WFH (Work From Home or Week From Hell?)
I remember when WFH used to mean WEEK FROM HELL (like finals week or trying to hit quotas at the end of a quarter) and now 99.9% of humans know it to mean WORK FROM HOME. Before March 2020, before Covid-19 took our breath away, approximately 17 percent of US employees worked from home 5 days per week. That figure increased to 44 percent as we experienced quarantine & lockdown. A massive leap in a micro-flash that required many of us to “figure this out”. I think most of us came to realize pretty quickly that the pathetic excuse for an office chair we had at home just wasn’t going to cut it. We also realized we may be in for the long haul on this whole WFH thing.
So why do I even bring up the topic at all? Firstly, it's unavoidable. As a recruiter specializing in Supply Chain, I am constantly being hit with a barrage of questions around the subject from both clients and candidates alike. Secondly, I broach the subject here to make a hopeful prediction:
By the end of 2021 the percentage of folks working from home will dip back down below 25%.
I state this as a hopeful prediction because in my humble opinion the pros of being in an office setting far outweigh those of a work from home environment, especially in Supply Chain.
It hasn’t been lost on me that there were, still are, and always will be a good chunk of the workforce that simply cannot do their job remotely (healthcare, construction, hospitality, manufacturing, etc..). So here we are over a year later and the topic is as fresh and timely as the day we transitioned to working remotely. Now that we are in a recovery mode and we are returning to a healthier state of existence it’s time to examine where we go from here.
According to U.S. News, these are the pros and cons of working from home for an employee:
- Pro: You have the flexibility to take care of appointments and errands.
- Pro: There are fewer interruptions from meetings and chitchat.
- Pro: There is no commute time or expense.
- Con: There is no physical separation between work and leisure time.
- Con: It is easy to misread cues via electronic communications.
- Con: You must make the effort to get a change of scenery.
When I take a look at that list, I’m not so sure these are pros at all.
The first “pro” on the list sounds like it might stand for procrastination. As a workforce, we managed to get to our appointments and ran our errands just fine in the pre-covid era. And I agree that not having a time to “clock in and clock out” may actually be a detractor for many from a productive work schedule.
The second “pro” on the list might make sense to some but try talking to those who have been home schooling their kids. I would rather have a 5 minute chitchat with Cindy in the breakroom than a 15 minute hiatus from my desk to find out what little Jack broke and why his sister is crying. And to be honest I think the real point here is that those elbow-rubbing incidents in the office are often where important collaboration and innovation actually stem from (hard to mimic those encounters digitally).
This last “pro” is the one that makes the most sense to me. As someone who lives in New York I know a thing or two about commutes. Commuting 15 steps to my home office sure does beat two buses and a train into the city because of the headache and the time. I would even add that it may reduce overhead in the form of a smaller office or dare we say it, no office at all. But then again who is going to have to pay to outfit every home office for all the newly remote employees and are there potential security concerns?
There is no RIGHT or WRONG answer. I think it depends on the company, the function and the particular individuals, but for me, I’d like to see a return to the office. I’d put the pros and cons of working in a physical office up against the pros and the cons of WFH any day.
You may agree or disagree on what is right or wrong to do in this scenario, but I for one am all in favor of getting back to as much of an office setting as possible. Would love to hear your thoughts, whether they align with mine or not!