The coronavirus has revolutionized office life. Millions of people are working from home, not commuting by subway, not eating lunch in cafeterias. And they argue fiercely about whether this is good or bad. Some miss noisy business centers, face-to-face interactions and business lunches. Others break out in a cold sweat at the thought of commuting and meeting with colleagues. The third are not opposed to alternating live communication with remote work. The result of the biggest experiment in the history of the office economy will be known only at the end of the pandemic, when the reaction, corresponding to any revolution, will take place and the pendulum will stop. As soon as this happens, the Russian service of the BBC will describe the new reality, and at this stage we can only imagine the main arguments of the supporters and opponents of the return to offices. Here they are.
Everything in offices: The pandemic is ending, and now the crisis is scarier than the virus.
Stay at home: If everyone goes out, the pandemic will come back. Health is more important.
Despite the surge of infections in the fall, the mortality rate from the coronavirus is much lower than in the spring, and society is gradually losing its fear, refusing lockdowns and leaning toward coexistence with the virus in order to return to normal life. We explain quickly, simply, and clearly what happened, why it matters, and what will happen next. The number of offers should remain: episodes. End of story. Podcast Advertising As the most famous American banker put it, “What hurts the economy more than the virus itself is people staying home. “More people will die from depression and overdoses if there is another recession,” said JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon recently. And here it is, the critics object. The number of coronavirus victims on the planet is approaching one million; winter is coming, the probability of a second wave is higher than ever. It is necessary to remember the priorities: first, to return the children to the schools and the students to the universities. And if something has to be sacrificed, the trip to the office can be postponed. At the current level of infection, lifting restrictions is premature, warns Anthony Fauci, the chief epidemiologist of the United States. This is especially true for remote work in countries where business is concentrated in one metropolis, financial centers are filled with skyscrapers, and transportation is congested. The chronicle of office workdays illustrates this problem perfectly. In midsummer, only in London did 50% of office workers work from home for an entire week. In Paris, Milan, Berlin, Frankfurt and Madrid, the figure was half that – around 25%, according to economists at Morgan Stanley.
Everything in offices: City centers are dying.
Stay at home: The suburbs finally come to life
As a result, the business districts of New York and London had a Groundhog Day that lasted all summer and fell on a Sunday. No crowds, no traffic jams, no overcrowding on public transportation. The authorities began to worry: without tourists and office workers, city centers would die. “No problem, the outskirts will parry.” They save dozens of dollars and pounds every day on transportation, coffee, and sandwiches. And they spend it closer to home, supporting local small businesses instead of large restaurant chains and transportation monopolies. As a result, residential neighborhoods are slowly transforming into neighborhoods, which is good for a lot of people. Urban centers will not die out even if 100% of those who can work from home do so. According to the latest calculations by American researchers, only 37% of all jobs in the world’s largest economy are theoretically suitable for remote work. The rest will still have to leave their homes. The bad news is that these 37% account for 46% of all salaries in the United States. Most of them are office workers with above-average incomes. And it is on them that the old economy of urban business centers, such as offices, taxis, dry cleaners, fitness, entertainment, and restaurants, depends heavily.
All in offices: Transportation is underloaded.
Stay at home: Transportation is overloaded.
Another victim of remote working is public transportation. It suffers colossal losses and requires subsidies, so the authorities want to get workers back to the office as quickly as possible, especially in the giant megacities. Even if it means restricting their free time: forbidding them to visit friends, meet in groups or go on vacation. Many people are not opposed to the office, as surveys show, but it is transportation that scares them more than a workplace that has long been adapted to work under pandemic conditions. A day in a company with colleagues far away is not as scary as an hour in a crowd of sneezing citizens in a crowded train car. When it comes to commuting, there is another aspect to consider – the environmental aspect: the less you travel, the less emissions there are. However, public transportation burns fuel on a schedule, whether it is crowded or not, and working from home increases electricity and heating consumption, and therefore carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere. Researchers at the International Energy Agency (IEA) have found that emissions will only decrease if people refuse to drive to work for distances greater than 6 kilometers. According to their estimates, a complete shift to remote work in all eligible jobs worldwide, even accounting for the increase in household emissions, would theoretically rid the planet of 24 million tons of CO2, equivalent to the annual emissions of London.
Everything in offices: Productivity is down
Stay at home: Productivity has increased.
So, have people gotten better or worse at their jobs since they stopped going to the office? Perhaps the most heated debates are taking place right now on the topic of work productivity. Banker Daimon claims that his subordinates, especially young people, perform poorly on Mondays and Fridays. He himself returned to the office in June, and since September JPMorgan has been calling on other employees to follow the boss’s example. The results will be discussed later. And for now – a word to the wise. Researchers at two British universities analyzed survey data from the Office for National Statistics and found out what people who were sent home thought. Opinions were about evenly divided, with about 30% confident that they could get more done at home than in the office. The same percentage felt the opposite. The rest worked and continue to work. Another study, conducted by Harvard University in the United States, found that remote work has not only become more common and better, but also longer – the average work day has increased by almost an hour.
All into offices: Otherwise, they will be transferred, not promoted, or even fired.
Stay at home: They judge by results, not by attendance.
“If you don’t show up for your boss for a long time, your career is over” – this is a common opinion not only in Germany, Japan and Great Britain. “Back to work or prepare to be sacked” – that’s how the British government newspaper Daily Telegraph announced on its front page Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s campaign urging employees to return to their offices. For many, the fear of losing their jobs is greater than the fear of being placed on a ventilator. The thought that while some people are staying home, others are earning points in the eyes of their bosses is forcing office workers to rush to their desks. Especially in high-paying professions such as finance and public service. Others are afraid of falling victim, not to intrigue, but to economic feasibility. When work can be done remotely, it means workers can be found anywhere in the world. Good news for those who have a competitive advantage – cheap living and labor. Bad news for those living and working in global centers where even a high salary is not enough to live on. But not everyone is worried: many are confident that they will never be outsourced to India or Belarus because no one has ever stopped companies from doing so. Covid has not changed either the supply or the demand side of the labor market: skill requirements, availability of foreign labor, taxation and regulation have remained the same.
All in the offices: Family drives me crazy.
Stay at home: Family comes first.
The coronavirus has taken the discussion of work-life balance to a new level. For years, many people complained about being away from home and their families. But not everyone was happy about the new horizons. The shutdown has divided remote workers into those who are happy to spend more time with their children, spouses and parents, and those for whom the lack of a work reason to temporarily refuse household chores and communication with relatives has become a torture. Surveys show that, overall, the majority of employees would like to retain at least some of the ability to work from home to spend time with their families. Another question is people who have experienced lockdown alone due to various circumstances. Most of them want to return to an active social life. For many, the office is the only window to the world, and colleagues are the only circle of communication. And here we come to the issue of physical health and mental balance.
All to the offices: Staying at home is detrimental to your health, including your mental health.
Stay at home: You will be healthier – more time for sleep and exercise, less stress.
It is one thing to work at an oak table by the fireplace in a private office in a large house, in a shady garden, or on a spacious balcony (usually – executives). It is quite another to work on a laptop in a bedroom amidst the screams of a baby, on an ironing board in a closet, or in a shared apartment with shared Wi-Fi (traditionally – subordinates). It’s no wonder that many people rush to the office for comfortable chairs, big screens, and respectful silence. Back in the day, you could go for a run in the park or hit the gym at lunchtime. But drinking was not allowed. Others find that working from home is more beneficial to their health and mental balance: an extra hour of sleep, home-cooked meals, a run or a siesta at lunchtime.
Everything is in offices: the space is paid for, the money goes down the drain.
Stay at home: It’s better to save on rent and invest the money in your business.
Office space in business centers in the world’s capitals costs a fortune, and leases are signed for a decade or more. It is not possible to reduce such expenses quickly, so many companies rush to justify them by bringing people back to the office. Opponents argue that the concept of an expensive open space divided into inhumane Anglo-Saxon-style virtual cells is outdated in the era of 5G, teleconferencing, cloud services and e-commerce. But no one is planning to bury offices. In fact, the need for them is increasing as new sanitation requirements demand more space for fewer employees.
Office life: It always has been and always will be.
Stay at home: There is no going back, working from home has become the norm.
Is it possible to return to the not-so-distant office past? Partially – definitely, totally – unlikely. Employers are not rushing to lure employees out of their homes, even though they once relied on collective intelligence and created premium spaces like the dream offices in Silicon Valley, California. In May, Google and Facebook allowed anyone who wanted to work from home until the end of the year, and Twitter followed suit by promising permanent remote work for those who want and can do their jobs without coming into the office.
And employees are in no hurry to meet with their managers and colleagues. Surveys in the UK show that nearly 90% of those who were able to work remotely during the shutdown want to continue doing so, at least in part, and nearly half want to spend most or all of their working hours away from the office. Employers will find it difficult to resist their wishes. Lawyers say that during the months of the shutdown, a precedent has been set: in a labor dispute with employees who have successfully performed their duties remotely for several months, it is almost impossible to defend a complete ban on working from home. And that is only with those who already work in the company.
And yet, each of them has a periodic need to hire new employees. “Candidates now have a new requirement,” says British headhunter Kam Vara, “working from home has become a determining factor for many, and some even require 100% remote work. The epidemic is not over, but we should not expect a 100% return. Take Wall Street, for example: no sooner had JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs called their traders back to work in mid-September than they had to send some of them home after positive tests for coronavirus were found among those who had returned.”
Researchers agree that the office world has changed forever. “Despite the fact that working from home affects labor productivity in different ways, the data we collected suggests that it is being used more and more,” according to a Harvard Business School study. “It seems that the COVID crisis has permanently changed the corporate culture.” Data from two surveys of American small businesses and the National Association of Economists show that about one-third of respondents are confident that 40% of those who switched to remote work during the quarantine will never return to the office. Economists at Morgan Stanley predict that the number of remote workers in the U.S. will double to 30% in the next three to five years, calling it the “new reality. Even Netflix founder Reed Hastings, who said there were “no advantages, only disadvantages” to working from home, predicted that after the pandemic, the majority of those who work from home will continue to do so at least once a week.