“I struggled hard to explain that work shouldn’t be 24/7, but it wasn’t up for discussion. I once got a sudden conference call at 10 P.M. while I was in bed and simply decided not to attend. The next morning, I was shamed for it,” 29-year-old Sarah Abdelkereem explains as she recalls her first days of working remotely in her banking job. Working from home is not a new concept on the global scale, but it was a big shift in Egypt when many employees like Abdelkereem found themselves forbidden from going to their offices in March 2020 during the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. More than a year later, many companies in Egypt are gradually allowing employees to come back to the office, often on a rotational basis to maintain social distancing measures in the workplace, while some are considering shutting down their offices altogether. How have employees been handling the change? Speaking with corporate employees from different sectors, they all describe their experience as a curve; for some, it began on a positive note and became more challenging over time, while others report a difficult start that gradually…
“It’s Been a Curve”: How Working Remotely Affected Employees in Egypt
August 18, 2021
