Why Work-From-Home should be an exception, not the norm...

Work-From-Home work culture will be an emotional, psychological, professional, financial, economic disaster and we should try to avoid it like the plague……. or like the Coronavirus!!!

The first couple of months of Work-From-Home (WFH) were great. People were feeling safer, were thankful that there was no commute, were able to live in the ‘comfort’ of their homes all day, felt more efficient as there was no loss of productivity on account of travel or the pitfalls of the ‘office-environment’, loved the flexibility of working whenever they wanted during the day and that they had all this time to spend with family. And the best of it all, they could finally just ‘Netflix & Chill’ whenever they wanted. They got their work done, seemingly without missing a beat. Many organisations, mostly tech-related, even said they would embrace remote work long term. Some companies even spoke about giving up their physical office spaces entirely.

This was actually a combination of two feelings: relief + ‘new-ness’. On one hand, people were glad that they still had a job when they left their offices in March with their laptops and a sense of an uncertain future, while on the other, the whole ‘new-ness’ of working-from-home brought with it some initial excitement, causing a “this is great” feeling.

Towards the end of month 3, they started to realise why ‘work’ had been structured the way it was, for the past many decades. People started to miss the ‘routine’ of getting ready for work which put them in a particular mindset, the face to face interaction with colleagues, the fact that everyone was available for work at the same time and the speed at which decisions are taken in a face-to-face environment without the need for multiple long rambling email threads (ugh!).

Problems that took an hour to solve in the office stretched out for a day when workers were remote. People had started to miss the separation of ‘personal’ & work-time. ‘Netflix & chill’ was getting too boring, and they just wanted a break from their home-environment. They somehow tolerated this lifestyle in months 4, 5 & 6 of WFH as the realisation dawned on them midway through month 6 that “This is too stressful & is not going to be sustainable.”

In months 7 & 8, people have had it with WFH. Projects were stalled & not taking off. Collaboration was harder. Some people had never met some of their managers or subordinates, or colleagues. Training new team members was a major issue. People were less connected with each other & showing less empathy to their colleagues, seniors were worried that the younger professionals aren’t growing into their jobs as they would in offices, sitting next to colleagues and absorbing how they do their jobs. Junior employees too don’t like it anymore as they are unable to learn fast and showcase their abilities to the fullest, which will end up impacting their career development.

Months into a pandemic that rapidly reshaped how companies operate, an majority of employees now say that remote work is not their preferred long-term solution once the coronavirus crisis passes. It is possible that large aggregated offices may be split up into smaller disaggregated work locations, but long term WFH would not be sustainable.

There is also the question of what corporations will do with their real estate. What will they do with the company-owned 40-acre ‘campus’ they have built with 6 cafeterias, 2 creches, a duck-pond, 2 swimming pools and a walking track? Even for rented office space, there are lock-in periods. The average Indian rental lock-in period is 4 yrs, in the US it is 8 years. So, whether you are using it or not, you have to pay rent. The invoking of Force Majeure clauses to not pay rent is fine for a few months, but you can’t cancel your rental agreements mid-way because of the same. No court will agree to that.

Hiring efficiencies have crashed. It’s important to have people in a room and see body language and read signals that don’t come through a screen. People are able to ‘game’ (the corporate word for ‘cheat’) video interviews and the same is exposed only when the new employee is put through a litmus test of a real-work situation, by when they have been ‘confirmed’ already and now the company needs to pay out a big chunk in severance pay.

Also, in the case of ‘face-to-face’ & ‘team-based-work’ companies, especially in the area of research & development, WFH has been disastrous. Key hardware & software product deadlines have been missed, there are enormous challenges of integrating and testing of hardware & software with R&D personnel scattered all across.

The big benefit of physically working together in a creative development ecosystem is the potential for spontaneous ‘what if’ and ‘what about’ brainwaves. A quick chat about a ‘what if’ idea with a colleague cannot be replaced by a ‘scheduled video call’.

Further, as mentioned by Satya Nadella recently in an address to the WSJ CEOs Council, remote work misses benefits of the office. "Video meetings are more transactional," he said. "In reality, work happens both before meetings & after meetings. Also, video meetings can be particularly exhausting. Thirty minutes into your first video meeting in the morning, because of the concentration one needs to have in video, you are fatigued", said Satya, citing brain studies on the subject.

Academics is yet another world where WFH, which translates to ‘Learn From Home’ is a disaster. You can’t take students out of the classroom, put them in a Zoom session and expect them to have the same level of learning efficiency per class. Learning-efficiency would drop atleast 50%. If you rush through the academics keeping the semester lengths in mind, then you are sure to have under-educated students.

Further, education which is of a ‘hands-on’ or practical nature is impossible to do working from home. Even more so if the education needs students to be a part of a team.

Lastly, students learn a lot about social interaction, communication, friendship and camaraderie by being with their peers in a ‘campus environment’. These school & college friendships go on to become lifelong bonds, something which is close to impossible in case of online classes.

In summary, Work-From-Home will cripple research & development, crash the efficacy of education & learning, reduce work efficiency. Hopefully, most people are realising that now, if they haven’t already.

So, even if the pandemic stretches on and the lockdowns aren’t fully ended, I do not envision a 100% work from Home, nor a 100% work from office mode. It is likely to be hybrid, with a few hours per day or a few days per week when everyone is in office and the rest of the time being WFH time. In the office timings too, there may be a smaller period where there is an overlap between all employees and other periods where they are working in groups.

I hope work from home is the exception and not the norm else we’re all speeding towards the proverbial ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ without knowing that the light is actually mounted atop an oncoming train…