As coronavirus cases continue to stack up and the nationwide curfew continues to be extended, employers have been forced to comply with work-from-home policies and social distancing practices and while this certainly helps slow the effects and spread of the epidemic, more than a few industries would suffer greatly as a result. But even before this outbreak, the subject of working remotely has been a point of interest for many, the merits of which have been discussed extensively. Now, with the coronavirus outbreak effectively forcing the employer’s hand, the current situation has become what is essentially the largest social experiment ever in testing how effective working remotely pans out compared to the usual office work environment.
Of course, what makes working from home possible at all is because of the digital environment created by the internet, an invention that was in most homes by the early 2000s. The ability to communicate near instantly promised by that technology should have all but completely revolutionized the traditional office if not outright retired it, freeing employees to work from anywhere; but here we are decades later, continuing the same centuries old working patterns if a bit more flexible. Offices have been reluctant to adopt working from home practices as they feared loss in productivity, slowing any chance of it becoming anything close to common.
Now that working remotely has been effectively stress tested, several benefits have risen that may lead to the practice continuing long after the threat of the epidemic is gone. The lack of commute and stress of modern workplaces alone means that most employees greatly prefer working from home. Beyond personal preferences, studies have shown that working from home have at least a 13% increase in performance in both employees and supervisors, which has been attributed to increased focus and minimal distractions. Some research even showed that remote employees worked nearly 1.4 days more every month as office workers always tried to avoid work while remote workers took periodic breaks but ended up working for longer.
The effects of working remotely have had great beneficial effects on employees like greater job satisfaction, lower absenteeism and turnover, and increased commitment to the job. Quite importantly, work related stress had greatly reduced. For businesses themselves, they have access to a much larger, more diverse talent pool to choose from as they no longer need to take geographical location into account when hiring nor will most disabilities be an issue. There are even benefits on a scale beyond business such as cutting fuel consumption by 20%.
However, clearly with all these benefits there must be a reason why working from home has not been adopted more commonly before the outbreak.
That is because for every benefit that working remotely brings, there is also a negative. The most glaring issue in forgoing an office-based work environment is the far weaker camaraderie among employees, with dozens of studies showing that working longer than 2.5 days a week could greatly affect relationships between coworkers.
This is a significant problem for team-based businesses. Another issue is the difficulty in keeping work and home life separate and while this may increase productivity it can negatively affect employees’ social lives, causing feelings of loneliness and distance between family.
To avoid these pitfalls and more, there are certain steps one can take. First, keeping work and home life separate and properly distinguishing between the two is quite possibly the most important part of working from home. Some can find it difficult to go from relaxing to working in the same environment, so it is a learned skill to be able to ‘flip the switch’ between the two. Next, it is imperative that you work in short bursts. Office work is constantly broken up by meetings and chatting with coworkers and this essential aspect of it is difficult to replicate at home where you can isolate yourself for great periods of time.
By breaking up these long stretches of monotony with periodic breaks, employees will end becoming even more productive in the long run. But while it is simple to be hyper focused, it is just as easy to get distracted in a familiar environment like one’s own home, especially compared to their office. So, it is necessary to actively keep focus when taking those vital short breaks.
So, in conclusion, this forced work from home order does not signal the death of the office. There are far too many elements to take into account before changing that tried and true work pattern in such a short period of time. But what this situation will do is normalize working remotely and in the industries that can allow it, this may become a more common occurrence.