It wasn’t so way back that having the choice to work out of your lounge in your slippers felt like a futuristic dream bordering on utopia.
But right here we’re, virtually on the doorstep of the total distant revolution, and I’m watching a queue of enterprise leaders feverishly backpedal in direction of outdated notions of “bums on seats.” Or, as I prefer to name it: “The Return of the Status Quo.” Pardon me whereas I stifle a yawn. As a result of if there’s one factor I’ve realized from a decade-plus of banging the proverbial drum concerning the virtues of working from dwelling, it’s that the naysayers are normally being led by one thing that’s extra about management (and a contact of mistrust) than real enterprise sense.
Let’s be completely clear: I’ve been peddling the work-from-anywhere mantra since 2011, if not earlier—my piece in Enterprise Issues a 5 years in the past, “Working at Home Can Lift Positivity, Productivity, and Profitability,” ought to have been etched onto the hearts of each forward-thinking employer. Again then, I bear in mind the world patting me on the pinnacle and saying, “Yes, dear, lovely idea,” whereas continuing to double-check nobody was enjoying solitaire within the again nook of the workplace. It was like telling a Victorian mom you deliberate to feed her valuable son vegetarian sausages. The horror. The uncertainty. The delicate panic that every little thing we knew about company life was about to disintegrate into chaos.
Quick-forward just a few years—effectively, various—and we’ve all seen exactly how viable working from wherever could be. There are even fewer excuses for archaic attitudes now. Know-how has made it easy, low cost, and ridiculously versatile to copy all the mandatory features of a bodily office with out truly dragging your bleary-eyed physique onto a crowded commuter prepare. After all, that’s to not say the usual HQ has no function. Some individuals genuinely love the camaraderie and construction of a shared area. However to insist that it’s the one manner? That’s a bit like refusing to let your youngsters have a smartphone since you suppose provider pigeons had been doing simply superb all these years in the past.
One of many earliest arguments I recall making, in one other Enterprise Issues piece titled “Bodies & Bums Cost Money, Can Go Virtual,” was that paying for a military of chairs to be occupied from 9 till 5 is each costly and, frankly, pointless within the trendy age. You’re shelling out for the actual property, the electrical energy, the bathroom paper—and for what? An opportunity to observe Sandra from accounting sort away in actual time? A every day chat over the espresso machine about final night time’s telly? I’ve nothing in opposition to Sandra’s enthralling dialog, however let’s be trustworthy: a very good Zoom or Groups assembly can ship the identical interaction, minus the leaky commute. If you wish to foster human interplay, schedule weekly get-togethers or one good off-site a month. However making it necessary each single day feels as antiquated as a carbon copy receipt.
And but, that’s exactly what many firms are doing, urgent the large purple “Reverse” button on progress by dictating that everybody scuttle again below the fluorescent lighting, tethered to desks as soon as extra. We hear the identical, drained rationale: “productivity is slipping,” or “team spirit is lost,” or (my private favorite) “people can’t be trusted to do their work from home.” Let’s unpick these, we could?
First, productiveness. It’s breathtaking how usually distant employees find yourself working longer hours just because they don’t should endure the pains of a commute. Think about that folks can set their very own schedules, do their finest work once they’re truly feeling awake, and take breaks that don’t revolve round compulsory small speak within the kitchen. That’s not laziness; it’s fairly the alternative. Individuals who aren’t pigeonholed right into a 9-to-5 routine usually uncover a candy spot for output that fits their pure rhythms. And guess what? That normally means extra deliverables, not fewer.
Second, the workforce spirit fable. As if the one factor binding a workforce collectively is the flexibility to bodily see one another in an open-plan setting. Workforce spirit comes from shared objectives, supportive management, and clear communication—not the faint odor of microwaved curry and the pitter-patter of frantic typing. Anybody who’s spent greater than per week in a Zoom-based collaboration will know there’s a real camaraderie that sprouts once you’re working collectively in direction of the identical targets, even should you’re in several postcodes. And should you ever miss hugging your colleagues in particular person, you possibly can meet up as soon as a fortnight or month for that massive, heat embrace—no hurt finished.
Lastly, the belief difficulty is probably essentially the most bewildering of all. Why rent individuals you don’t belief, after which fixate on babysitting them from 9 to 5 in an workplace? If your corporation mannequin is determined by eagle-eyed managers hawkishly scanning for slouching staff, there’s one thing rotten within the course of. Good employees get the job finished. Distinctive ones will do it higher when given the liberty to form how they work. Micro-managing, in contrast, breeds resentment and stifles creativity. We now have a phrase for that, and it begins with “toxic.”
On the finish of the day, companies pushing a inflexible return-to-office directive will not be simply ignoring the previous decade of proof that distant work is helpful; they’re flipping a V-sign to the long run. Folks have confirmed they are often much more productive, balanced, and, crucially, content material working from areas that go well with them—be {that a} dwelling workplace, a seashore hut in Cornwall, or a Wi-Fi café within the mountains. I’m not saying places of work must be eradicated fully. I’m suggesting they must be an possibility, not an obligation. A device, not a lure.
So, sure, I take into account the “bring back the offices” brigade to be as misguided as dial-up web evangelists—clinging to the snug drudgery of the previous methods somewhat than forging forward with the brand new. We are able to do higher than that. Actually, we have already got. The argument in opposition to distant work made some sense again within the ‘80s, but in the 21st century, it’s about as related as a Filofax. And should you ask me, lengthy could that irrelevance proceed.
So let’s collectively knock this regressive concept on the pinnacle. A versatile method permits companies to rent one of the best, hold one of the best, and get one of the best from them. Insisting on the previous mannequin of “bodies in the building” is short-sighted, blinkered, and can inevitably result in a mass exodus of proficient people who know they are often simply as efficient—or extra so—at dwelling. After over a decade of championing this trigger, I’ll say it louder for these within the again: actual, thriving companies on this century will worth outcomes, not face time. And the remainder? They’ll be left standing with their creaky curler chairs, questioning the place all of it went flawed.
