Internationally, remote working has been a normal business practice amongst many industries and countries. Countries that have implemented remote working policies were not affected as much as South Africa was by the pandemic.
Can South Africa follow those trends?
There are certain business models that will allow it. The part that South Africa is struggling with and what’s going to make it difficult for us, is the maturity of our staff, (our human resources) and the laws that guide that. Unfortunately, our labour laws are very much one-sided, which makes it very difficult to maintain good business principles and further complicated by the power that the unions have, as this plays in favour of the attitudes of the South Africans across the board.
As much as we say, we could, we’ve got a long way to go before we can get to that point as well. Management is adapting very quickly, but the staff are not.
The key part is that South Africa can follow these trends. We can match these trends, but we definitely have to do something about our human capital and labour laws to adjust for a remote working reality.
Did you enjoy this blog post? Check out our Remote Working In South Africa series here:
