The psychological shift we have made about working from home

Depending on which part of the world you live in, it is about a year, if not more, since the Coronavirus redefined the workspace. Overnight, millions shifted to working from home. Once stigmatized as remote 'shirking' instead of remote 'working,' the move to working from home became an organizational necessity, the only contingency play possible. Initially, when people spoke of the shift to working from home, many felt it was temporary. Many CEOs and even management pundits talked about 'return to work' - reinforcing the age-old presumption that 'work' happened only in an office. Somehow, working from home was not accorded the same appreciation as working from the office, and it was considered a business contingency, not a permanent arrangement.

A year in, a lot has changed. Study after study shows that productivity has not declined. The talk about 'return to work' only remains with the most hardened set of managers. New research shows that the future of work will be a 'hybrid.' If organizations do not offer flex or hybrid work, they risk being discounted as an employer of choice. Economists have valued the 'perk' value of working from home to be around 8% of one's pay. 1 in 2 employees surveyed have made it clear that they would prefer to leave their jobs if their organizations do not offer hybrid work.

The pandemic has done what employees, by themselves, would not have been able to do. It has shifted the power of defining the workspace to employees- and they have made the call. The work-based identity for employees before the pandemic has now changed to a well-being-based identity during and after the pandemic. The pandemic has allowed employees far greater control over their lives, made them more comfortable in their own ways of handling the pandemic, and forced them to cope with working from home much better. They have picked up new habits and rhythms that allow them to manage their work and life differently from before, and they increasingly like it. This adjustment did not happen overnight. It happened gradually, even subconsciously.

As the pandemic lasts longer, and as the scenarios about vaccinations, mutations, schools reopening remain confusing and uncertain, the dates for a possible return to office remain questionable. Even if offices open back up, just one Corona case would mean a hasty retreat to working from home. The UK noticed that the highest number of COVID cases had been recorded in offices that reopened. Some CEOs (Reed Hastings from Netflix, for instance) hate the idea of employees working from home, others welcome it (Heyward Donigan, Rite Aid), and yet others are more neutral (Tim Cook of Apple). The technology companies have been a bit more forthcoming about making work from home more permanent (Salesforce.com, Twitter, for instance) while others are more careful.

To understand how we got to now predicting that a hybrid work arrangement is likely to be the way of the future, let us look at the average employee's psychological journey since beginning to work from home. The following U-curve represents how the average employee experienced the pandemic and where they are now, a year after they started working from home.

The chart shows that there are five phases to this shift. In the first phase, as we all moved to work from home initially, there was a universal reaction to the pandemic. Those were the days when organizations instituted regular check-ins, empathy from managers and colleagues overflowed, and happy hours were still a novelty. They were days of human resolve, and the world came together. There was an overwhelming feeling of 'we are in this together.' We celebrated the sacrifices of the first-line workers, called on the aged relatives that needed help, and generally lifted ourselves by our own small acts of sharing, giving, and empathizing. However, that heady feeling of human goodness faded away as the shock of dealing with more practical issues in phase two set in. Work and life boundaries were being stretched as employees reconciled to the workload while, where necessary, taking care of restless children who thought they were on a permanent holiday. Work pressures mounted, and people were going through a physically and a mentally exhaustive cycle- wake-work-care-sleep- and cut corners across many dimensions of their lives. Working from home was not as good as they thought it would be in this phase of our journey.

Over the summer of last year, compounded by other social issues (George Floyd issues, Brexit, etc.), the situation only grew worse. Zoom fatigue was real now. Social isolation and loneliness drained us. The second COVID surge and the third surge, in some cases, made things even scarier, as reflected in phase 3. Wellbeing became a necessary priority, not a desirable one. We all faced our own mortality- and the mortality of our close ones. This fear of our health and our loved ones proved to be a transformative phase- phase 4- where we were unsure how long-lasting the pandemic will be. So, as we always do, we figured out our answers. Appreciating the pandemic will last a while; we set about making alterations and adjustments to how we work when we work, where we work, and so on. By this time, some of us made personal investments (and in other cases, our organizations helped) in sprucing up our 'workspace' at home and taking on training courses on issues like resilience, happiness, and time management. In other words, we coped. We became better at managing the situation. As we coped with it, we became better and more in control of the situation. We felt more autonomy, more in control over our lives, and suddenly wellbeing took precedence over work. Work-life balance became something we owned and managed. We also consumed all the wellbeing pills that the markets offered- gratitude, mindfulness, exercise, sleep, and what have you. We re-established our connection with our family and friends, albeit virtually. While we missed our colleagues at the office, we did not miss the mindless meetings, long, crowded commutes, and the feeling of being out of control over one's life that happens when you are preoccupied only with work.

Soon, we will pivot completely to phase five, where we feel that this is our new normal- this is how we prefer to work- our wellbeing identity has usurped our work identity.

Employees now prefer a hybrid work arrangement because of the change in their identity, not just because of a change in their workplace. Home is the new anchor for work, with the office as the additional option, not the other way around. If organizations want employees to return to work from an office, they are not just changing the workplace place; they are asking employees to change their identity once again! While the pandemic induced work from the home arrangement was not seen as the organization's fault, the imposition of a mandatory return to the office space will be its fault. If imposed, it would mean that employees will go through another U-shaped curve. Eventually, they will cope with it, but it will not be easy. This shift is modeled in the figure below.

Bottom line, the shift to working from home and return to an office space is a far more complex issue than just a change in place. It is an entirely new work arrangement and comes with its own psychological meanings and complications. Decision-makers should note that whatever call they make would result in not just a location change but a change in identity.

The train has left the station on hybrid work. Now organizations should focus on changing their management model more than changing the old work model.

Do you agree?