It was in­evitable that there would be spec­u­la­tion and plen­ty of ques­tions af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar opt­ed to spend most of her first week in of­fice out of pub­lic sight.

Her de­ci­sion to work re­mote­ly, which, ac­cord­ing to Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath, was due to con­di­tions at White­hall and the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, con­tin­ues to be the sub­ject of wide­spread pub­lic de­bate that has not been quelled, even with rev­e­la­tions by the Prime Min­is­ter her­self about the enor­mi­ty of the fi­nan­cial chal­lenges fac­ing the coun­try.

Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­dressed the is­sue, as well as queries about her health, at the me­dia brief­ing that fol­lowed the first meet­ing of her Cab­i­net on Thurs­day, an­nounc­ing that she will be work­ing from var­i­ous lo­ca­tions, in­clud­ing the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, the of­fi­cial res­i­dence in Blenheim, To­ba­go, and her pri­vate res­i­dence in south Trinidad.

That puts the mat­ter of re­mote work front and cen­tre on the na­tion­al agen­da. It is an is­sue that has been sim­mer­ing ever since the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic up­end­ed the way work­places func­tioned.

In the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment, the Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion Min­istry was at one time ex­plor­ing prospects for re­mote work in the pub­lic sec­tor, but the mat­ter end­ed up on the back burn­er.

How­ev­er, now that the coun­try’s high­est elect­ed of­fi­cial has tak­en the lead in ex­plor­ing the evolv­ing land­scape of re­mote, hy­brid and in-of­fice work, there is an op­por­tu­ni­ty to delve more deeply in­to the pros and cons of more flex­i­ble work arrange­ments.

The Prime Min­is­ter can si­lence the crit­ics who have been ques­tion­ing her pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and ac­count­abil­i­ty by demon­strat­ing that she can be ef­fec­tive even when not in phys­i­cal prox­im­i­ty to her min­is­ters and the pub­lic ser­vants who func­tion in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter.

This re­quires lead­er­ship skills that are dif­fi­cult and don’t come nat­u­ral­ly, but they are not out of the reach of Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar, a sea­soned politi­cian. How­ev­er, she must be care­ful not to be­come in­vis­i­ble to cit­i­zens and key stake­hold­ers as she em­barks on her hy­brid work arrange­ment.

Trans­for­ma­tion­al lead­er­ship is need­ed to nav­i­gate the chal­lenges of re­mote work while cre­at­ing an en­vi­ron­ment that fos­ters trust, col­lab­o­ra­tion and ac­count­abil­i­ty — and through it all she must take spe­cial care not to blur the lines be­tween per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al.

It is al­so im­por­tant for the Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­min­is­tra­tion not to down­play the im­por­tance of the 121-year-old White­hall. On and off over six decades, it has housed the ad­min­is­tra­tive arm that as­sists the Prime Min­is­ter in ex­er­cis­ing con­sti­tu­tion­al, ex­ec­u­tive, and ad­min­is­tra­tive func­tions.

It is a build­ing of great his­tor­i­cal and po­lit­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance that on­ly re­gained its sta­tus as the Prime Min­is­ter’s of­fice in Au­gust 2019, af­ter be­ing re­stored from a state of di­lap­i­da­tion at a con­sid­er­able cost to tax­pay­ers.

What the White House is to the peo­ple of the Unit­ed States and 10 Down­ing Street is to the peo­ple of the Unit­ed King­dom, White­hall is to the peo­ple of T&T - a seat of po­lit­i­cal pow­er that should be main­tained as an en­dur­ing land­mark.

The Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, of­fi­cial res­i­dence of the Prime Min­is­ter since the Patrick Man­ning ad­min­is­tra­tion, al­so oc­cu­pies a space of na­tion­al sig­nif­i­cance.

So, while Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar is free to adapt the way her of­fice func­tions to suit her pref­er­ences and work­ing style, she should care­ful­ly con­sid­er the work­spaces she oc­cu­pies and not put White­hall and the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre too far out of the pic­ture.