Why working from home doesn’t always work

A comment piece by Martin Usdrowski, team development coach, writing from home

The world in a state of emergency. Many businesses fear for their survival. Quarantine, short-time working, crisis and credit. Many are asking when it will all be over and when things will finally get moving again. And whether they’ll get moving at all. And if they do, what happens next. Amid all this business uncertainty, there often seems to be just one lifeline. Working from home is the weapon meant to bring relief to many until a vaccine is discovered – presumably a Nobel Prize-worthy achievement. The cry comes from every corner: work from home. But anyone hoping for a miracle cure for the economy needs to face a sober, familiar truth: miracles don’t happen. A look at the facts may, however, give some of us ideas for what comes afterwards. Prevention is better than cure, after all, and if there are still two certainties in this world, they’re these: bats will be around for a long time yet. And so will viruses.

Working from home, noun

But what exactly are we talking about? Working from home, remote work, teleworking… Within your own four walls, the devil comes in many guises. Do all these terms mean the same thing, though? And is there really something here for everyone?

First, the buzzword topping the coronavirus-and-business charts in Germany: “Homeoffice”. Borrowed from English though it may be, the term is completely unfamiliar to most British and American business owners. They talk about telecommuting or telework instead. Academics use the more precise term “home-based teleworking”; in everyday German, it’s “Homeoffice”. The basic idea is the same: you bring the office home. Here today, somewhere else tomorrow. If you switch between the office and home, that’s known as alternating telework. And if the walls are closing in on you both at the office and at home, you should sue the architect. Or take a sabbatical. Or, once the coronavirus pandemic is over, simply try remote work. Known in academic circles as mobile teleworking, this version can be done anywhere – in the car, at the airport or at your favourite Italian restaurant. Open the laptop and off you go. Zoom and spaghetti await.

Netflix and the rest – working from home needs rules

Working from home may initially sound like the promise of absolute freedom, but it takes rules, boundaries and proper coordination with the bosses if the enthusiasm is to last more than a week.

To find the discipline you need amid children, your partner and Netflix, it makes sense to start by turning your home office into an actual office. Opening your laptop next to the cereal bowl won’t do it. Even from a purely psychological point of view, a workspace that looks like a workspace helps you stay disciplined. A room of your own, or at least a separate area, helps. Adequate lighting, the right office chair and scheduled breaks help too. And don’t let family and friends distract you. Working from home means finding ways to outwit your inner slacker. Go ahead and dress as you would for the office – that helps with motivation too.

Good communication with the company is essential. Yes, the endless calls and video calls are already piling up in Outlook. But don’t miss out on chatting with colleagues about things other than work. So make time for a shared coffee break in your Zoom, Skype and Microsoft Teams meetings too. Give it a go – I can’t recommend it enough!

Working from home creates no value – or does it?

But be honest, business owners: does working from home make economic sense too? Yes and no. It’s considered scientifically established that bosses’ fears of people putting their feet up at home are unfounded. A 13% increase in productivity speaks for itself. The reasons are fairly simple: just as bats now turn up at wildlife markets, owls and larks aren’t confined to the woods either. Everyone’s body clock is different, and adjusting working hours takes account of that. Working from home makes this easier, but take care: sleeping until noon is still off the agenda. You still need to be available to colleagues, customers and managers. Even so, greater flexibility can help with family and personal circumstances – childcare, for instance. That pays off: people who work from home are more often loyal to their employer in the long term and more motivated.

However much light floods into your home office, there are shadows here too. After all, the increase in productivity also comes from taking fewer breaks and working longer hours. Greater stress, sleeplessness and, not least, the possibility of an uninsured accident while chopping leeks are the bitter aftertaste of the working-from-home solution. Working from home could also prove a problem for anyone who wants to keep work and private life strictly separate. Add fewer pay rises and promotions because individual achievements are less visible, and this hopeful little seedling of home working ends up looking rather starved of sunlight.

The verdict: working from home can work after all

But what do the experts say? First: miracles don’t happen. Second: if you want to keep a little life in your work–life balance, the advice is against working entirely from home on a permanent basis. So: it can be all the time, but not for ever. Working exclusively from home for a limited period is always an option worth considering. In a personal crisis, for instance, or a crisis affecting society, like this one. And: it can be permanent, but not all the time. There’s nothing wrong with a mixed arrangement where employees pop into the office at least 1–2 days a week. In fact, it even has advantages. Yet German businesses still have some catching up to do here. Only four in ten companies offer their employees the option of working from home at all. Time for a change.

And so to the final certainties of the day: we have to see the crisis as an opportunity. Sometimes even clichés turn out to be true. And sometimes it takes Chinese bats to force businesses to become flexible for good.

The time to work from home is now.