As mass vaccination enables a return to in-person office work, the debate on the future of the office has accelerated, and with predictable drama and overstatement.
One certainty is that the pandemic has changed how people see their workplace, and how businesses see the workplace. Another is that, just as it has many times in recent decades, the tech sector – seeking some eventual workplace equilibrium – will lead a significant change in those relationships.
What many of us until now considered a normal work environment was largely pioneered by Valley workplaces in the 60s and 70s. Hewlett and Packard with their 'H-P Way' flattened management structures, and companies like Intel embraced open-plan offices and the work cubicle – famously, Intel co-founder and chief executive Andy Grove eschewed an office for a single-window corner cubicle.
By the late 80s, when a San Francisco flatmate worked for a big Valley company, flexitime and some work from home was commonplace. The company paid – a lot, back then – to run an internet connection into our San Francisco flat just in case their young entry-level developer felt like coding in the sitting room rather than the workplace.
During the pandemic, WFH has been portrayed as a major change even for tech companies. And yet, in many ways, it isn't
As at many tech companies, workers could also request transfers to other offices globally for short- or long-term placements.
Sound familiar?
The pieces are all there for the kind of transformation that many companies, and more significantly, employees, want in a post-pandemic world, because companies were already doing many of these things, in embryonic ways, decades ago.
Survey after survey in recent months has indicated employees want to work from home at least some of the time.
A Morning Consult survey for Prudential in the US found that 73 per cent of US workers wanted a work from home (WFH) option, that 87 per cent wanted WFH at least one day a week, and a third said they didn’t want to work for employers who’d require being onsite every day.
US industry body the Society for Human Resource Management found that 52 per cent of workers surveyed would choose to permanently work from home. A third of Europeans say they now wish to, at least several days a week (https://www.euractiv.com/section/digital/news/pandemic-sends-almost-half-eu-employees-into-remote-working/).
During the pandemic, WFH has been portrayed as a major change even for tech companies. And yet, in many ways, it isn't. A 2019 European Commission survey prior to the pandemic indicated 36 per cent of EU self-employed and 11 per cent of dependent employees worked some or most of the time from home (https://ec.e ropa.eu/jrc/sites/default/files/jrc120945_policy_brief_-_covid_and_telework_final.pdf). Of EU tech sector employees, over 40 per cent did WFH some or most of the time.
“The share of regular or frequent teleworkers was above 30 per cent in a range of knowledge-intensive business services, as well as in education and publishing activities,” the survey also notes.
Limited range
Facebook's recent announcement that it would allow workers to live and work from home in another country also generated much unwarranted alarm in Ireland.
With high rents, house prices and living costs generally over here, surely everyone would be packing up and heading to somewhere cheap and sunny, or their home country?
Well, no – it turns out that only a limited range of employees would have this option, and yes, the company was well aware of maintaining an employment presence that would meet any corporate residency stipulations. And they were still talking about hiring more people for their new 7,000-capacity Ballsbridge complex.
Just because companies have been offering some WFH for years, even decades, doesn't mean they are prepared to address its challenges and embrace its opportunities
If anything, that intention seems out of kilter with the direction many tech and other companies seem more likely to take. Why maintain or own expensive city centre real estate portfolios around the world when companies can better integrate WFH and hot-desking, downsize, and use offices for occasional meetings or group project work?
That certainly seems to be the direction employers like Google and SalesForce will take. Notably, Apple and Amazon begged to differ, recently surprising many by announcing firmly that they expected employees to all be back in the office, at least three days a week at Apple and five days a week at Amazon. Both companies received immediate employee push-back. Amazon backed down, to allow WFH two days a week.
However, just because companies have been offering some WFH for years, even decades, doesn’t mean they are prepared to address its challenges and embrace its opportunities.
Employees and employers see WFH in differing ways – employees say they want a better work and home balance, they want to opt out of daily commutes, they sometimes want the chance to work remotely from anywhere, and they want the workplace to enable this to happen without them feeling as isolated and unsupported as many have felt during the pandemic WFH shift.
Now is the time to, literally, make this work. Jobs are unfilled, employee retention is high on employers’ minds, and, as Amazon’s quick shift shows, employees have power and influence that they haven’t had in decades. Employers should pay attention: that new-found employee muscle is likely to expand beyond just WFH demands.
