I see a lot of posts glorifying remote work.
And a lot of posts denigrating companies that would be so callous as to call their workers back to the office after Covid.
“We proved people can do their work from home”.
Did we? It turns out productivity is actually extremely difficult to measure. But even so - let’s say we agree with the statement “productivity remained the same or increased”.
The big asterix for me is that it lacks nuance and context.
I have no doubt that for some companies, in some circumstances, remote work is a great option.
But for a lot of other companies in other circumstances, being in the office is probably a better option.
I know that for me personally, my productivity is slightly lower when working from home. Not drastically, but a little bit. Many others I speak to say the same.
I know of other people who are running at something like 5-10% when working from home - it just doesn’t work for them. This notion that all people, when trusted to work from home, waste no time and are perfectly good employees without supervision is unfortunately just not true for a lot of people.
Some jobs lend themselves well to be done remotely. Others do not.
Sometimes, for some companies, remote is good. Sometimes, for some companies, remote is bad.
Not to mention - what else are we missing by everyone being remote? For example, 22% of married couples met at work. If we all go remote, that avenue goes away. A lot of people make lifelong friends at work. People, younger people especially, pick up a lot of social skills at work.
Et cetera.
I’m all for a discussion of moving to remote work. But I think the debate is unbalanced to say the least.
There are benefits to remote work. There are benefits to working in an office.