The Office is Dead, Long Live the Home Office!... Or is it?
Calling time on the office makes for good headlines, but is it premature to be tolling that bell.
From the press rooms of the World Economic Forum, to the BBC, industry bodies and everyone in between, there has been much talk of Covid-19 ringing time on the office, but is this true? When the pandemic passes, will working-from-home be the norm?
Teleworking, work-from-home (WFH), remote working, telecommuting has been with us in numerous guises since the 1970’s. And with modern cloud-based platforms from the likes of Microsoft, Salesforce, Google & AWS, the ability to easily set up the required tools and cyber security, to enable working-from-home has existed for many years. However, pre Covid-19, home working did not replace the office for much of the eligible workforce. Instead home working was used to provide a degree of workplace flexibility or disaster recovery capability.
To contextualise this, as of December 2019, in the UK there were 32.6 million people in employment. Of this, only 5.1% (1.7 million) stated they mainly work from home according to ONS statistics. As per the graph below, the UK work from home percentage has been increasing over the last five years, but as a proportion of the total workforce it is still relatively low. If you measure the percentage who have worked from home in the week prior to the ONS survey that increased to 12% and who has ever worked from home this rose to 27%.
In other comparable countries the trends are broadly similar. For example, according to the U.S. Census, approximately 5% of American workers primarily worked from home in 2017, up from over 3% in 2000. The Bureau of Labour Statistics showed that in 2018, 29% of US workers had the option and ability to work from home.
One of the often-cited reasons for the slow uptake of working-from-home has been centred on workplace culture and leadership. Historically, many leaders have equated working-from-home with decreased productivity, a lack of employee commitment and decreased engagement. As evidence to support this, leaders often brandish Marissa Mayer’s infamous 2013 Yahoo memo. On the employee side, they often feel the need to be “seen” in the office and not doing so, would harm their career prospects.
However, the evidence does not support these arguments. In a joint ILO - Eurofound 2017 report, it found that on average, home-based workers work longer hours and are more productive. In addition, it reported employees typically enjoyed the working time autonomy, task discretion, an improved work-life balance and greater work satisfaction.
So, if the technologies exist and the data supports higher employee satisfaction and productivity, what are the other crucial factors which need to align, to enable working-from-home to be a post Covid-19 norm? These include:
Effective Leadership
Leaders will need to proactively learn how to lead, motivate, and importantly, care for the wellbeing of geographically dispersed team members. Command & control and line-of-sight management are still prevalent in many enterprises and countries, where being “seen” in the office is an unwritten metric. Leadership will need to pivot to motivating and measuring performance based upon outcomes.
Employee’s work life balance will also need to be considered. In the U.S., over two-thirds of families are headed by single parents or two working parents. If school routines change, such as greater use of home learning, leaders will need to factor in employee’s family commitments.
For many leaders this will be a transition in leadership style, requiring support from Learning & Development departments, with the leadership techniques adapted to the local geographies and cultures in which they operate.
Access to and Stable Internet
In 2019 the internet reached a milestone with an estimated 53% of the world’s population now online, according to ITU. For many of us who consider broadband an essential utility, this is a stark reminder of the great digital divide that exists globally. However, having internet access is one thing, but having sufficient and stable bandwidth to effectively work, is another.
This digital divide is not just between countries but within countries too. For those who have been on meetings where poor internet connectivity has resulted in participants dropping and meetings being frustrated by internet issues, not only is this a business inhibitor but also demotivating for participants. For many workers internet capacity and stability will be the deciding issue. Addressing this telecoms infrastructure gap is beyond the control of most enterprises and sits at a government level.
Employee Adaptation
It is not just business leaders who will need to adapt but also employees. Working from home requires a different mindset and reaffirming or building new skills, such as self-motivation, discipline, structure, establishing new ways for communicating with colleagues and leadership, coping with isolation, and managing the work-life balance.
Whilst honing these skills, employees’ may also feel a sense of loss for the office. For many, the office is not just a place of work, but an integral part of their social life. From water cooler chats, through to social events, sports and clubs, workplace social culture is a key element of employee satisfaction and these gaps will need to be addressed.
Incorporating Home Office Requirements into Residential Planning
For a long term move to homeworking, employees need both enough physical space to work, plus the right kind of space. Employees need a space where household distractions such as housemates, partners, pets, and children can be negated.
To address this, housebuilders will need to factor work lifestyles into home design. In many countries, this is already being done through incorporating home offices or communal co-working spaces. But this does not address the existing housing stock and for many, having a spare room to convert into a home office is an unaffordable luxury. A solution that we may see is the more localisation of workspaces, with large enterprises making their satellite locations available for employees, such as KBC Bank did in Belgium. An additional solution may be an increase of co-working spaces in regional towns and villages.
However, the above is only one side of the coin, there are those who will not want to see the demise of the office yet. According to a 2018 Savills report, the value of the planet’s commercial real estate was $33.3 trillion USD. Over a third of this is owned by institutional investors, such as pension and insurance firms. These investors and commercial real estate owners are not going to let their investments sit idle. Instead they will leverage technology and be creative in ensuring they maintain a return on their investments. This may include creating low-contact buildings, rent incentives in the short term, and in the long term attracting new types of tenants and repurposing.
On top of this, there are also all the services associated with supporting the office, from Maintenance & Support, Food and Beverage, Transport, Retail, Hospitality, IT, Construction and Professional Services. All of which are significant employers and economic contributors. Changes to our working patterns will impact these industries and our economies.
Whilst calling time on the office makes for good headlines, post covid-19 we do not foresee an instantaneous 180-degree pivot from office to home working. The truth is probably more nuanced and homeworking might not be the outcome everyone desires, instead we envisage:
The continued adoption of technologies such as Microsoft 365, G Suite, Teams, Slack, Blue Jeans and Zoom, which enable working from home and give enterprises the flexibility to adapt quickly to change or subsequent waves of the pandemic.
The rollout of technology to create low contact buildings. For example, using facial recognition for building & office entry, or mobile apps to control lifts and access to other facilities such as ordering & paying for food and beverages.
The accelerated development of immersive technologies which help to bridge the gap between physical presence and distance.
The continued rise in employees who mainly work from home. The office will become a collaboration hub, where teams and leadership regularly come together to collaborate, check-in and cement relationships. Remote working will then be used for focus work and tasks.
The growth of localised work hubs and co-working spaces, enabling employees to avoid the commute but still escape home distractions, connectivity issues, or simply “feel” like they are going to the office.
Working from home will continue to grow, but for it to be a seismic shift, several factors need to align. Covid-19 may be the catalyst for aligning these factors, but it will not happen overnight.