Out of all of the cultural changes that the COVID-19 pandemic has ushered in, the impact to how we work may prove to be the most formative. 

With many of us working from home at some point in the last six months, including those who had never done so before, we’ve challenged the old paradigm that you need to be present in the office to be productive. 
Businesses have adapted and many have thrived, all without their teams walking the same stretch of carpet everyday. As a result, some companies have now told their employees that they can continue to work from home indefinitely. 

So is working from home here to stay and what will this mean for employees, companies and the economy? 

Will working from home become the new norm?

Many businesses have been pleasantly surprised that work doesn’t grind to a halt without in-person face-to-face time. 

There are now countless online tools to make the experience of working remotely more seamless, making the transition to a remote working environment far less onerous than it once was. 

The ability to have a team work remotely also cuts costs by reducing the amount of office space required and reducing overheads like electricity. This is very appealing for many businesses, especially during a recession. 

We’re likely to see many more businesses embrace their staff working from home, at least some of the time, due to these benefits. 

Is working from home more productive?

There is no hard and fast rule when it comes to how productive employees will be when working from home versus in the office. While the old assumption that productivity plummets when employees don’t have management looking over their shoulder has proven to be untrue, that doesn’t mean that every employee will be more productive when working from home. 

Many employees are flourishing under the new way of working; enjoying having control over their own time throughout the work day. For some, there can be less interruptions when working away from the office. Without a commute some employees are also working longer hours. 

However, for others, working from home won’t be as attractive or productive. For those who thrive on social interaction, working from home can be demotivating. It can also cause communication backlogs in work environments where people rely on being able to grab someone for a quick chat to clarify or decide something. If that’s replaced with more meetings or emails it can be less productive. 

Some surprising benefits

If the pandemic has a silver lining, it's that it has lifted the veil on the realities of balancing work and family for working parents. Many parents in this period have had to balance working from home with homeschooling or childcare. The expectation to work as if you don’t have kids at home and parent as if you don’t have a job, has been putting undue stress on working parents for decades, so this is an opportunity to finally abandon those outdated notions and create more understanding all round. 

Another unexpected benefit has been that many of us are finding that we’re spending less money each week by avoiding the costs of travel, coffees or meals. That will have an interesting impact on people’s financial situations as they divert extra savings into other expenses such as their mortgage as well as the broader economy as consumers spend less.

What about the pitfalls?

While there are certainly benefits in flexible working, there are also pitfalls for companies that may be considering making working from home full-time a more permanent arrangement. 

How will companies build and maintain a company culture and ethos without spending time together as a team? There is a fundamental part of human interaction and connection that can’t be substituted with meeting virtually. This is also true when handling the more challenging interactions with staff such as onboarding or performance management - both would be very difficult to achieve without meeting face-to-face. 

For companies that opt for a full-time working from home model, there will be instances where they will need to meet with staff face-to-face. If those interactions take place in a staff member’s home or a cafe, for example, there will be work health and safety as well as insurance considerations that can create further complications. 

The macro impacts

We may see some companies move out of the CBD and others will look to reduce the size of their space. This may impact the commercial property market, driving rents down. 

For companies interested in a hybrid model, we may see more satellite offices pop up in suburban or regional centres, combined with the option of working from home. This reduces the costs for companies significantly, while giving employees more flexibility and a shorter commute time, without completely sacrificing in-person face-to-face time. 

With less demand for office space in the CBD, the surrounding businesses which rely on office workers, like cafes or gyms, will be affected. Less foot traffic in our cities during the work day could fundamentally change what our cities look like. 

On the other hand, we may see suburban centres thrive with more foot traffic during the work day. That may generate more business and jobs in those areas in the long-term. 

What’s next?

Any predictions about the impacts of working from home at a micro and macro level rely entirely on how successful Australia is at containing COVID-19 and how quickly a vaccine can be rolled out across the country. Once that happens and life is able to return to normal, that’s when we’ll see whether the appetite for working from home will continue. Personally, I think those experts predicting the death of the office environment might have spoken too soon, as I believe many businesses will start to realise some of the intangibles that are lost when people lose that face to face interaction.