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Whether working from home has been a productivity and wellness-enhancing revelation or a burden to be shouldered with stoic resolve depends on your job, your home setup and your personality. It may even depend on the day. But just as air travel changed beyond recognition after 9/11, traditional offices appear set to become safer, cleaner and less pleasing environments too.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is preparing to unveil detailed guidance for bringing Britain out of lockdown. Each employment sector will have to adapt in different ways but leaked drafts of his plans suggest that those of us who work in conventional offices will find they look and feel very different in the coronavirus era.
One noticeable change will be proximity to other workers; we’ll sit at least
2 metres (6.5 feet) apart. There will be no squeezing in the extra person at the lunch table or in a conference room. Forget hot desking. The use of printers and whiteboards will be frowned upon. Tape or paint will mark off lanes and close off desks to enforce distancing and spacing, even in elevators. Sanitiser stations will be everywhere. We’ll arrive and leave at staggered times, in single file, from separate entrances if possible.
Some will happily accept these curtailments in order to be back in the physical fray of office life, and out of their own kitchens and living rooms. For this group, there’s no substitute for face time with colleagues and the energy an office brings.
Others have found remote working saves time and energy on commuting, while it has the happy advantage of lessening your chances of infection. Many of these people feel it also provides fewer distractions and a better life balance without sacrificing productivity (although others have found all hope of balance or delineation between work and personal time has gone out the window).
The “WFH†fans will take a dim view of the brave new workplace. I can bounce between the opposing views depending on the day and task, but I probably lean toward thinking that a remote-working option balanced with plenty of office time is optimal. That seems confirmed by studies that show workers are happiest when they have some control over their environment.
A recent Gallup poll of at-home workers in the US found more than half wanted to continue to work remotely as much as possible, although the number dropped to 53% from 62% the longer their spell of remote working continued. Workers in finance, technology, media, insurance and professional services were most likely to prefer remote working more than those in education, retail, construction and transport.
What’s surprising is how positively managers view the experience, with more than half saying they’ll allow employees to work remotely more often. The result may be extra regional offices, less business travel and more Zoom meetings.
There may be other benefits to the change.
—Bloomberg