By J S Khan
“I will be working from home tomorrow” was usually a phrase only reserved and uttered by senior managers, or someone who has been with the company a certain amount of time and earned that trust. When overhearing this phrase as you passed through the corridors or in the canteen, a sense of envy would flow through the body and a moment of reflection would enter you mind. You then convince yourself that you have also earned the trust, and so you pluck up the courage to ask your manager “Can I work from home?”. The sheer sense of relief and joy that overcomes you when it is approved is indescribable and as you strut and gloat with your chest puffed out you feel a sense of achievement. You cannot wait to bump into a colleague and utter the phrase “If anyone needs me, I will be working from home tomorrow”.
Fast forward to now, and the difference is staggering. Working from home has now become the norm, and no longer is it only a privilege for a select few but almost encouraged at every level of an organisation. The causation of this has been the pandemic, so is it here to stay and what are the consequences?
Working from home, remote working, flexible working and my favourite, the remote agnostic model are some of the terminologies used to describe working away from the office. Generally, tech companies are the innovators of new working models and go against the grain of traditional methods. One of the biggest tech firms Twitter announced employees will be allowed to work from home ‘forever’. A company spokesperson said. “We want employees to be able to work where they feel most creative and productive”. But is this a knee jerk reaction by Twitter? Remote working in its early stages was a resounding success agreed by both the employees and corporate executives. This was mainly due to the widespread availability of technologies such as Zoom, Teams, Slack, Google Hangouts and others, which enabled people to smoothly adapt to the new setup and stay in constant contact. Although as we think about it, they would say that. Can you imagine the opposite statement from a CEO of a FTSE 100 company? Can you imagine if they said that staff “working from home has bought the company to its knees”, their share price would plummet.
The other group that needs to be considered is the “bricks and mortar brigade”, those who are trying to convince everyone that working from home is a bad idea. Could they have huge investments in the property market, needing the offices leased out to companies to stave off losing millions in rent? We also must consider that pension investments are linked to property, so if the value of property goes down then pensions may be impacted.
It is easy to focus on the benefits, such as avoiding long commutes and saving on travel costs and expenses. From an organisation’s point of view, there are potential cost savings from long-term leases no longer being needed. However, there is a dark side that has emerged that needs to be seriously considered. The social, mental, and physical aspects can impact the normal working life, and this extends to working away from the office. It has been suggested that working from home means that you never really leave the working environment either physically or mentally, leading to inadvertently working longer hours, which can have a detrimental impact on mental wellbeing. In terms of physicality, you become less mobile when you are at home than when you are in the office. People can form lifelong friendships or even meet their life partner at work, so if we never go into the office again, what impact could this have on individuals?
People learn in different ways and an important way is through observation. You learn by seeing what others do, through language and behaviour, and these things are difficult to pick up through virtual meetings. How will training new starters be conducted? There is nothing that can replicate the physical classroom setting, so young people coming into the work force may be particularly impacted when first starting out.
At a more macro level, what impact will this have on the nation and the economy? The biggest impact will be felt with the hospitality industry, within the towns and cities where the morning, lunch, and after work trade are a large source of income for these businesses. We have already seen the impact on many of these businesses having to close their doors for good as more and more people are choosing to work from home. We have already mentioned the property market which will also be impacted, particularly in the larger cities. This will obviously have an impact on the economy, and as more businesses close, unemployment rates will accelerate, and taxes will have to be increased to offset the loss incurred.
Organisations simply looking at the financial savings of working from home may have misunderstood the complexities and the impacts of this change in working, and if they ignore the sociological impact then the consequences may be severe. It has been reported that Eric Yuan, the founder of Zoom, admitted that he has been suffering from “meeting fatigue” after too many meetings while working at home. The Chinese-born American entrepreneur also said that he was planning to call the company’s employees back to the office for at least two days a week. Citigroup have introduced Zoom-free Fridays and HSBC will follow suit and have announced that they will be trialling Zoom-free Friday afternoons to tackle employee stress. The lines between home and work have been blurred and spending too much time in front of screens has health implications.
It is widely agreed that the 5-days in the office structure will probably become something of the past. The future approach will most likely look very different, but a mixture of home working and office working can meet the best needs of the employees and employers alike in terms of achieving productivity, creativity, and work life balance. When done right, the results could lead to a happier, healthier, and more productive workforce.