To WFH or Not?!
There was a time when “Work from Home” was a privilege, a coveted luxury. If like me, you’re a person who spent the pre-pandemic work-life running around in a high paced hypergrowth startup, WFH may seem like a completely different experience to you. It may be a desirable option for many of you since it comes with its own benefits and freedom, but it has its own set of disadvantages.
Why I cast my vote for “return to office”?
When I started working from home at first, the idea of sending emails from my kitchen table, in my jammies, was very appealing, but a few weeks into the circuit breaker, I realized this arrangement is far from ideal for me.
I feel when you don’t have an office to show up to, you miss out on the opportunity for regular social interaction and connection with people, and that’s extremely healthy. Human beings are fundamentally social, and we crave and need human interaction to maintain a healthy state of mind.
Zoom Fatigue
I’ve seen so many five-minute office conversations quickly escalate into 30-minute calls in the last few weeks! When you’re at work, you are in the middle of all the action, but when you’re working from home, you have limited visibility on projects and progress, and that leads to update calls and weekly catch-ups. So much time and effort are spent in bringing everyone on the same page, and your ability to influence your colleagues to act may go down too.
Missed Opportunity for Collaboration and Creativity
Collaboration and creativity are the two best reasons to work in a startup and I feel these two are inherently incompatible with working from home. There is so much inspiration to draw from the real world, from the nuances of your environment and the people you encounter every day, especially in a place like Singapore, which is a melting pot for so many cultures. I feel without social interaction, your creative inspiration is restricted to the four walls of your home.
Blurring Boundaries
Working at home has its own limitations, logistical as well as personal. Not everyone is equipped with the infrastructure, space, or the support required for an optimum work environment. Personally, I find it is difficult to demarcate “office hours” at home. The sense of wanting to be available at all times and the subsequent guilt associated with an extended break on a particular day often makes me anxious. It’s hard to switch off, especially if you are working with teams across markets, verticals, and geographies.
Final Thoughts
As much as people may dream about remote work, I wonder how many of us want to go through with it permanently. While we must do all that is in our power to flatten the curve, it is also important to be mindful of the ramifications of our “solutions”. We are in the survival mode now, and this seems like the need of the hour, but as we move to the next phase of new normal, know the challenges you may encounter and devise strategies that will help make it sustainable.
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