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Are you better off working from home? Here's what the science says - C C - Sep 6, 2022
Office work is inherently vulnerable to being co-opted by the home environment via today's information networks. Whereas the mobile "Morlock" class still has to venture out into the physical world abroad and build slash manufacture, maintain, patrol, and repair the latter. Thereby requiring a weekly number of necessary hours that is unlikely to diminish, apart from what degree ever more sophisticated robot labor can encroach upon certain areas.
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https://www.sciencefocus.com/science/are-you-better-off-working-from-home-heres-what-the-science-says/
EXCERPTS: The issue of productivity has long been a primary focus of the world of work. Logically, employers want employees to be as productive as possible, because the organisation wants to get as much done as possible for the same wage bill. However, this obsession isn’t always helpful, or even rational.
Many persistent (and annoying) productivity myths have ended up circulating in society. You could even argue that the modern management obsession with ‘employee happiness’ is more about increasing productivity than any genuine concern for employees and their wellbeing.
Predictably, the debate around working from home quickly became embroiled with concerns about productivity. The thinking was that workers wouldn’t get as much done when deprived of the resources of the workplace, the necessary management structure, the vital interactions with co-workers, and so on. Except that’s apparently not true.
Surveys reveal most remote workers report being equally, if not more productive. There are many factors that could be behind this, such as improved diet, better sleep, more exercise, greener environments and pleasant background music. All of these and more are linked to improved productivity, and are much more accessible for an employee when they don’t have to commute, or conform to the rigid rules or strict hierarchies of many workplaces.
Granted, many remote workers report being less productive when working from home. And again, many factors could be behind this, like an unsuitable home environment, or roles that aren’t as suitable for a remote setup.
[...] those who object to remote working argue that it prevents effective communication, cooperation and collaboration between workers. And according to the data, they do have a point.
A major study published in Nature Human Behaviour in September 2021 revealed that when 60,000+ Microsoft employees worked remotely during the pandemic, communication between employees and groups slowed down, and became more formulaic and self-contained. Other studies show that team performance is reduced when some or all members work remotely.
Humans have spent millions of years communicating face-to-face, and as far as our brains are concerned, modern technology, however advanced and sophisticated, still cannot faithfully replicate all the rich and subtle cues it involves. While things like social media can help with loneliness, they can't alleviate it entirely.
[...] While in-person engagement is the ideal, studies suggest technological communication methods, particularly multisensory ones like video calls, can help people form useful social connections and deliver viable feedback.
This issue should also be placed in a wider context. Yes, employers may not like how employees aren’t collaborating as much when working from home, but how much of their role actually requires collaboration?
[...] Ultimately, remote working seemingly has a negative impact on worker communication and collaboration. But when you consider that some of this ‘communication’ will have been deemed unnecessary, or even counterproductive, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
[...] regularly going to the office can be cognitively exhausting. Long commutes, a strict schedule you don’t create, interacting with people you wouldn’t normally choose to, little privacy or personal space, and seeing no tangible outcome of your efforts are all regular occurrences in the workplace. These cause stress and mental exhaustion, often to the point where your mental health suffers and you lose the ability to maintain your home life.
Remote work reduces this mental drain substantially. This may explain why some studies suggest working from home some of the time reduces the demand of working from the office, rather than exacerbating it.
[...] Studies suggest that if working from home does actually produce significant gains in productivity and worker happiness and subsequently becomes the norm, all the gains of such a move are likely to be concentrated in wealthier countries.
Such imbalances are not only on the global scale, either. It’s been observed, repeatedly, that those people who do vital roles that cannot be done remotely, like cleaners, shelf-stackers and carers, are paradoxically among the lowest paid in our society. If remote working saves money and stress, such benefits are less likely to be experienced by those who could use them the most.
And even among those who can feasibly work remotely, there are divisions. It’s all well and good listing the benefits of working from home, but what if your home isn’t suitable? What if you’ve not got the space? Or your internet is terrible? Or if you share your home with too many others? Or if you live with someone you don’t get on with, or worse?
However, using this unfortunate aspect of the modern world as an argument against remote working quickly leads to a false dichotomy. This is not a zero-sum game. If we deny those who can work from home the benefits of doing so, then it does not magically make things better for those people who can’t. It ultimately just makes everyone unhappier overall... (MORE - missing details)
RE: Are you better off working from home? Here's what the science says - Magical Realist - Sep 6, 2022
My sister works as a medical transcriptionist for a healthcare system. She works at home on her computer. She played her cards right, being able to buy a small house in the Texas hill country and still have a great job. I would do the same thing if I had my life to live over.