HOMEWARD BOUND

Platforms such as Alibaba’s DingTalk and Tencent’s WeChat Work have tailored their products for specific tasks while providing free services to organizations in need. Downloads of workplace messaging apps surged, sending telecommuting stocks soaring in February. 　

Compared to developed countries, China has generally been behind the curve when it comes to remote working. Some insiders see the spike in users as a turning point for the industry, predicting that China’s massive work-from-home experiment will cultivate user habits and eventually make telecommuting the norm. 　

But for some experts, the boom is an anomaly and expect demand to fall back to pre-outbreak levels. Neither the software nor their user bases are mature enough to sustain the boom, said Zhang Yi, founder and CEO of iiMedia Research, an online consulting platform.　

But product inquiries really began flooding in on January 28, after the Chinese government announced it would delay the return to work following the Chinese New Year to February 10 as a measure to curb the Covid-19 spread.　

He said almost their entire 300-member team put in overtime to update their products not only for enterprises, but also schools to livestream their classes and hospitals to help diagnose patients through video.　

A slew of companies followed suit, such as remote conferencing apps WeLink, Zoom and XYLink, and collaboration platforms such as Shimo and Evernote. 　

Soon, DingTalk, WeChat Work and Tencent Meeting were among the most downloaded on Apple’s App Store. 　

Data from Urora, a mobile data service provider, shows that from January 1 to February 21, the number of active users on DingTalk rose from 26 million to 150 million, while WeChat Work’s user base rose from 5.6 million to 13.7 million. Users on other apps like WeLink and Bytedance’s Feishu had also multiplied. 　

Since the Chinese New Year holiday, more than 300 million users and 18 million enterprises have turned to telecommuting, according to statistics from iiMedia. The sudden influx was a strain on networks, and even established apps like DingTalk and WeChat all suffered from congestion. 　

Video conferencing saw the fastest growth. Yuan Wenhui, co-founder and CEO of XYLink, told NewsChina their back-end was stretched to the limits on January 25 as demand for cloud video conferencing increased from government agencies, online education and telecommuting. He never expected the company, which previously focused primarily on B2B business, would grow so fast in 2020. “The number of daily video calls made since January 25 is more than one or two months’ worth in 2019,” Yuan said. 　

Tang Haiqing, an analyst with TF Securities, said that the outbreak had provided a good opportunity for telecommuting companies to turn first-time users into paying customers, which could push the industry’s development, as quoted in a report published by the company in February. 　

“When they’re working at home, everyone worries that if they don’t reply in time their boss might think they’re just idling around,” Huang said, adding that the constant checking of messages is a distraction she seldom dealt with at the office. 　

The new arrangement has been tougher for those in areas with poor data coverage. Wang Tao, who works for Lenovo Group in Wuhan, returned to his rural hometown for Chinese New Year. When Wuhan went on lockdown as the Covid-19 epicenter on January 23, his team migrated their meetings to Skype. But the data signal in his village was too weak and unstable to communicate effectively. 　

Hu Shichang, a planning director of an advertising agency in Hunan Province, faced the same struggle. To battle the poor data coverage and choppy signal, Hu was forced to repeat himself constantly during meetings. Also, he found that colleagues would often get distracted by their children or other domestic emergencies, which caused further delays in their work. 　

Hu told NewsChina that while working from home allowed him to get out of bed later, work-life boundaries became an issue. “My colleagues sometimes worked from 11 am until midnight. And they just assume you’re not sleeping. You have to work at least nine or even 11 hours a day,” said Hu, adding that without set office hours, clients often contacted him on weekends.　

But the greatest challenges are coming from management. Huang told NewsChina that most of her job has been addressing the company’s concerns about maintaining efficiency, including whether employees were working hard or just sleeping in. 　

Huang realized her company was more focused on how much time employees were devoting to work. But spending less time or working from home does not necessarily mean lower efficiency. Instead of demanding that employees respond immediately to emails and messages, she adjusted the rules and set deadlines. As a result, she found telecommuting did not hinder communication within departments. 　

“Trust is essential,” said Xu Siyan, senior research fellow with the Tencent Research Institute. Xu explained that managers must trust that their employees working from home can perform as well or even better than at the office. Performance evaluations should focus more on results as a way to reflect this trust, Xu said.　

Exploding demand proved equally challenging for online platforms. He Jing said that user requests for added functionality increased so sharply that despite his team working overtime, their products were on the brink of crashing on February 3, the day many companies resumed operations via cloud office tools. 　

DingTalk and WeChat Work reportedmillions of morning teleconferences all starting at once. Statistics from DingTalk show that more than 10 million companies and 200 million people signed on from home that day. 　

This urgency forced services to stay on their toes and constantly work on updates. Employees from Bytedance’s Feishu told NewsChina that the current test benchmark is whether collaboration tools are stable enough to meet a sudden spike in demand.　

“The outbreak pushed the products into the market without allowing much time for preparation. We need more time to polish technical details to meet customer needs, and we need more users to help beta test products,” He said. 　

Bai Huiyuan, vice president of DingTalk, noticed that in China, telecommuting and other digital transformations are still in the initial stages. “Many companies and organizations are sluggish in going fully digital and their understanding of telecommuting is still on the level of using email or dealing with approval procedures over the phone,” Bai said. 　

Zhang Yi noted that the market in China has great potential as enterprises struggle to cut costs amid fierce competition. “But this telecommuting boom was passive rather than a result of market development,” Zhang said. “User habits haven’t congealed yet. Besides, the shortcomings of online office software are hard to resolve quickly, which can prevent users from sticking with them.”　

Software developers told NewsChina that the gap between China and some developed countries lies not in technology but in attitudes toward telecommuting. 　

Xu Siyan said that working from home is not more common in China because many businesses are simply not equipped. Telecommuting needs managerial adjustments that most companies are not yet ready for. 　

The outbreak has also forced companies to think about how to keep operating in times of crisis. Deng Zhi, executive manager of Gloria, a women’s fashion brand, said he attended an industry conference in late 2019 where many downplayed the need to fast-track digital transformation, let alone spend heavily on it. The Covid-19 epidemic has Deng’s team reevaluating their situation. 　

“We found that working remotely resulted in more efficient communication. We’re now deliberating what channels we want to retain for the long run,” Deng said. He predicted that in the wake of the outbreak, more businesses would migrate to digital platforms and make systemic changes to boost their efficiency. 　

Statistics released by DingTalk and CBN, a leading financial media group, shows the market scale for telecommuting has been growing steadily for years. In 2012, the market amounted to 5.4 billion yuan (US$769m), and rose to 19.4 billion yuan (US$2.8b) in 2017. Thanks to the latest boom, the estimated market is now 50 billion yuan (US$7b). Many of those interviewed said that after the Covid-19 crisis subsides, companies would most likely return to more traditional office operations.　

But a subversive force is fermenting. Millennials, who embrace new technology and seek more freedom in the workplace, will soon not only make up the bulk of China’s workforce, but also its decision-makers.