Can We All Work From Home?

“The challenge of work life balance is without question one of the most significant struggles faced by modern man.” – Stephen Covey

Introduction

I don’t think Stephen Covey could have predicted the rapid and far-reaching impact the pandemic crisis has had on the world of work, and how it has changed the definition of work-life balance for much of the workforce.

As we continue down the path of finding a “new normal” the economy is slowly re-igniting in sporadic bursts. Unemployment is still at historic highs in the US and around the world, but it is starting to level out. Many workforce experts are predicting the great workforce shakeup of 2020 will likely continue to unfold and recover for the next 12-24 months.

One of the most startling outcomes has been the rapid enablement and adoption of “work from home” (WFH) policies by many organizations. While this movement has been discussed for years by HR theorists and was slowly gaining traction, it literally exploded in the matter of a few weeks this spring when it became a widespread requirement for people to shelter in place because of COVID-19. Many organizations that had been forced out of necessity to temporarily implement WFH policies are now extending them, and in a growing number of cases making WFH a permanent option (at least for some workers).

This movement brings with it both challenges and opportunities for business leaders, and it surfaces many of the inequities in the workplace.

The World of Work is Not Fair

Yes, it is true: the world of work is simply not fair or equitable. It never has been.

And I’m not referring to racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination which we all know are still very much a systemic and serious problem in our society and the workplace.

The bitter truth is that remote work only amplifies a number of the historical discrimination problems in the workplace. Research by the Economic Policy Institute highlights two examples:

• Less than one in five (19.7%) of black workers and roughly one in six (16.2%) of Hispanic workers are able to work from home.
• Higher-wage (earnings greater than 75th percentile) workers are six times as likely to be able to work from home as lower-wage (earnings below 25^th percentile) workers.

Making matters even worse, work from home has exposed the painful reality that many jobs simply are not possible to do from home. For example, most service jobs (ranging from food services, to hospitality, to retail, to home/auto repair, to healthcare, etc) by definition are done at the point of sale or service. While some can be brought to the home, many of these “hands on” tasks are physically impossible for workers to perform while working remotely.

Early Feedback on Working From Home

Early reports on the overall effectiveness of working from home have generally been encouraging. Many organizations have noticed a productivity bump in their remote workers which they attribute to factors like eliminating commutes, shorter meetings, and less social talking.

According to a recent Upwork survey:

• 56% of hiring managers think working from home has gone better than expected, and one-third said productivity has increased (while less than a third said it decreased). 
• 62% plan to offer more remote work opportunities going forward. 

And workers seem to like the arrangement as well:

• According to recent Gallup research, 59% of U.S. workers who are working from home because of the pandemic want to continue working remotely.
• Evernote research found that 48% of respondents reported adopting a slower pace during quarantine, and 51% allowed themselves to broaden their definitions of “productivity” to include learning new skills. 

To be fair, even with the above positive data points it is not all sunshine and roses. There are both positives and negatives to working from home.

Pros and Cons

There are a number of positive benefits to working from home, for both workers and organizations:

• Lower overhead cost: Potentially less overhead costs for organizations as they reduce the amount of office space they need. However, this is a longer-term potential benefit, as it will take some time to unlock. And, it remains to be seen if social-distancing becomes a permanent fixture, in which case organizations will need more space for the remaining workers. A related benefit (depending on where you stand) it is likely the end of the loved/hated “open office” trend, as organizations will be forced to put in more physical barriers and space between those workers who do come into the office.
• Lower wages: Organizations are contemplating the opportunity to pay workers less by playing regional/global labor cost arbitrage (i.e. not having to pay Silicon Valley or New York City wages to equivalent workers living in lower cost areas). This is a longer-term play since it will be difficult for organizations to retract salaries for existing workers who are now working from home, but relevant as they begin to recruit new workers working in other regions.
• Work/life balance: Workers have a newfound opportunity to find a better balance between their work life and their home life. Some workers are reporting more family time, exercise, and better diets.
• No commute: Those who are able to work from home can eliminate their commute time, and all associated transportation costs.
• Meetings: No in person meetings…but still plenty of online ones!
• Health: Clear health benefits for workers (less COVID exposure risk).

There are also some negative challenges to working from home:

• Meetings: More virtual meetings. In fact, many remote workers are starting to report “Zoom fatigue” because of the number of virtual video conferences they now attend.
• Team building: It is more difficult to build and maintain teamwork, camaraderie, and creativity with remote workers and teams.
• Productivity: Lingering concerns about productivity from some managers.
• Work/life balance: Ironically, some workers report they are having a hard time balancing work and home life with home distractions like cleaning, maintenance, and childcare. Also, many workers are now putting in several extra hours a day because their commute has disappeared, and as a result are having trouble separating work from their personal lives.
• Managing remote workers: Managing remote workers is more challenging, and is a skillset most managers have not yet perfected.
• Worker privacy: Loss of worker privacy as employers increase their monitoring activity of remote workers.
• Technology: Increased technology cost and infrastructure support complexity

Implications and Trends for Leaders

For organizational leaders thinking about the world of work and making VUCA strategic plans for the future the above pros and cons are worth thinking deeply about. In addition, there are a number of implications and interesting trends to keep an eye on, as these scenarios will likely have an impact on future workforce planning.

• More remote workers: Many experts predict up to 50% of the workforce could work remotely. Moving forward, more organizations will leverage the work-from-home experience and embrace remote work. The enlightened ones will realize it can also deliver many productivity and psychic benefits to the worker, the less altruistic might do it purely for cost savings and access to cheaper labor.
• Workforce design: Individual contributors, those who perform routine tasks and can be autonomous, and those who don’t need to collaborate in person with co-workers are well suited to working remotely.
• Contingent workforce growth: Gartner research reveals that 32% of organizations replaced full-time employees with contingent workers as a cost-saving measure. Gartner analysis goes on to predict that organizations will continue to expand their use of contingent workers to maintain more flexibility in workforce management post-COVID-19.
• Trust: If employers don’t figure out how to trust workers to work when they’re working remotely it will increase burnout, hurt morale, and ultimately lead to turnover.
• VUCA-proof the organization: We are entering a new era of uncertainty, often characterized as VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) which makes strategy formulation and planning much more challenging. One proven tactic is to transition from designing for efficiency to designing for resilience.A 2019 Gartner survey focused on organization design found that 55% of organizational redesigns were focused on streamlining roles, supply chains and workflows to increase efficiency. While this approach captured efficiencies, it also created fragility and weakness, as systems became less robust and lost flexibility to respond to disruptions. Resilient organizations were better able to respond and quickly change course.
• Culture: Eliminating in person contact and many of the casual interactions workers have in the office runs the risk of organizational culture loss/degradation.
• Geographic worker dispersal: Technology-enabled remote working will drive an exodus out of historically job-rich, but high cost of living, urban areas like the San Francisco Bay Area and New York City. It has been reported that more Americans would like to live in rural communities than would like to live in cities. An interesting longer-term impact will be on home construction as houses will need more dedicated WFH space and tech infrastructure to accommodate home workers.
• Time block work: Managers should think about how to re-design and structure work so that it can be performed in specified blocks of time. This becomes especially important for workers who have children at home. This structure will help workers to manage their home/work boundaries better by establishing more defined work periods before switching to domestic and caring duties.
• Projectize the work: A related concept is the very nature of work itself will change. Once you start to revisit where work gets done, you can also revisit who does it, and how it is packaged. I think more work will be structured as projects (new verb: projectize!), with a focus on outcomes and deliverables, versus the traditional role based work output. This will help to build more responsive organizations, with roles designed and structured around outcomes to increase agility and flexibility and formalize how processes can flex. Also, related to this concept, is the guidance to make sure you provide employees with varied, adaptive and flexible roles so they acquire cross-functional knowledge and training.
• Employee policies: Working from home will be an option for some but not all workers. Some organizations must have workers come in (for example, healthcare, factories, distribution, retail) others might not need to (most white-collar professions). Organizations will need to think carefully about the implications of their policies, carefully balancing the needs of the business with what workers want. Providing options and flexibility will be an important talent attraction and retention tool.
• Force worker interaction: Beyond forcing all participants to contribute on a Zoom call, managers need to think about how to design events and interactions that foster sociability. This could include virtual coffee breaks, and social events. These types of casual encounters foster camaraderie, reinforce empathy, and build trust within teams.
• Videoconferencing: Adoption of videoconferencing technology (Zoom!) has been rapid. As more of us learn how to manage our days remotely and more of our business interactions through video, it will be natural to continue doing so even when we are able to meet in person again. Many organizations are learning this technology lends itself better to reporting and management meetings than it does to strategy and brainstorming meetings. This will have interesting long-term implications for business travel and traditionally heavy travel dependent professions and organizations.
• Technology-enabled: Another aspect to working virtually will be broader and deeper adoption of software to improve collaboration for distributed teams, store and share work artifacts, and manage remote workers. In parallel, with so much work being done outside of the traditional secure office environment, spending on security software will definitely grow in volume and importance in order to protect the organization. Another key learning is that many routine jobs are at the lower end of the pay scale, and employers can’t assume that employees have computers or internet access that match what is available at an office.
• Talent scarcity: I predict that once we move past the pandemic (i.e. have a vaccine and widespread immunization) and all the economic devastation has been absorbed and cleaned up, that we will enter a new era of talent scarcity. This will likely take 24-36 months to play out. Those organizations who have figured out the new world of work, including how to support and enable a remote workforce, will be set up to find and attract the talent they need.
• Practice humanity: I saved the most important consideration for last. Enlightened organizations have recognized the humanitarian crisis of the pandemic and prioritized the well-being of their employees and treated them with compassion as human beings. Unfortunately, some have pushed employees to work in conditions that are high risk with little support – in effect treating them as workers first and human beings second. There is great short- and long-term risk in dehumanizing workers. Smart organizations will work towards equity and inclusiveness, striving to treat all their workers fairly.

Conclusion

Where will this all end up? What will the workplace of the future look like? Who knows – predicting the future is always a tricky business!

One thing is more certain: the truth, as always, will probably end up somewhere in the middle:

• Will every worker in every organization be able to work from home or remotely? – Not very likely.
• Will more people be able to work from home or remotely? – Yes.

This will take some time to work out. We have to remember that this started as a crisis-induced work from home experiment. Many organizations are now starting to think about the issue more intentionally.

Leaders of strategic organizations will recognize that there is no single universal answer. It is highly situational. Depending on their organization, workforce, industry, markets, etc. it will likely be a combination of new workforce strategy, updated policies, job redesign, and technology.

I hope that this happens quickly, as there is still the lurking question of if we will see a wave 2 of COVID-19? And even worse, is there a COVID-20 lurking around the corner? What then? Leaders should be thinking now about possible responses to these scenarios today.

-Onward