The Work From Home Revolution

There aren't many pleasant things we can take away from the recent pandemic. The ways in which it tested us were further reaching than we could have imagined.

One silver lining to this particularly grey cloud, however, is how employers were forced to handle their workforce. Those who could work from home were suddenly allowed to do so and, as a result, we learned a few things.

Chief among the learning opportunities is: dining tables make for terrible workspaces.

In June of last year, the percentage of teleworkers in the US rose to 35%, resulting in a veritable surge in desk and chair purchases as people scrambled to remove the kids and the dog from the background of Zoom meetings.

We learned, sometimes uncomfortably, working from home is still work.

One particular example I personally ran into on a number of occasions was the cost of video conferencing equipment; a $25 webcam at one point to be found at no less than $90.

The biggest paradigm shift was to be made by employers, however. The realization began to sink in that the previous "bums-on-seats" method of extracting productivity from a workforce perhaps wasn't the most efficient.

People, it turns out, are generally no less of a good employee from home than they are in a cubicle.

By contrast, some studies have indicated that allowing people to work from the comfort of home actually boosts output, in some cases by as much as 25%. That's a significant gain from what's in reality a very viable change in working practices.

Another factor here is the cost of maintaining a work environment. Just like any pet, keeping employees gets expensive. Really expensive.

Those cubicles? Easily $5000 each.

Your office chair? Another $1,500.

Lighting, heating, cooling, a parking lot, restrooms, maintenance - everything a business might need for even creating a basic work environment represents a vast cost.

The savings by simply allowing people to organize their own work spaces at home and subsidizing the essentials are patently astronomical. Why after being forced to face these uncomfortable numbers would any business bring people back to the office?

Well there are a few reasons. Some industries simply don't favor remote working. If part of your job is heavily involved with meeting other people or seeing situations first-hand, then the benefit of an office meeting space makes more sense than introducing clients to your Zoom-background-dwelling dog.

Anyone working in a brick and mortar retail setting is also likely out of luck.

But, we have learned that even allowing people a few days a month to do the boring tasks from home, ones which they'd be parked in front of a screen for anyway, can help reduce burnout and boost employee feeling of value.

Even a little bit of remote working, it seems, can go a long way.

So what does the future hold for spending entire workdays in our pajamas?

As it stands today, we are back down to around 14% of the workforce still operating from their house. That's still significantly more than the pre-pandemic percentage and represents a genuine rethink of where businesses draw their talent and output from.

Working from home, in my opinion, is one of the new normals which we should embrace with open arms.

That is, if you guys can hear me.

No?

Does it say muted? How about now...

Richard Noble is the founder of Want For Tech, an IT company based in Glasgow.