Working from Home: Where will the World Go?

Question

Living in a new age of people working and learning from home!

I recently listened to the BP Podcast episode 380 (Go check it out!), and they brought up an interesting point. Many people are working from home, so I'm curious to see if businesses will shift to working from home.

College Students - many are hating online classes, as it doesn't provide the benefits and education necessary for major subjects (Ex: Doing labs and testing). How does this translate into the working world, when we need to educate our staff?

Working People - A lot of companies have adapted to the shift with online meetings, integrating their systems entirely online, and so far have not seen major detriments in productivity. The 9-5 job seems to be obsolete as long as the task is done, but again, when working at home some people (maybe most) are not as productive in a relaxed environment.

Older Generation - Technology has always been a hindrance to many of the older generation. It's hard to shift into something entirely new when the old way works just as well. Some I've seen are trying to adapt, but there are still some that are wanting to stay the same.

My guess: Office buildings will slowly lose in value, working from home will be an option and will slowly be the norm in society, new age managers to create new methods to increase productivity, and maybe having an office in a home a must-have for many people.

Let me know what you think, I would love to hear your opinions for the future!

Account Closed · Answer

This is a great topic, and it will be interesting to watch how these areas evolve when it comes to working from home.

When it comes to college students, I think many students (and even colleges) will be more open to taking and offering online courses, because sheer necessity has shown that this is do-able. However, I also think that online classes offer less value and that most students will still pursue the in-person learning experience. Regarding what Account Closed said, it can be difficult for college students to stay motivated over video lectures, versus in-person classes. The in-class experience has many valuable aspects, and face-to-face interaction is an important part of education and the learning process.

I do think many companies will allow employees more flexibility to work from home, but this greatly depends in the industry as well as what @Todd Rasmussen mentioned involving the level of accountability needed. If a company does not already have systems in place to plan and keep track of work projects in a practical and effective way, it will be harder to keep up productivity. There’s also the issue of implementing such systems and technologies and training people (especially the older generation) how to use them. It can take a good amount of time, energy, and money to make long-term and effective changes in a company. The level of difficulty depends on factors such as the size of the company and the team, and, to be frank, how willing seasoned managers and employees are to accept and make changes.

While I think a good number of companies will relax their work from home policies, and newer companies (start-ups, small businesses, etc.) will re-think the traditional 9-5 structure, I don’t think the traditional 9-5 way of doing things will disappear anytime soon.

I do think more people will start utilizing co-working spaces, as these pop up more and more, but again, different factors such as the size of the company will affect what businesses choose to transition to these types of work environments.

Luke Marsh · Answer

This is a really interesting topic Account Closed especially right now. I think you hit on some really good points.

For college kids I think online capability will really depend on the type of class. Pretty much all lecture based courses can be taught online, and many labs have the capability to as well. Personally I have taken numerous online classes in the past and had no issues learning from them or retaining information. The ones that will have difficulty getting away from an in person component are the professional based degrees like nursing that require a preceptorship or work based hours to graduate. Like you mentioned I think there are a lot of college students who prefer to learn in-person, because that has been the primary method most of their life. I would not be surprised in 10 years if the college kids view online learning completely different than college students today.

Regarding working people, I agree that the 9-5 seems to be obsolete. I believe that technology has allowed us not only to maintain communication, organization, etc. but also monitor and measure our productivity on both an individual and group level. Having those measuring systems in place have been extremely beneficial for us.

In terms of the older generation, I think that the pandemic has given many motivation to slowly embrace technology if not completely. Others that haven't yet, I don't see embracing it ever.

I agree that traditional office buildings will likely lose value, but other areas like co-working space will only grow. I also believe that in time we will see many going more towards a 4 day work week with 10 hour work days.

Joe Splitrock · Answer

Account Closed the majority of people are more productive working from home, because of the huge amount of time wasted in the office talking to coworkers. Just because you are sitting in an office doesn't make you productive. In fact remote work makes unproductive people stand out more, because employers are measuring work on remote employees, versus just showing up. Companies realize that they can reduce office space expense, which is a game changer in high cost markets. Benefit to the employee is no time wasted on commute and they can reduce housing expense by living further away from their office.

The effect on real estate means location becomes less important. Who wants to live in a million dollar matchbox in California and spend hours a day in traffic? It was the norm up until this happened, but this proved location doesn't matter.

Todd Rasmussen · Answer

Account Closed

The company I work for has payroll cost ten times the office rent for only the employees that could even conceivably perform their job function from home. New age managers aren't accomplishing any supervision with a remote workforce. The timekeeping and documentation requirements to create accountability with a remote work force further compound the inefficiency/distracted at home issue. There are repetitive admin tasks that make sense for that environment but I believe many of those jobs are already outsourced or being done remotely. It's not viable for the majority of businesses to have a significant portion of their work force work from home, so I would disagree that the value of office buildings will decrease over time.

Account Closed · Answer

@Joe P. Mentions ticket assignments and time-boxed activities for projects. These are really great tools that enable people to work from home more easily, and companies and employees to track the progress of projects whether in-person or working from home. I think that more companies will begin to adopt these types of tools (along with other tools such as online Kanban boards and agile frameworks like Scrum). Companies in the IT and software world use these tools most often, but I think we'll see more people embracing these tools and customizing them to work for their specific industries. There are many ways that companies and industries can innovate their processes, and I think these past few months have been an invitation to pause and evaluate what what the future is going to look like for businesses, schools, and work-spaces around the world. I'm interested to see what this will look like.

Account Closed · Answer

Its hard to predict. Some trends like work at home have been growing even before CoVid and it works for some people better than others.Everyone likes the flexibility of once or twice a week to work at home. But not every day. There is a lot of Zoom fatigue and lack of social interactions makes it hard to build effective relationships with colleagues.

Students really hate it. My daughter is a graduating senior this year and finds it very hard to motivate herself to finish her final thesis. I certainly would not have paid her exorbitant tuition fees to study in front of a computer. And parents are going crazy with smaller kids at home. So I believe education will not change too much coming out on the other side.

Retail to Online trend has also been ongoing for awhile and CoVid maybe just accelerates it. I wonder what will happen in the NNN world? Will the expected cap rates go up on what are now blue chip names like Walgreens etc?

Joe P. · Answer

@Todd Rasmussen have you ever worked in an IT organization? If not, the primary function of most employees at junior and mid-range levels is to work remotely. There is hardly a need for face-to-face interaction and since our product is virtual, we can upgrade, maintain, build, break-down, etc., all virtually.

I've been working from home at about a 99% clip for the last 6+ years. It has been one of the best things to ever happen to me. I'm a stronger performer because of it. My team is entirely WFH and frankly, I think I have one of the best. I love my team and think the world of them.

I do agree that it is highly task dependent. In my line of work, we either have ticket assignments or timeboxed activities as part of a larger project plan -- if those are slipping, we know immediately, and generally we know if people are slacking off or if there are actual constraints to completing said task.

I believe you'll see more of a shift to WFH where possible, however, it'll be gradual. This pandemic certainly is opening the eyes, but this won't be the push. Rather, folks will get back to work and head into two categories over the course of several months -- the "flame isn't worth the candle" crew, who want to stay home and can accomplish their work; then of course you'll have the "so happy to be in the office" folks. If organizations are smart -- they'll evaluate key roles and determine where this person needs to be objectively, and then let the candidate of choice decide, a perk that they could offer over other organizations.

Ujwal Velagapudi · Answer

Education: I think many more kids will actually go towards online courses and possibly fully online degrees. Of course with labs and things like that there will need to be some hybrid accommodation for certain classes/majors. I don't see why kids have to spend significantly more to live in an expensive college town to pay expensive tuition when they can instead be staying in a more affordable area, paying less fees for tuition, and still accelerate their real world experience with networking/internships/entrepreneurship. I understand the social aspect is a huge part of college, but there can be other ways to build that environment that we'll slowly adapt to. Office culture: I do not think the 9-5 is dead, it won't be until the mindset changes for a lot of archaic thinking managers/owners at companies are out of the picture. But I do agree this will have micro-managers and paranoid management have to loosen up a little bit. Work from home has to be an option for most who have those capabilities eventually as it could be tough to recruit good talent. Real Estate: I've been thinking commercial retail is on the decline for years with ecommerce. Now, the commercial office space will be further expedited as well with companies going towards remote work options. The commercial space as a whole I think will inevitably have to take a major hit. I read last year in Y combinator's blog that a big play in real estate will be a company that comes out with a plan to re-purpose the existing space. This could be to stop building new structures and re-purpose existing ones into residential, warehouse/distribution centers, etc.

Kevin Leonce · Answer

Interesting and relevant topic Account Closed.

I have always been advocating, that "work from home" is what most administrative functions of businesses, should be adopting. Ideally, it's not practical for all industries and all functions and as such I don't think the 9-5 will become obsolete. But it will definitely foster a happier workforce and a more disciplined workforce.

In the work space it's not practical to work 8 hrs non stop as the laws of diminishing returns proves. So creating an environment where employees are given more autonomy and you are appraised on your deliverables, to me, leads to a more productive and happier workforce and environment.

Office buildings and office spaces maybe reduced in size as a result of this. But there may also be need for a redesign of the air circulation system as presently it facilitates the spread of the virus. Working from home also has the impact of less stress, as commuting is less and as a result of this, you have environmental benefits from lower vehicle emissions.

For college students I think it maybe a bit more difficult as their interactions and relations fostered in college has a significant impact on their future. Additionally, the hands on training and expertise will be lacking in an online environment. I also think that maturity and discipline has a large part to play in your ability to work from home and not all college students will be at this level.

As to the older generation, I definitely agree with you.

What happens next will be interesting to see but I do believe in some part, this is the beginning of the transition to online everything to some degree.

Joe P. · Answer

@Joe Cassandra I don't think colleges will go bankrupt. The market for a degree is too strong and that isn't going anywhere. For colleges to be bankrupt, you need multiple layers of destruction to the market -- employers not needing degrees for professional jobs (not going to happen), government not backing loans (not going to happen), banks not covering the loans that the government won't back (not going to happen), alternative options viable both to students and employers (may happen, but not a seismic shift over a short period of time) -- what you've described doesn't have the likely disruption needed to destroy that engine.

I agree you need to be disciplined to work from home. It won't be for everyone. I anticipate that the world will slowly get back into the office, and this will be a slow and steady climb back to "standard" for most. But I do think in about a year, some folks will miss the WFH routine and request it, and it'll become a way to incentivize employees and candidates. You are seeing trend-setting companies like Google and Twitter say they will be completely remote indefinitely...most companies strive to be like the leader and obtain their talent. Tech disruption is real and companies that don't need butts in seats and can maintain productivity will do so.

Working from Home: Where will the World Go?

Most Popular Reply