had to call out the team at morning for leading and direct them,
organizing their customer visits and daily routes. But during pandemic everyone has recognized
his responsibility and knows his tasks. Now my work mostly during pandemic is to supervise,
have a check on them and give any assistance to them only if there is any delivery issue,
relationship is being affected or any customer is being disturbed.

Interviewer: What was the nature of your boss and employee working under you, while you
were working from home?

Interviewee: My boss is very happy since task are being done on time, there is smoothly flow of
working process, there are no delays, he can connect with me any time he wants to. A
relationship and trust factor are building up between us. Talking about the employee working
under me, since the sales could be not driven by the order booker under the pandemic as many
businesses were closed and mostly the sales were customer driven whether they need the stock or
not. So, there was lot of pressure on the order booker but on the other end company also given
the leverage to set our estimated sales target for the months during the pandemic. With the
support of company, I easily managed the teamworking under me and we went hand to hand to
handle the monthly sales target by and calling out different customers who still needed the stock.
Many times, there was situation when customer had problem and we as team went to handle the
issue.

Interviewer: Do you feel any hurdle and distraction from your family while working from
home?

Interviewee: We have families at home. There is a time when my closed one do not realize that
you are working, whether if you are a CEO or a normal employee. Some incident that I could
remember while I was working at home, Once I woke late because I have to work from home
and family interrupt me by sending breakfast in my room, while the meeting was going on. Many
times, there is feeling of embarrassment, while having online meeting with my boss, as there are
many noises come from my side of my dog barking, mother dealing with the maid and younger
sibling playing aside. These things sometime bother so much that I realize that working at office
is better. Even sometimes I get demotivated while working, as my siblings are watching movies
etc. So, it is duty of my boss that he gets me engaged in some way. Another hurdle is that while
working from home it is difficult to convince my boss that why I gave that much discount to a
certain customer as compared to when I am interacting with him physically and even calling a
person who is at fault at the moment as he might busy, working on another task and sitting in
different time frame. Mostly it happens when another person in not directly reporting to me or is
of another department, I cannot come to his table and ask for justification for his action on first
priority as we are working online.

Interviewer: what you think are the advantage and disadvantage of flexible working hour?

Interviewee: Some of the advantage I can come up with is that I started to adopt technology and
this moved me from my free zone. I became more aware of the software’s, which I was not
before. Many tasks I have realized that can done while working at home, independent of the
environment I have. My availability to family has increased, more time could be spent and
hence increasing the engagement.

Some of the disadvantage is that I cannot put in my full effort and potential in the market, but
sales at the end is market driven, I have to visit the market to ensure the visibility and availability
of the product in the market. Talking about the retail, till the time I am not at distribution and to
have a check and balance on the order booker, he will not cover all the shops and if does not
cover all the shops at the end my sale target could not be achieved. So, every week the sales
achieved varies depending upon whether the ASM is present at the distribution or not. In
company perspective, company can control employee overhead, operating cost and expenses.

Interviewer: How the pandemic has affected your family and social life?

Interviewee: Engagement with family has increased, as I can spend more time with my family. I
can relate it one meme that I saw on internet that “ghr waly bhe achy log hoty haan”. But
subconscious I have in my mind that after the meeting end, I have to bring grocery and also, they
expect that I am sitting at home so its my responsibility to get fix the fan that is not working in
one of the rooms. It brings the feeling that I am more involved in family and extracting/ sparing
time for work. So, the perspective changes. Talking about my family they feel happier and more
connected with me now. While working from home has affected my social life as there were
certain people who I used to socialize after every 3 or 4 days, but since I get tired so much, my
socializing with friends has decreased.

Interviewer: How has pandemic affected your physical health?

Interviewee: Since the company has split the employees in Team A and Team B to encourage the
employee to work from home and office both in alternative week. So, every week there is a
different routine. Many times, there is a situation that I feel over burden while working from
home and next week u do not have as much work and task to perform while working at office.
Secondly, during pre-COVID-19 I had to visit the market many times, so I have to drive car,
walk around in market and when I returns home, I feel tired physically little bit. But with this
work from home thing in flexible working hour, mentally it became more exhausted and more
tiring at time as productivity have been increase, I have to work hour more, sitting at one place I
don’t get those breathers. So, my energy level is not balanced and I sort of feel tired mentally and
physically both. Before the pandemic I used to have some time to enjoy by going to gym and
have time with my friends at evening. But now I use to sleep at 9 or 10 because of tiredness.