COVID-19 Vindicates Working From Home
I'm a big fan of being able to work from anywhere. We've discussed it at length here before. Jobs that can be done digitally do not require real estate, commuting, and waking up three hours before you need to begin. Not only are employees generally more productive when they work from home, but they're also happier, too. We can extend these benefits to society as a whole and the environment. Less commuting means less pollution, and doing away with office space means that the housing market is no longer prohibitively expensive and no longer revolves around "central locations". Not to mention that businesses would save a ton of money.
Despite all of these benefits as well as a slowly growing trend of businesses allowing remote working or shifting to the 4-day workweek, there have been many holdouts. Some employers just can't handle the idea that their employees might be watching YouTube videos or walking their dogs on the clock. Despite some resistance, a future where remote working would be the norm seemed inevitable even before the pandemic, but it would be a slow transition. We've been dragged against our will into that future at warp speed now that COVID-19 seems to be more of a permanent fixture in our lives.
So, how is it working out?
Awful! Society is about to collapse because everyone's watching Netflix in their underwear instead of working! ...not. Societal collapse may indeed be imminent, but it's not due to working from home. On the contrary, remote working has been a roaring success. There was a mad scramble initially as companies tried to shift their operations away from the office and not everyone executed it perfectly, but telecommuting is currently keeping money in wallets and the economy afloat. From the perspective of preventing economic Armageddon, video conferencing and other collaboration tools have been our saviors.
“Of the people surveyed, 54% said that working from home has had a positive impact on their productivity.”
So, in a practical sense, we have a proof of concept that offices can operate remotely, but just how productive has this "new normal" been? Well, micromanagers are going to be disappointed, if they haven't already had mental breakdowns 5 months into this. The data linked before has come from studies before the pandemic that gave working from home its best shot. These were companies that carefully planned how remote working should go, and in some cases, they gained as much as a full extra day of productivity. This new survey from YouGov in partnership with USA Today and LinkedIn gives us an early snapshot of how successful remote working has been during the pandemic. Of the people surveyed, 54% said that working from home has had a positive impact on their productivity. They reported that less commuting (71%), not being distracted by co-workers (61%), and less time spent in meetings (39%) were all contributing factors to this boost. Of course, this is merely a survey and not an actual productivity study, so we admittedly need to wait for some solid data sets before we can pound the gavel on remote working during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This input from workers is important, however, and reveals how they perceive their productivity when the office is removed from the equation. Personally, I think the previous remote working studies are enough to justify some real proactive steps from Fortune 500 companies at the very least. At a certain point in time, we can no longer ignore the evidence and must start converting our infrastructure in anticipation of an inevitable future. Instead of rushing back to the office, we should be shoring up the system that was haphazardly thrown together when lockdowns began.
That’s not to say there won’t be challenges. Working from home isn’t the best match for everyone. Some people feel enriched by the social relationships they build at work, something that mandatory remote working has eliminated. Big, complex projects are sometimes better served by in-person team meetings. The rigid structure of the office helps people who would otherwise feel too distracted at home focus on their work. This, I think, is admittedly one of the big weaknesses of working from home - the line between work and life can get blurry. Some people really need that clear separation between the office and their home. These are all valid criticisms that businesses should work to address. Perhaps the flex schedules (a few days at the office and a few days at home) that have become common during the pandemic could be a happy middle ground.
Ultimately, increased productivity and larger profit margins are going to force working from home to stick around whether people have gripes about it or not. Every major systemic change to labor has always been driven by larger profit margins, not what the worker wants. News about vaccine candidates has become increasingly positive, but even if we have one for essential workers by fall, it’s unlikely that production will be able to keep up with demand from the general population for several months. In other words, start investing in your work-from-home office setup to make it a more permanent battle station. You might be using the same setup well after the virus has receded! ◉
Written by Seth Barham
