“Your mic is muted. ”
“Majuro can you hear us?”
“Sorry I just dropped out.”
“Can you see my screen?”
Two years into the pandemic and this exchange, or something very like it, has echoed around loungerooms, kitchen tables and makeshift home offices in Apia, Hagatna, Honiara, Mt Hagen and all points in between.
The COVID-19 pandemic has been dubbed the “great accelerator,” as it brought an enormous shift to digital around the world. Schools and learning went online, video conference participation rose dramatically, medical services were delivered over the phone and Internet, and businesses struggling to implement their digital strategy took the leap, simply because they had no other choice.
“The pandemic has led to a surge of teleworking, effectively changing the nature of work practically overnight for many workers,” said Maria Neira, WHO Director, Department of Environment, Climate Change and Health.
A report released by WHO and the International Labour Organisation last month found the benefits of teleworking included an improved balance between work and home life, more flexible working hours, more time for exercise, less time in traffic, and reduced air pollution across urban areas. The report says teleworking can also lead to higher productivity and lower operating costs for many companies.
In our region, many people found themselves with more time to tend their plantations or take up new hobbies. Communications consultant Mere Tuivuniwai juggled jobs, children, her community responsibilities and still managed a home renovation during lockdowns. She continues to work from home in Suva for a Caribbean-based program.
“One of the most exciting trends during this pandemic is movement of skills around the globe,” Tuivuniwai writes (You can read more about her experiences on page 14).
However there are also potential downsides to remote working arrangements, such as feelings of isolation, burnout, depression, eye strain, excessive drinking of alcohol and kava, and unhealthy weight gain.
“Which way the pendulum swings, depends entirely on whether governments, employers and workers, work together, and whether there are agile and inventive occupational health services to put in place policies and practices that benefit both workers and the work”, said Dr Neira at WHO.
“As we move away from this ‘holding pattern’ to settle into a new normal, we have the opportunity to embed new supportive policies, practices and norms to ensure millions of teleworkers have healthy, happy, productive and decent work”, she said.
The report outlines the roles of governments, employers, workers and health services at workplaces to promote and protect health and safety while teleworking, and includes recommendations such as developing individual work plans with clear priorities, timelines and expected results, and the effective use of digital platforms.
However for many Pacific Islands employers, this discussion has been largely academic. Large, multigenerational households, spotty electricity and Internet supply and the persistence of a hierarchical and highly-supervised culture in many workplaces means a move to remote or hybrid work arrangements is some way off for many.
Gender and the future of work
A recent report by the Asia Foundation, Women and the Future of Work, found that globally, women were at greater risk of losing their jobs (on average 1.8 times higher) or having their hours reduced as the hardest hit sectors were the highly feminised ones, such as those related to the tourism sector.
If this ‘occupational segregation’ continues, the gap between women and men through “emerging transitions and the future of work” will likely widen says the ILO. Women working in routine and repetitive work will more likely be replaced through automation, although the education, healthcare, and social assistance sectors, where women predominate, will likely grow.
The divide has been the subject of discussions at the CSW65 meeting underway in New York this month, with Fiji’s Permanent Representative to United Nations, Dr Satyendra Prasad, telling a side event that measures to reduce gender gaps, must involve both the private sector and government.
“Pacific businesses are developing gender and diversity policies including focusing on capacity building through training and mentoring. These efforts have resulted in a greater retention of women and a higher proportion of women taking on management roles. This is a lesson also for those in the public sector.
“This may include a suite of training initiatives, and policy development work and mentoring to ensure more women enter leadership roles. A focus on STEM education, girls in science and develop the qualifications for skilled employment in the green economy and other emerging STEM fields given the climate change threat before us,” Ambassador Prasad said.
The ILO says while men are currently better placed to take advantage of new jobs in green building, IT, and other STEM-based fields, “lower levels of technical skills across both genders in the Pacific labour force (when compared with the incoming migrant workforce) means that both men and women will need to upskill if they are to benefit from these more secure, higher paying jobs in the future.”
Education and vocational education and training programs in our region aren’t graduating technologically fluent workers. “An ILO rapid assessment of the impacts of COVID-19 on employment and business found that three out of ten enterprises surveyed in Fiji reported needing new skills from workers due to operational changes,” the report states.
Meanwhile the challenge of youth unemployment has been met in small part by seasonal and temporary work schemes, which are providing much-needed income and on-the-job training, but also has challenges in terms of local brain drain and incidents of underpayment/poor treatment (see story page 16).
The other virtual workplace
At the other end of the spectrum, several Pacific Island tourism markets and resort operators attempted to tap into the high-end digital nomad/work from home market, with packages aimed to lure them to ‘workations’, where they could operate for short periods from accommodation equipped with a full spread of amenities, while their children and families were offered ‘learning experiences’.
In Tahiti, the Four Seasons Resort Bora Bora, InterContinental Tahiti Resort & Spa, and St. Regis Bora Bora all offered such packages. In Fiji, the Nanuku Auberge Resort followed suit. However repeated surges of COVID, restrictive border and quarantine arrangements and other barriers such as Fiji’s work permit laws, meant these programs had only very modest success.
