Every Office Worker Will Demand the Choice to Work From Home
The ongoing situation has accelerated remote work 10 years in 5 weeks
Now that workers have experienced the benefits of remote work it's going to be incredibly difficult to put the genie back in the bottle. They know they can operate more efficiently and effectively from home. Collaboration on Zoom has been great and very similar to in-office collaboration. We are beginning to realize that offices are not necessary to do great work.
The reason is incredibly simple: flexibility and quality of life.
Flexibility
Operating 9-5 from an office every day limits what you can do. Never getting to drop the kids off at school, being late to eat with your partner each evening, lacking the opportunity to fit the things into our life we love doing most. Office work shackles us to a specific geographic location – typically a city with a high cost of living – which forces us to accept several things. Remote work break us free from that:
??Balance
The ability to organize work around your life rather than life around your work may be the most liberating change in work history. Remote work lets me work when I am most productive, setting the schedule that suits me to do my best work.
Life-work balance replaces work-life balance.
???Permission
Asking your boss to go to a doctor's appointment is like sending a note to the principal to get out of school. Life doesn't have to be like a continuation of your education living style.
I now do the things I need to do, while still getting my work done.
??Commute
Wasting 25 total days of your life each year sitting in a pollution emitting steel box is a massive waste of your time. Working remotely immediately gives you all this time to use however you wish.
I now workout, read and eat with family IN LESS TIME than my previous commute!
Quality of Life
People will realize that the freedom from being expected to occupy a seat for 8 hours a day enables leads to a massive quality of life increase. Being able to do what you want when you want while still being able to operate and do better work than you've ever done in your life, which has several massive benefits:
??Family
Working 40 hours a week in an office while having to waste 10 hours a week on top of that commuting limits how much time we can spend with the people we care about most. Our main social contact comes from people selected by our bosses hiring policy.
Remote work lets me have deeper meaningful relationships with friends and family.
??Health & Wellbeing
Sitting in a car, to then sit in front of a screen all day is terrible for our health and wellbeing. We don't have time to improve our health and our wellbeing suffers because we don't have the freedom to detach from the things we have to do.
I can run at lunchtime if I need to recharge, take time every day to focus on personal development and eat more healthily than I ever have before.
??Lower Cost of Living
Big cities where high paying jobs are having a high cost of living which leads to less disposable income. This limits what we can do with our money because we have less of it to spend.
Remote work lets me live in a lower-cost region, increase my disposable income and have a far higher quality of life as a result.
Why Now?
Remote work is the biggest workplace revolution in history and nothing will deliver a higher quality of life increase in the next decade than this. Workers having more flexibility to decide their work schedule, able to operate when they are most productive rather than a fixed day, enables a far better future of work than the one we currently experience. Organizing work around your life is a huge transition with major implications. Gone is the requirement to beg your bosses permission to go to an appointment, it is the ability to drop and pick your child up from work every day with time in the afternoon to go for your recharging run.
Being handcuffed to an office and expected to live in a high cost of living city with a low quality of life is a remnant of the industrial revolution. The devolution of offices into almost factory-like conditions as distraction factory adult kids clubs is complete. The office has become the worst place on the planet to get the isolation and focus you need to do deep work.
Make no mistake, remote work is exploding to prominence right now. We are living through the inflection point today. Shortly, workers will realize their power and influence to demand remote work.
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Senior Digital Marketer and Demand Generation Specialist
4 年Thanks for sharing this Chris! Remote work indeed has become the new normal for many organizations. I agree, the remote working doesn't mean inefficiency in any way. Our teams at Planview Int. have been successfully working remotely for many years now! What you need is a good collaboration and project management platform. Projectplace helped us keep us work-oriented, helping us staying focused and connected as we moved virtual.
IndEx - Industry Excellence, Asessment on CO2 intensity and decarbonisation of steel industry, Benchmarking on Process yield, Reliability, Process analysis, Project mgt, Occupational and Process safety, Mngt of Change.
4 年Yes agree puts the employee firmly in charge of their lives and will increase their effectiveness no end. The flexibility will increase even more when working at times that suit other regions as appropriate.
Product Designer | Functional Artist | Inventor
4 年Been thinking the same thing! Once you go, there is no going back!
Thanks Stathis Stasis for sharing Chris post. Kudos.
Writer | Leadership Coach | Change Management | Learning and Development | People and Culture
4 年I have been working from home for several years and have found that it is the best fit for me. I am more productive, happier, and healthier than I ever could be working in a corporate office. Toni Spagnoli is right, though. It takes commitment, work ethic, a dedicated space, privacy, and security to pull it off. The level of trust that must exist between supervisor and employee is also paramount. I think this adds to the confidence, professionalism, and productivity of the employee. When a positive relationship exists and value systems are in place to honor self-care and family, in addition to the employer's objectives, I think most employers will find employees reporting greater satisfaction and respect for their job, which will lead to less turn-over and better outcomes overall.