It has been a roller-coaster ride for the South African workforce in the past couple of years due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the severe restrictions. Now the latest loop on the track to contend with is load shedding, and soaring fuel prices.
The new normal is ever evolving for workers, with companies opting for full-time work from home policies, hybrid models of working from home as well as the office, and some having staff back at their offices full time.
The latest dilemma that faces workers and companies is load shedding, causing a break in time in the workday for remote workers, and the high cost of fuel, which workers say doesn’t allow them to afford to drive to the office.
With the easing of Covid-19 lockdown restrictions, many companies have been calling on employees who have been working from home to return to offices.
Locally some business are already back in the office – even if only for two to three days a week.
Discovery Insure’s new Work From Home Index has revealed an average of three days per week that people are physically travelling between work and home.
These are the two most common destinations between which many people travel – often more than once a week – ordinarily every week.
“During the past two years, our movement patterns between these two destinations have shifted and Discovery Insure has had their “eyes” on this evolution since the onset of the Covid-19 lockdowns at the end of March, 2020,” Discovery Insure said.
Index findings reveal a stark contrast between ‘home’ vs ‘work’ travels in hard lockdown compared to the present day
“Our data team has graphically represented the ‘work’ and ‘home’ trends, and findings reveal that so far this year, about 80% of people are now working at their ‘work’ locations again, compared to data on pre-Covid levels,” said Discovery Insure chief executive, Anton Ossip.
“By contrast, people were most certainly home-based between March and May, 2020 correlating directly with the initial hard lockdown.
“The graph also clearly highlights a decrease in the number of individuals travelling to work during the various lockdown periods where Covid-19 peaked, with the virus being more virulent and infectious during these times. It is interesting to see how these increased again very quickly once waves dissipated. Again, this is intuitive,” Ossip said.
He also noted how the graph continues its trend upwards following the initial hard lockdown dip in April /May, 2020.
“We believe this continued ascent distinctly illustrates the resilient nature of our population, which could also have been influenced by individuals getting vaccinated during the second half of 2021,” Ossip explained.
Patterns are currently in motion
A large percentage of Discovery Insure clients are not going into “work” consistently on the same days each week.
This points to a changed pattern of expectations whereby more workers are enjoying increased levels of flexibility in their workday.
The number of days that people travel to work varies:
∎ The average number of days people are going into “work” is three days per week.
∎ The proportion of people going into “work” three or more days in a week is 10 percent less than pre-Covid levels.
∎ The proportion of people going into “work” every day during the week is 20 percent less than pre-Covid levels.
∎ The most popular days for travelling to work appear to be Tuesdays and Wednesdays. The least favoured day is Friday, with around 20 percent fewer trips recorded on that day.
Meanwhile, Abigail Moyo, spokesperson of the trade union Uasa said that the fuel price crisis is putting further pressure on already strained wallets of workers.
“Uasa believes the fuel price increase calls for urgent intervention, as it shows inflation spiralling out of control. Gauteng consumers will fork out more than R26 per litre, which paints an ugly picture regarding transport costs and the overall cost of living,” Moyo said.
“Since the beginning of the year, fuel prices have spiralled out of control. While Uasa constantly calls on the government to intervene, we take note of the fuel levy relief in the past two months. However, what is needed is a permanent solution to this monthly crisis. We can’t keep pleading with the government each month on the same challenge,” Moyo further added.
“The current situation is an economic disaster for cash-strapped workers who must match their disposable income with growing inflation rates and survive on the little they have left.”
Uasa encouraged South Africans to remain strong and continue doing what they can, based on what they have to survive.
“We trust that the government will eventually do the right thing and find a sustainable solution to this crisis,” Moyo said.
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