It’s the End of the Office as We Know It (and I feel fine)
By: Sam Corbett, Principal, Alta Planning + Design
First of all, I would like to acknowledge all of the essential workers who cannot work from home and have been performing heroic duties during the COVID-19 pandemic. Their dedication, courage and can-do spirit has been truly remarkable and they have earned the nation’s collective gratitude during these extremely challenging times.
For many years I thought that working from home was a nice concept, but was skeptical about maintaining productivity without going into the office. I suspect much of corporate America shared this view, based on how uncommon working from home was prior to the pandemic. However, I’ve been surprised at how quickly we’ve adapted to a work-from-home environment while maintaining excellent productivity. There are certainly some challenges, such as parents with small children trying their best to balance childcare responsibilities with their work commitments. Drawing the line between work and home can also be difficult when we’re working from our kitchens or living rooms, but all in all, working remotely has been a huge success during this crisis.
This new reality has exposed the deficiencies of the ubiquitous open floor office plan. Contrary to popular belief, open floor office plans do not lead to more face-to-face interactions or improved collaboration. In fact, just the opposite occurs when people are crammed together in the workplace. Bernstein and Turban found that open floor plans have resulted in a significant decrease (approximately 70%) in face-to-face interaction with an associated increase in electronic interaction(1). The authors posit that the loss of privacy associated with an open floor plan causes coworkers to socially withdraw from each other and feel more comfortable communicating through more private electronic channels instead. Companies have either been unaware or ignored this research as it hasn’t had much of an impact on office layouts.
However, I believe that our successes today in working from home are partly due to the elimination of all of the distractions and interruptions that exist in our open floor offices. Moving forward, until a vaccine is available for COVID-19, most companies will be cautious in managing the office space layout for social distancing purposes or even requiring their employees to return to the office at all. For example, Twitter just announced last week that their employees can continue to work from home indefinitely.
In a recent study by researchers from the University of Amsterdam(2), respondents indicated that they miss the face-to-face interaction with their colleagues not so much for ‘getting the job done’ but more for enjoying their workplace. Through write-in comments at the end of the survey, many respondents voiced a preference for a hybrid work situation whereby they could work from home one to two days a week and in the office the rest of the time — sort of a happy medium, best-of-both-worlds scenario. When asked whether they miss commuting, survey respondents who normally bike or walk to work indicated that they either miss commuting a lot or miss some aspects of commuting. Whereas, the majority of respondents who normally commute by car indicated that they do not miss their daily commute at all.
There are significant cost savings to both employers and employees from working from home, even on a reduced scale once we are able to start returning to the office as public health restrictions ease. Employers are already acting by letting their expensive downtown leases expire, seeking more affordable suburban office space closer to their employees and/or allowing employees to continue working from home on a more regular basis(3). Employees can save primarily by reducing their commuting costs, which are an estimated $2,600 annually.
Beyond the cost savings, there are tremendous benefits associated with working remotely, such as time saved on commuting, which is why I am hopeful that the practice continues as we begin our recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. In the US, the average one-way commute is 26 minutes. Assuming a five day work week, that adds up to 4.35 hours per week and over 200 hours per year.
Working from home one to two days a week gives people 45 to 90 hours back to do with as they please. In our time-starved busy lives (pre/post COVID-19), this benefit cannot be overstated as it allows people to spend more time with their families, exercise or do whatever it is that they want to do with the time they can reclaim by not commuting so much. I think our general state of mind and overall mental health would be much better in this country if we had a bit more free time in our lives.
Another benefit to remote work is reduced congestion and greenhouse gas emissions. Traffic is down and air quality has improved globally as fossil fuel use has dropped considerably. As we recover from the pandemic, let’s not go back to business as usual but instead forge a new path that puts our planet first. While it will not solve the climate crisis on its own, increased working from home can be part of the solution to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions before it’s too late. It also seems appropriate that during one crisis we start to prepare for our next looming crisis — so let’s learn from this experience and do our part to ‘flatten the Atmospheric CO2 curve’! What will you do to help solve the climate crisis?
References:
(1) Ethan S. Bernstein and Stephen Turban 2018 The impact of the ‘open’ workspace on human collaborationPhil. Trans. R. Soc. B37320170239 http://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2017.0239
(2) Rubin, O., Nikolaeva, A., Nello-Deakin, S., & te Brömmelstroet, M., (2020). What can we learn from the COVID-19 pandemic about how people experience working from home and commuting?. Centre for Urban Studies, University of Amsterdam. Available at: https://urbanstudies.uva.nl/content/blog-series/covid-19- pandemic-working-from-home-and-commuting.html
(3) “When It’s Time to Go Back to the Office, Will It Still Be There?” Dana Mattioli and Konrad Putzier, May 16, 2020, WSJ. https://www.wsj.com/articles/when-its-time-to-go-back-to-the-office-will-it-still-be-there-11589601618
