The Global Working from Home Experiment

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On everyone’s mind and seemingly not going anywhere soon. Sound familiar? COVID-19 has triggered everything from recommendations to stay home to crucial city lockdowns. In the middle of all this the majority of non essential businesses worldwide are shutting down as a result, but not all of them.

In some industries the idea of transfering the fundamental work to a digital platform is not a bizarre idea. I’m talking about working from home or also known as WFH. The question is, is the technology there to provide the necessary tools in order for this to become a feasible solution? Personally I feel like a lot of office and desk jobs are the same, does this fit your job description?

• Going from meeting to meeting.
• Running around finding the right people to ask the right question.
• In between this, actually doing your job.

And when you are doing your job it usually means clacking away at your computer keyboard anyways.

Making an Office WORK

Transporting all these processes to a digital working platform such as Slack is certainly not a small project but yet not a more difficult one than orchestrating a regular office environment. And with good reason, the allocation of jobs solely meant to make an office environment run smoothly is usually a pretty big one. The HR sector and to some extent the IT sector are examples of this. Imagine if an equal amount of resources would be dedicated to configuring a digital working platform. I believe that an at least equally efficient working environment could be achieved if not more efficient if this would be the case.

Work Space

Could this be your home office? By Konstancja Mora Korytowska.

Would you feel more relaxed if you could make this your default working place? By Konstancja Mora Korytowska.

Konstancja really has a way with interior design. By Konstancja Mora Korytowska.

The Employees Win

And not to forget removing the commute to work, the running around the office looking for people and facility costs would be beneficial not only for economics but also for the environment. It would give employees:

• More freedom with their time.
• More control over their day.
• Flexibility of the working environment.

But what about Health

I think the biggest counter argument to the WFH idea is that a lot of people feel better with a change of environment.

WFH, sitting and working at the same table as where you eat will mess with your context for work and for relaxation making you unable to either charge your batteries or be productive.

But a big change like WFH requires us to rethink the working environment and this is also the freedom of WFH. Some people might feel most natural investing in a proper home office where others might feel more comfortable going to the local cafe. Hell, people that really feel like it could invest in shared office spaces and get the traditional office feel. And with the savings from the business converting to WFH people could afford investing in solutions like these.

Moreover, WFH doesn’t need to be the solution exclusively. It could be integrated and combined with the traditional office format. And this is probably the gradual conversion we’ll be seeing if WFH takes off at all.

WFH & The Future

I’m really excited to see if we can come out of this unfortunate global incident with some positive progress regarding a more flexible and free working climate. It feels like a boot in the ass for the possibility and long available option towards a more modern working solution.