We need an office for a good work-life balance!

For me, having a proper work-life balance is high on the agenda. With this balance in place, I am so much more effective at work and so much more a pleasant person at home. Until a few months ago, for me, this meant that I tried to work from home for one or two days per week, combined with a mix of working from the office and home during the day.

And then Corona kicked in… We all needed to work from home as much as possible.

Working in a service industry (consultancy), you think this is very well possible and it also sounds like the ultimate solution for a better work-life balance.

Nine weeks down the line, reality kicks in. Working from home behind a laptop screen all day is not doable. You need an office. Not just for the sake of putting people together to collaborate as it used to be in the past, but for the sake of making a separation between work and private life!

RWE from RWE: Real-World Evidence from a Remote Working Experiment

The past 9 weeks have been a big Remote Working Experiment (RWE) for a lot of people, including myself. My going-in hypothesis was, that this would work out fine. I was already used to working from home, as well as collaborating remotely with colleagues and clients.

To test a hypothesis, you need evidence. In this case Real-World Evidence (RWE): tracking your assumptions in the real world, not in a lab.

In short, I have gone through 3 phases in this experiment. In a pharmaceutical setting, each phase would further prove the findings of the previous phase… In my case, each phase gave different insights -- and feelings. And the results of phase 3 are not the results I want in real-life!

Yes, you see I'm working with the pharma industry a lot: real-world evidence, 3-phased studies…

Phase 1: Getting used to it

The first 2 weeks were quite hectic. Everything changed. Already scheduled face-to-face meetings had to be rescheduled to remote meetings. A lot of check-ins with colleagues to see if they were OK and managing to set up a home office and continue their work.

Day-by-day, I was more getting used to fully work remotely from my home. Slowly, all of us were turning on the cameras during Teams/Skype/WebEx/Zoom meetings. In the end, I started to feel quite OK with the situation.

Phase 2: Being productive

Things were settling in and it already felt like a new normal. Business continued, projects continued, meetings via video calls worked perfectly. Not only with people I already knew, I also built new connections in a remote way.

Conversations even seemed to be on a deeper level. Via the webcam you are looking into somebody's home and you have very personal exchanges on how you are coping with the Corona situation. With the occasional kids running by, neighbors making noise etc.

For a number of weeks, for me it really felt that you can perfectly work this way forever!

Phase 3: Getting tired

However, it is not sustainable… Over the last 2 weeks I really felt tired. I have been behind my laptop for 8 - 10 consecutive hours per day, with limited breaks. Your laptop is your only view of the world. Moving from meeting to meeting, very efficient, but very one-dimensional and no breaks in between.

It is all becoming one big blur… A blur between private life and work, as your home is your office. And as a consequence, a blur between day and night, and a blur between weekdays and weekends.

At night, I've never felt so tired. And in the morning, I never had such a difficulty waking up. Luckily, I kept my discipline of running 3 times as week.

Key lessons learned

This Remote Working Experiment has taught me some key lessons:

1. We can absolutely work more remotely than we've thought in the past
2. Video calls really work fine, but mainly for shorter meetings
3. There are meetings where I really need the physical interaction between people
4. I really need physical movement during the day and in between meetings, to reflect , process outcomes and relax
5. An office or office space is really needed for me, to secure the boundaries between work and private life

New normal: more remote, but you need an office!

Hopefully we will soon enter the 'new normal', with Corona times behind us. Our economies need it, as well as our people.

In this new normal, I really hope we will have way more meetings in a remote setting than before. Is it really necessary to jump in a car or on a train or plane for a one-on-one meeting of 1 or 2 hours? We will reduce our travel and save a lot of precious time with that, while also having a major positive impact on the environment.

And during these remote meetings, let's make sure to make it proper video calls: keep the cameras on. It makes these meetings so much more engaging.

And in general, let's keep that more personal touch to business meetings. Give each other a bit of insight into your personal live as well. I found that very enriching and inspiring. That should not go away!

But we can not keep working from our homes. We need an office where we can regularly go to. This can be the company office, a shared office space or the customer's office. It is needed to interact with others (we are human beings after all!), but especially to differentiate between work and private life.

Acknowledgements

This article is peer acknowledged by many colleagues, customers, business partners and friends!