"Zoomland or Officeville? Plotting the Future of Work

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"Creativity comes from spontaneous meetings, from random discussions." Steve Jobs:

"The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t said." Peter Drucker

"Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results." Andrew Carnegie

Work from home: possibly the pandemic’s trendiest shift. Initially considered a temporary fix, it quickly became a ‘lifestyle choice’, backed not just by popular opinion but by countless studies championing its benefits. During COVID-19, this new way of working wasn’t just a trend—it was the promise of a more flexible, balanced future.

A report by the World Economic Forum estimates that WFH increased around tenfold since the pandemic. The article suggests that the increased productivity due to WFH could mean that the era of slow growth is over, particularly with the additional output delivered by AI.

And we are already seeing it take over our lives in various instances today. Virtual medical consultancies are becoming mainstream. Schools and universities are increasingly exploring online learning, and so are dozens of virtual coaches. Virtual fitness/yoga classes are becoming popular alternatives to in-person meetings. Financial services are just so incredibly digital today that you will struggle to remember the last time you visited your bank branch. With the growth in online shopping, brick and mortar stores are expanding their e-commerce operations. Recent data from brokerage firm Elara Capital highlights that quick commerce platforms could wipe off around 25-30% of kirana stores in India.

How does this reflect on organisations and their employees? According to a report by Forbes Advisor , around 12.7% of Indians are working from home in 2024, while 28.2% have adopted a hybrid model. However, 59.1% of them still work in the office. Around 60-90 million Indians are expected to adopt the WFH model by 2025. And a whopping 98% of them want to WFH at least some of the time.

There are the usual benefits that have been brought up by those in favour of WFH. It could be avoiding the morning commute, better scope of a regular exercise regimen, spending more time with family, having a customized work environment, fewer distractions and flexible hours.

I recall going through this very thought process some time back. Although I had been regularly driving my car to work, I have found it to be most wasteful to spend enormous amounts of time in traffic jams. Interestingly, Sadhguru said this in some video, “Isn’t it your dream car?” Why complain? But a genuine issue is that car driving can add 2-3 hours of unnecessary sitting every day for most people. Too much of a sedentary lifestyle is compared to and even considered more dangerous than smoking by some, being linked to typical modern maladies like diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, anxiety, etc.

Moreover, after some time, I just did not find driving in the city as enjoyable. Due to this, I consciously made a shift in favour of the Delhi Metro. Except for one or two instances a year when it may break down or get delayed, the metro is totally stress free. And the extra walk you get to do is a big bonus.

Personally, I am biased in favour of work from office because my current commute (after shifting to the metro) isn’t so tiring. But having experienced the other side, I can totally relate to the immense burnout that people feel due to daily commuting. A study for Bangalore revealed a possible economic loss of Rs 20,000 crore due to traffic alone. A paper by Nobel prize laureate Daniel Kahneman indicates that commuting is the most detested activity, often more than work itself (though it does not say why people are detesting work)! Also, they consider remote work as equivalent to an 8% increase in salary, considering the time and money saved.

Around Rs 7,000 crore is the estimated loss for the IT sector alone. The solution to that is not necessarily work from home, but a total rehaul of the transportation system with metros, monorails, high capacity buses, etc, while discouraging private transportation, according to this report by BT . And I agree. In fact my personal vision would be people riding on bicycles for work! At least the young ones at heart, and I mean that both literally and figuratively.

What about the other factors? I do remember that we got extremely productive during COVID, when WFH was a compulsion. It is otherwise a nightmare for HR to monitor people on WFH mode, as to how much they are working. Of course, robust performance driven metrics are the way out. But in my experience, if your team is self-driven, it doesn’t matter whether you are working from home or office. If it isn’t, the problem lies elsewhere.

Research has found out that there could be specific job roles better suited to WFH like accountant, executive assistant, customer service representative, senior financial analyst, recruiter, project manager, graphic designer, etc. Companies may increasingly find it practical to shift such roles to WFH, if it indeed leads to higher productivity, reduced stress & burnout and decreased turnover.

However, there is a flip side to the equation as well. ?A recent study titled Work, Culture and Mental Well Being, was conducted by US-based research organisation Sapien Labs. It surveyed 54,831 employees from around 65 countries. Surprisingly in the case of India, it found that those who worked from office had better mental health indicators than the WFH group. In America and Europe, the best indicators were found in hybrid workers. It also concluded that relationships with colleagues and sense of pride and purpose in your work are the top factors in mental well being. ?

I tend to agree with this assessment. No matter how hard you try remote work is never the same in terms of enhancing team collaboration. Team synergies often flourish in a traditional office environment because of the ease of spontaneous collaboration and real-time interactions. When working in the same space, employees benefit from immediate feedback, organic idea-sharing, and the energy that comes from being part of a collective environment. Office settings allow for non-verbal cues and quicker clarification, reducing the potential for misunderstandings.

Team members can brainstorm more freely, and the collective atmosphere fosters camaraderie and a shared sense of purpose, which can be much harder to cultivate in a virtual setting where you only get to see each other on the Zoom screen. Additionally, in-office work can enhance team bonding, as informal interactions, like shared lunches, hallway chats or enquiries into well-being, often lead to creative ideas and stronger interpersonal connections. Ultimately, the in-person environment naturally nurtures the trust and cohesion needed for synergies, which is more challenging to replicate in a remote setup.

While work-from-home (WFH) has been praised for improving work-life balance, it doesn’t always deliver the benefits people expect. Instead, WFH can blur the boundaries between work and personal life, leading to an "always-on" mentality that can harm productivity and personal well-being. With such a huge grey area between home and work environments, employees may struggle to mentally "switch off" from work, leading to extended working hours, more distractions, and less effective time management.

Additionally, such increased proximity to family during work hours can dilute focus, making people more susceptible to interruptions and affecting the quality of both work and family time. This constant juggling can result in a sense of always being "half-present" for both work and family, reducing the quality of each. Quality time with family is about creating meaningful connections and quality over quantity, in my view. A dedicated office environment provides structure that fosters discipline and a clear routine, allowing employees to be fully productive during work hours and genuinely present during their family time.

So what is the right way forward? I think there is no easy one-size-fits-all solution. But given the challenges of commute in particular, organisations can explore a hybrid approach. For instance, they could explore a 3:2 model of WFO and WFH. HR can work with teams and demarcate the roles that can work optimally in WFH mode. Clearly measurable goals can be designed and employees made to take ownership of their work, ensuring autonomy and accountability.

Office time and spaces should be optimized to facilitate more interpersonal collaborations, team building, celebrations, felicitations, etc, the key benefit of working from office. Employees have to live up to the trust placed on them and at the same time, organisations must respect their boundaries. The system can be continuously improvised on through a feedback loop and also ascertaining the impact it is creating in terms of productivity and employee satisfaction. In my view, it is not either or… both extremes are meant to co-exist going forward, and organisations must acknowledge it.

Article authored with inputs from ChatGPT