Working From Home: What if You Never Saw Your Colleagues in Person Again? (bbc.com)

Bryan Lufkin, writing for BBC: Throughout my career I've worked with people that I've never met in person. In theory, I could spend an entire day without meeting another human face-to-face. But could this kind of self-imposed isolation become standard working practice in the future?

Studies show that in the US, the number of telecommuters rose 115% between 2005 and 2017. And in early 2015, around 500,000 people used Slack, the real-time chat room programme, daily. By last September, that number soared to over 6 million. In 2017 a Gallup poll revealed that 43% of 15,000 Americans say they spend at least some of their time working remotely, a 4% rise from 2012. And a 2015 YouGov study found that 30% of UK office workers say they feel more productive when they work outside their workplace. How would we feel if we never had to work with another person face-to-face again? Would we care? Have things gone so far that we might not even notice?

Comments

Depends on the job

[alvinrod]

I think it really depends on the job. There are clearly some where being left the hell alone and not bothered allows a person get much more accomplished, never mind all the time saved from the commute to work.

However, I can't imagine having something like a writers' room that works anywhere near as effectively if everyone is video conferencing in from home. Also anything that requires a lot of specialized and expensive equipment doesn't seem workable in that manner either.

However, if you could have 20% of the current work force working from home it would likely make traffic far more bearable for the other 80%.

Re:WFH was so much more productive

[xevioso]

The jury is still out. Working at home allows you to complete tasks on your own time and in your own environment where you are presumably less distracted.

But you also lose the ability to have face-to-face collaboration, which is very important in certain industries. Scheduling a skype meeting is different than chatting with someone in the hall about what might be needed or expected for an upcoming project. There's a reason a lot of deals and agreements get made in person, and people have had the ability to meet via "video-conference" for decades now; yet face-to-face contact is stil preferred in certain situations.

I think it's often best to have it both ways...to come in for meetings sometimes, but to work at home for projects that require intensive work.

Re:WFH was so much more productive

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of the people I know that work from home are more productive but they eventually get shit on because of office politics. The employees that are physically at the office every day have social opportunities and form relationships that, unfortunately, make a huge difference when it comes to career advancement.

Re:Yes please!

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope so!

Indeed. The majority of people are self-centered, self-absorbed, and self-important. As such people are not interested in introspection, personal growth and change, they tend to also be petty and small-minded. Maybe it has always been this way. Generally, the workplace is the only place where I cannot easily avoid such people by choosing not to associate with them. There are no benefits to this -- it is only a source of stress. Also when the slightest power/authority is involved it makes all of this worse. Rather than responsible leaders, many workplaces are filled with petty tyrants whose only concern is playing politics and looking good.

By eliminating unnecessary social contact in the workplace we would gain much more control over our own social lives. It would make social contact a much more voluntary phenomenon, both in terms of quantity and quality. It would increase the tendency of "water seeks its own level".

Those who want lots of contact would find plenty of like-minded company, in fact they would find they are the majority. The only thing they would find lacking is the ability to impose their ways and their personality traits (i.e extraversion) on others. This is a Good Thing.

I can't imagine anyone having a problem with this, except maybe nosy busybodies and those with a thinly-veiled desire to control others. I guess the usual excuses would be used, ranging from "you should be forced to do X because I have decided it's for your own good", to those who are merely threatened by the fact that not everyone else is just like themselves.

Re:Yes please!

[ShanghaiBill]

I hope so!

Be careful what you wish for. Work that can be done from Montana can also be done from Mumbai.

Re:Yes please!

[taiwanjohn]

I couldn't help noticing the ironic word-wrap on the first line of your post:

Indeed. The majority of people are self-centered, self-absorbed, and self-important. As such people are not interested in introspection,

Re:Yes please!

[Bigbutt]

I do work from one day a week as scheduled and have to throw an extra day or two in over the winter due to road conditions. Personally I find there's some comeraderie that's missing when you don't work directly with people. The day to day interactions that make the team a team vs 10 people who work together. When I worked at IBM, I worked on a contract for a year that was 100% work from home. And it was pretty bad, team wise. Conversations were very business oriented with no personal connection with the rest of the team. I'm pretty introverted but still enjoy being able to freely trade pokes at the team. And nothing like coming in and hearing, "oh, you weren't here when we discussed [some tech subject]" and then having to be spun up on what's going on.

From a business perspective, yes, if you can work from home, you can work from Mumbai or Saigon. And there are benefits in that germs aren't passed around either. Plus the "wasted time" of work related socializing.

Team Building exercises. Going out with the guys at lunch or after work. Eventually, like at IBM, you're just a cog in the machine, easily replaced by someone in Mumbai.

[John]