2020 has, as a whole, presented myriad problems for all industries. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has forced teams of workers out of their places of employment, with many businesses - and jobs - unfortunately lost as the impact of the virus is felt by the global workforce.
For some, however, the shift to working-from-home forced forms of adaptation, and has led some industry leaders to realize that perhaps their staff were never as essentially required to remain on-site as once thought. Japanese developer/publisher Square Enix is one such business and - from December 1 - will introduce a new mandate to shift all "eligible employees" to work from home on a permanent basis.
While the move to remote working was originally deemed mandatory due to the pandemic, Square Enix believes it has resulted in an upturn in both creativity and morale. As such, the Final Fantasy publisher hopes that designating roughly 80% of its staff "home-based" workers will create a more productive, happier and healthier working environment. In order to ensure all targets can be achieved and particularly busy periods of production are met, Square Enix will be re-assessing its "home" and "office" staff on a month-by-month basis.
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to severely impact lives and businesses across the globe, industries will have to face the fact that the office environment is unlikely to return anytime soon, and will perhaps never return in its prior state. With that in mind, it is up to big business to evolve, providing its employees with working environments that discourage both physical and mental health problems. Not just because we're currently in a pandemic, but because that has always been the right thing to do.
