A Remote Workforce is Remote indeed

The is the golden age of technology, just two decades into the 21st century. Tech companies dominate the markets, global news, and dinner time conversations. They set the pace of a rapidly evolving US economy, and establish industry trends for shadowing companies to follow suit. Some companies are driving the normalization of work-from-home positions for traditionally designated office jobs. We will explore what factors are propelling this trend, its limited use in practice, and why it should not be a mainstay of most industries.

The surge in popularity of this trend should come as little surprise in this day and age. Previous generations of working adults respected the established 9-5 grind of office labor. Traditional generations from a more brutal time had more pressing sociopolitical issues to rally behind than changing the status quo of a standard office workday. Working from home was not an option due to limitations on technology. Soon after, this trend emerged but was reserved for jobs like telemarketers and customer service representatives. The rest of this generation could not leverage the convenience and productivity gains afforded to recent generations by unprecedented advances in technology. Advances for which today’s youth takes for granted. These youth are a fast-moving, tech-savvy generation, with strong ethical values and a work hard, play hard mentality[6]. Combining these social factors with an exponential boom in technology has created the perfect storm to facilitate the change of workplace conventions.

The advent and continual advancement of technology like virtual machines, Virtual Private Networks, proxies, video conferencing, and online servers has made many traditional office jobs into potentially remote engagements[3]. But just how well do these arrangements work? Proponents for work-from-home positions often exclaim their increase in productivity from the lack of office-place distractions[4]. For a some people, there is no denying that this may be the case. Jobs that consist solely of email, instant messaging, video conferencing, and online collaboration do not require physical proximity of workers for optimum task efficiency. Closed-system roles, where an employee needs no outside contact to get the job done, are also prominent examples of acceptable work-from-home positions. However, with fewer forced face-to-face, interpersonal interactions in these positions, spontaneous idea generation and creativity in work-from-home roles are at a disadvantage. But these positions are a minority of the workforce, and their enabling tools are just a handful of the millions that power jobs around the globe today; the rest of which, like equipment and proprietary or non-collaborative software, are strictly inaccessible out-of-office.

Further, despite how “connected” we may feel from these tools, both employers and employees are undoubtedly harder to reach and meaningfully collaborate with in a work-from-home arrangement. The most effective managers spend a plurality of their time communicating[7]. With connection in mind, the leaders of Silicon Valley, and startups alike, are designing office spaces that foster more collaborative and personal interactions in the name of creativity and innovation. The layout of Google’s newest campus is purpose-built to maximize the frequency of random encounters, while Apple’s offices (engineering, finance, you name it) have open environments and collaborative spaces interlaced with couches, TVs, and whiteboards[11]. Even Samsung is biting from this philosophy with their newest collaboration-centric U.S. offices, which executives hope will drive innovation and foster creative ideas amongst employees. The Harvard Business Review reported on a number of case studies in which fostering a collaborative workspace and optimizing the frequency of face-to-face encounters increased idea generation and new instances of project leadership. At a pharmaceutical company that they studied, engaging salespeople with coworkers on other teams increased their exploration, and sales, by 10%. To test the waters further, executives then reduced the number of workplace coffee machines to force cross-functional collaboration with sales. Sales rose again by 20%, or about $200 million[11]. This phenomenon is prevalent across many industries as an artifact of increased collaboration in their workspaces. Working from home works against this effect, and detracts from its efficacy.

Surely, this system will not have the same efficacy across all industries. Some positions require significant closed-system individual efforts to maximize the effect of each employee. For example, telemarketers use measurements like number of calls per hour, new information gathered, and emails sent, as metrics for employee success[2]; all of which would be hindered by excess office collaboration. “Quant” jobs in tech or finance, where coding or deriving some obscure model requires purely individualistic efforts, are another example[13]. If an employee has a highly personalized task and ample resources to get it done, closed-system performance may optimize their efficacy. But again, the vast majority of jobs do not function this way. Many industries rely heavily on interpersonal communication and the verbal and visual presentation of non-trivial ideas. Many types of engineering function this way, as things like design reviews require office tools and strong presentations. Team brainstorming sessions require all hands-on-deck. No one listens to the voice of people who literally or figuratively “phone-in” their responsibilities, no matter how good the connection. There is an inescapable value to meaningful face-to-face collaboration in nearly every industry. As such, employers must carefully determine where their employees’ job functions lie along the spectrum of closed-system to collaborative roles and determine whether work-from-home arrangements are useful.

Lastly, however, there is a distinctly human component to this whole issue. Some employees feel immense comfort and safety from their home, and could personally benefit from eliminating their commute. In 2014, Gallup’s Crime Survey showed that 37% of Americans and nearly half of all women feel unsafe walking home at night[5]. While neither number represents a majority of the United States, 37-45% of the population still represents a significant number of people who may prefer to avoid potential threats during their commute. But this threat is inescapable, and we could never expect 37% of the workforce across all industries to work remotely. Nor can we expect any one employee’s job preferences to function like that of another. While significant evidence substantiates claims of increased idea generation, innovation, and leadership in collaboration-centric office spaces, anecdotally, some employees claim increased productivity at home[1]. We will never have the perfect middle-ground for all industries, and employers must reevaluate the decision to enable work-from-home employees on a constant basis.