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

Re:WFH was so much more productive

[AuMatar]

I don't think the jury is out either- I think its in, and in the other direction. ALmost nobody is more effective working from home. Between the built in distractions (family, TV, radio, environment) and the lower level of communications, people get far less done at home than they do coming in and concentrating. And that's not counting the tendency to cheat on hours and spend less time working when nobody is checking. I have never seen someone go from working at the office to working from home without a massive drop in output, and the drop generally increased as they became lazier at home over time.