Is WFH an unfettered good? Should those who want it be deferred to?

In My Humble Opinion
1

So my blue-collar office is scheduled to require employees to go back to the office (three days a week) in early September. Now, this is by no means guaranteed to happen, but that’s what’s on the schedule.

There are many of my fellow employees who have kids and/or who are simply worried about COVID want permanent WFH options for everyone. The business is large (not conglomerate large, but by no means a “small business” either) and it’s been doing very well for the past years, which is held up by said fellows as proof positive that WFH is not and should not be an issue for anybody.

Our office space has expanded recently, and is probably fairly expensive, but the top brass seems to be reluctant to expand WFH any further than the 3/2 for the long term, and that has folks upset.

Myself, I’ve been eager to get back to the office. Going somewhere else each day, even though it’s to the same place, has more of an impact on me than I realize. OTOH, I am privileged in that regard in that my commute is relatively short, on public transit, and I live alone. Some of the folks advocating for full permanent WFH are those who, obviously, do not have such pleasant circumstances.

What all this has got me wondering is, is permanent universal WFH an unfettered good? For employees? For employers? Is it absolutely a no-brainer, and the only thing standing in its way is control freakery, hidebound traditionalism, and other negative qualities on the part of management that should be dismissed out of hand? IOW, if the management doesn’t budge on this issue, are they being unreasonable? Evil? (How) Should they be pressured?

Now, I’ve got some selfishness here as well. I’ve loved the occasional in-office events that the company’s put on, and I’m afraid that universal WFH will end those for good. I also liked seeing other departments and interacting in person with other folks there.

But the second part of what I’m wondering is, does what I want matter at all? Should the folks who want to WFH for good be deferred to? After all, if the answer to my previous question is, there’s no good reason to not have universal permanent WFH, then I’m just being selfish and I should be ignored. Should I be?

I’ve been thinking a lot about this for a while now, so if I’ve left any gaps here, I’ll do my best to fill them without “outing” anyone. Thanks in advance.

2

Late-breaking example: someone I know (not necessarily a coworker) is refusing to return to the office as long as doing so would increase risk from COVID by a nonzero amount, and that because of that, any precautions taken or recommended by the management inherently means that we should not return to the office at all.

Thoughts? Do you think this person will ever feel safe returning by that measure, and how far should they be accommodated? Is it unreasonable morally not to?

3

If a job can be done efficiently from home and the employee prefers it, then they should absolutely be accomodated. I mean, think about it, what purpose is being served by insisting someone be physically present if their job can be done remotely? WFH is a safety measure, it gives masses of time and money back to the employee who doesn’t have to shell out for “work clothes” and spend time commuting, it makes childcare much easier and that also puts money into the employee’s pocket (have you looked at how much day care costs? Iniquitous!) and finally it’s a social benefit to reduce traffic and pollution. Employers who insist on going back to the office are either upset at underutilization of the space they lease or they’re on a power trip and neither of those things justifies forcing employees into a situation they’re unhappy with. The churn as those WFH people go to jobs where it’s guaranteed is going to cost a lot of businesses a lot of money. They might as well just accept the fact that “going to the office” is a bullshit outdated rubric that was only continuing out of inertia and enforced by power mad employers. Fuck it–if YOU want to go to the office go right ahead but leave the WFH people alone.

4

I think like a lot of things related to employment, the economy and society the answer is going to be “it depends.” It will likely have an adverse effect on many central business districts and the service / retail / restaurant businesses that have built up around them, although I imagine covid has already wiped out a lot of those anyway.

At the 1000 foot level, I generally think WFH is a good thing. Mainly because as worker productivity has increased and corporate profits have increased, I don’t see that average workers have gotten that much of the benefits. They still work as much, if not more, than their parents did. Keynes projected that based on observed productivity gains, by the late 20th century most of us would only need to work 10 hours a week. Those productivity gains continued on from when Keynes wrote his prediction, but largely the benefits of those productivity gains were never given back to workers in the form of greater free time.

In many ways, an average office drone today has less free time than many hunter gatherer and medieval peasants did–those societies actually had times of very heavy labor interspersed with a lot of down time and relaxation time, time spent with family and in recreation (they had other big negatives to their lives, lack of electricity, running water, modern medicine etc, but their lives were not a drudgery of constant work.) The idea of our work lives taking up such a huge portion of our week started with the Industrial Revolution, and other than the hard fought 40 hour work week, most working people have made no real progress on getting that time back. Many white collar workers regularly work many hours unpaid past 40 hours a week.

All that is to say, WFH at least has the potential to claw some of people’s lives back. It may not scale back the 40 hour work week being the norm, but it will mean less time stuck commuting, more flexibility to juggle work and real life responsibilities throughout the day etc.

That’s the thousand foot view.

The 5 foot view will vary a lot from workplace to workplace. WFH is not actually reasonable for every job. But I would say if an office has functioned at the same or higher productivity during a covid induced WFH year, there should at least be serious consideration to allowing significant WFH privileges going forward. Employers are allowed to say that they’ve invested too much in workspaces and want everyone back into the office, but if that’s the only reason I think it’s reasonable for employees to look elsewhere.

5

My daughter-in-law works in a city where housing is ridiculously expensive, so she and my son live in a suburb. It’s a two-hour commute each way (mass transit or driving–if you’ve been in Seattle traffic, you know what I’m talking about), and the job requires long hours. WFH has been a godsend to her (and, indirectly, my son), and has worked well for her employer.

If companies want employees to come in, say, once a week for meetings or touchy-feely team-building exercises, fine, but if WFH has been working this long, why not offer it as an option?

6

Employers are unreasonably attached to the five day work week and resist with every fiber of their being making any change to it. Back when I had an office job my big criteria for whether or not I’d work for a company was based on whether they’d accomodate a 4/10 schedule. I mean, they even got tax breaks if they reduced commuting, so you’d think they’d welcome weirdos like me who can do an extra two hours no problem in order to win a third day off per week but noooooo, you think I’d threatened them with nostril rape for even suggesting it. I don’t get these idiots with their control fethishes, I really don’t. Give me a schedule I like and you’ll have me indefinitely, fuck with that schedule and I’m outta there.

7

WFH occasionally is nice.

If my workplace moved to full WFH for everybody all the time, I’d look for another job.

My ideal is stay home one working day a week. However, I already have that - it’s called ‘being on a 0.8 FTE contract’. Bonus - I don’t have to do any work that day

8

I would not say it’s a completely unfettered good - I suspect there are psychological benefits to participation in group environments we aren’t yet fully aware of - but it is, IMO, largely positive from a lot of standpoints: economic, environmental, health (mental and epidemiological) and not just for the employee.

The only real downside does seem to be the reduced control, but even that is just shortsightedness on the part of management, there are lots of alternative controls possible in a purpose-constructed WFH setup.

But it does require a change in management style and structure, and that is anathema to a lot of management types. Thankfully not where I work, but I have encountered it quite a bit elsewhere.

Now, the question of whether those who want it should be deferred to? Well, that’s something a lot of companies are having to face, and it looks like those who are deferring are reaping the benefits, and will be all the more attractive employers for it.

9

I’ve worked from home since the middle of March 2020. I generally love WFH. My home computer setup is actually better than what was provided for me at the office, so I’ll miss that if and when we’re brought back in. The flexibility and resulting work/ life balance is fantastic.

In the before times. I actually could not work from home, even if some emergency popped up after I left work, because I did not have a computer with a work-approved VPN connection at home. Now, if I have a dentist appointment, or I have to let a plumber in the house, or any reason, I can take the time during the day and finish up my work a little later if I need to.

The only drawback is that interaction with coworkers is just not the same over Zoom and phone calls. Something in the interaction gets a bit lost. And I actually like my coworkers, and kind of miss working with them in person.

10

Askamanager talked about this. One thing she pointed out - I did not think of this - is that remote working can be hard on newcomers.

It’s moot for me - I don’t think you want a night auditor working from home - but what I have come away with is: it depends on the workplace and the people. No one way will work everywhere.

11

I’m in an interesting position to address this aspect. I did three years of full-time WFH, that ended a couple of years before the pandemic, when my employer changed the rules, forcing me to come back to the office 3 days a week. Of course, since the pandemic started, I’ve been back on full-time WFH.

So I can tell you, WFH during the pandemic has been qualitatively different than WFH pre-pandemic. Largely because, pre-pandemic, once I was finished work, I was free to do whatever I wanted. Go shopping, go out for dinner, go to a movie, go to the pub, go visit my parents, go to my martial arts class, go to a football game, whatever. Of course, with lockdowns and everything being closed for months, WFH now is much worse, because all I can really do is go from sitting in front of the computer to sitting in front of the TV, or reading a book. That was okay for a while, but the last six months or so it’s gotten really old.

Now that we’re starting to open up again, and I can start doing more of the other things I used to do, it’s much much better.

Now, imagine, for those who’ve only done WFH during the pandemic, but still found it far better than going to the office - how much better will it be once the pandemic is over?

I don’t imagine any employer that used to have traditional offices will ever go to mandatory full time WFH, so if you’re one who doesn’t like WFH, you’ll have the option of going to the office. But those of us who like WFH should also have an option. As long as we’re doing our job, why not?

12

My wife and I both work downtown, a few blocks from each other. Our commute was 30-45 minutes each way in the Before Times. We took transit the first year or so, then just started carpooling together. It was convenient that we could commute together, but that was still up to an hour-and-a-half per day spent just sitting in the car.

During the lockdown, though, we bought a house which is better suited for working from home- I have an office in the basement, she’s in her office up on the third floor. We eat lunch at home, together, every day. Our dogs get to see us all the time. If we want, we can step out into the back yard to decompress. Sure, we don’t really see anyone other than each other throughout the day, but we have so much time in the evening.

Both of our employers have started making noises about wanting people to start coming back into the office. Her employers own a huge stadium downtown, and apparently really hate to see the offices sitting empty. My employer leases three floors of a building not far from there, and have spent a lot of money upgrading it… so I imagine they want to see it put to good use. However, we’ve both been getting our jobs done during this WFH period, so… uh… what, exactly, is in it for us to start going back into the office? It would only cost us more money and cut into our personal time to do so.

I get messages from recruiters weekly and most of them are looking to hire positions which are full-time WFH. If my company insists that we have to start coming back in, I might have to think about finding a new employer.

13

We’ve all been WFH since March 2020. My office is looking to move to a “flexible working” model starting this fall, with people coming into the office 2-3 days a week and WFH the rest of the time. Our management fortunately do not suffer from the control freakery of such businesses, and they are now actively working to adapt three floors of our building to rent out to other businesses because we won’t need all the space. There will be some logistical wrangling over when people come in - I mean, someone will have to come in on Fridays - but in general this approach seems to be what most employees want.

Tbh, most of the grumbling is about issues with public transportation and how they’re messing with the ticketing models in ways that will still make coming in intermittently disproportionately costly.

14

I love work from home. When I’ve had to go into the office it’s much worse even if I’m doing the same job. My company had office space but we gave it up during the pandemic and everyone in 100% wfh now but I’ve told each of them if they want a promotion they’ll have to give that up.

We are looking to build a building and use our consultants to run a distillery and school as well as expand the consulting company. I’d like my guys to move up and start training a new crop of engineers and distillers under them. While I can on board and train a new employee remotely this will be the first management role for any of my engineers and they will be training new grads who don’t know how to work yet. To improve the success rate for everyone I want managers and new employees to be in the office together. Not to mention teaching classes at the school will be hands on in the distillery 40 hours per week. We’ve got time since I need to wrap up my current round of employee training and then build the building and I’m also quite happy if they choose to stay in their current roles 100% remote.

15

Because businesses care exclusively about profits, I would have to believe that traditional office work is more profitable than WFH. The cost to maintain an office is huge. If a business could remove that item from the balance sheet and still maintain their revenues, their profits would increase by that amount. I can’t imagine that the business would forego those profits just so that managers can feel important by looking over employees. Even if the middle managers wanted it, the investors wouldn’t tolerate it. The investors would go to a company which was exclusively WFH to maximize profits. And WFH companies could offer products and services cheaper since they wouldn’t be carrying all those office related expenses. The fact that so many businesses are WFO and are pushing for employees to get back to the office means that there has to almost certainly be a profit-driven reason to work in the office.

I think the success of WFH during the pandemic is partly due to the momentum from before this all started. Teams and businesses already had a coherent feel and could maintain that when we all went WFH. Going forward that may not be the case. It may be harder to maintain a company culture and sense of team when the team is just little videos on a Zoom window. It may create an environment where the employees feel like independent contractors.

Certainly there are advantages to WFH, but I’m not certain we can say it’s an unfettered good and should be permitted wherever feasible. The employee may prefer it, but it may be better for the business overall to have the employee in the office.

16

You’re assuming that most businesses are run in a rational fashion. That’s largely not true. Pretty much everyone who’s worked in some kind of large organization has at least one story about how the organization did something spectacularly stupid/short-sighted/irrational.

And it really doesn’t take much to think of counter-examples. For many decades, women worked for lower pay, yet how many businesses decided to employ only women in order to save money on wages? You could also say the same about almost any minority group.

Similarly, how many businesses spent decades denying service to Black people? Hell, they went to court to fight for the right to refuse to serve them! How many white-owned businesses stepped up to serve this community, and thus rake in profits left behind by their competition?

Hell, the comic strip Dilbert became hugely popular because so many people saw a reflection of their own employer in the dysfunctional company Dilbert worked for.

Businesses make bad decisions for weird reasons all the time.

17

That’s been one of the big downsides of it for the ad agency where I work. Junior people have had a far more difficult time getting good mentoring and coaching, and it’s just harder for new hires (even more experienced ones) to get to know their new colleagues and build bonds.

18

I’m retired so it doesn’t apply to me, but I have some questions for those who are doing WFH.
It seems like your home situation is important. WFH from a big suburban house with enough room for an office might be different from doing it in a one bedroom apartment where your office is a kitchen table. Child care counts. What your company expects also counts.
If you had a 2 hour commute (1 hour each way) WFH is like a big raise in your hourly rat, not to mention savings in travel expenses and clothes. If your company expects you to start working when you would have left home then your benefit is not so great.
Long pre-pandemic I did WFH when my wife was stuck in bed and needed me to get her things. It worked pretty well. But everyone doing it probably makes it easier than if you are the only one.
Thoughts?

19

I think in a couple years, these two quotes will be the reasons that people look back with nostalgia on the good ol’ days of work–from- home, but realize that it wasn’t as great as they had hoped.

I compare it to the the fad that everybody was raving about when the internet was new: outsourcing. This was not just a management buzzword–it was reality. Suddenly people could “work from home” in India and everybody would be happy.
It is still okay for some companies, but in the long term, it didn’t live up to expectations…

20

We have a few new employees since March 2020 and they have integrated well, despite never being in the office. But that’s within our team. All of their contact with coworkers is structured. They haven’t met anybody during coffee breaks in the common areas. This means they have a very limited view of the company.

For some roles, this works well. For those who are supposed to come up with new ideas, or build new solutions within the company, they need to have contact with other people. We haven’t figured out how to replace the unstructured part of the office with video conferences. Virtual coffee breaks are horrible, compared to the real thing.

I much prefer a mix, but it may not be every week 3 days at home and 2 days in the office. It could be 3 weeks at home and 2 weeks in the office, for example. I’m not going to have the same contact with people outside my team as I had before. But it will be better than always staying at home.

Two other points.

Until recently, even going out to restaurants, etc., was really restricted. That meant that WFH was even more isolating. This is currently better, but I’m not holding my breath. I think we will end up getting restrictions again.

Someone mentioned child care. Years ago I had a coworker who was working from home 1 day a week so she could be home with the children. For us it meant she wasn’t available for meetings, even on the phone, on that day, because her schedule was uncertain. For older children, for example 8-12, I could see it possible for having the children at home and for the parents to be productive. But I know my coworkers with younger children really had problems over the last 18 months when they couldn’t send their children to child care and both parents had to work.