For many, the global Covid-19 outbreak has seen the workplace and the domestic space become one and the same. Office spaces may have turned their lights off, but companies who were still able to function and retain their staff implemented remote working. For some, the Work From Home bug was something worth catching. Employees only had to commute from one room of their home to the next, and every day was dress-down day as long as you looked presentable from the neck up on a Zoom call.
Pros of remote working
Taking the worker out of their operator chair and replacing the traditional office space with remote workers is more cost-effective for some businesses. Office spaces in big cities are expensive to rent, and working from home cuts out many overhead costs. Commuting is also expensive, not to mention time-consuming. Eliminating the daily commute means more time for family, hobbies, or to fulfil personal needs outside of working hours. This can lead to a better work/life balance and more productivity from staff.
Pros of offices
Working remotely isn’t suitable or even possible for everyone. For some, the novelty of working remotely has worn off – if it even existed in the first place. Working from home can be lonely and isolating for sociable humans who thrive on workplace culture and the camaraderie of face-to-face communication in the workplace. Remote workers with families, housemates or living in small accommodations without home offices may have found it difficult to set up a quiet workspace. Instead, they found themselves hunched over their laptop on their bed or sofa, yearning for their operator chair and browsing operator chairs from Bestbuy or similar retailers.
There’s also an argument for keeping work and home life separate to promote positive mental wellbeing and maintain healthy household relationships. Juggling work and home life in the same vicinity can be distracting and stressful, and it can lead to lower productivity from staff.
Offices may never go back to what they once were, but many offices are – and will be – opening their doors to staff, offering flexible working including time spent in the office and remote working. Offices are following Covid-19 guidelines to promote working safely during the outbreak, making sure the hygiene and the personal safety of their staff is never compromised.
