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Introduction
Nowadays, the boundary between personal life and workspace becomes more and more blurred. Advancement of communication technologies provided everybody with a chance to find a job that can be performed either at the office or at home according to individual preferences. The Covid-19 pandemic increased the rate of home-based employment, making the majority of professionals to work remotely using their laptops and intensified the debate over what option is better to choose (Routley). There are various advantages and drawbacks related to both work arrangements, but the future of white-collar jobs seemingly is with work from home (WFH). Despite the possible social challenges and implications, remote working is a better choice because it is a more convenient, flexible, and profitable option that leads to higher job satisfaction.
Main body
To begin with, although not every job is plausible to be performed entirely at home, freelancers typically receive higher wages than their colleagues working out of the home. Dingel and Neiman estimated that 37% of occupations performed remotely account for 46% of all US wages and on average freelancers earn $20 per hour compared to $1.20 lower hourly wage of their counterparts (4). Individuals who work in law, management, computers, and education usually possess specialized skills that are in high demand among customers. Moreover, those who offer skilled services earn on average more than 70% of other US employees, while 41% of them work about 10 hours a week (Booth). Virtual professionals currently perform more knowledge-intensive and creative jobs that yield greater rewards due to the absence of significant intermediary between customer and freelancer. In brief, some jobs are not possible to perform at home, but if so, WFH is a better choice in terms of remuneration.
One important advantage that WFH provides both to employees and their employers is a performance improvement. Bloom et al. reveal that home working led to a 13% performance increase in terms of minutes worked in comparison to the conventional way of work arrangement (15). Nevertheless, this experiment that involved a group of call center workers of the Chinese travel agency does not indicate any impact on the quality of performed assignments. The results of the investigation affirm that WFH positively influences employees performance due to fewer breaks and sick leaves, which lead to more dynamic shifts. Professionals also made more calls per minute because of a more convenient and quiet working environment. Thus, WFH positively influences and encourages faster fulfillment of given tasks because of the special environment and workplace features.
Moreover, virtual offices help to deal with attrition and increase job satisfaction among staffers. The early mentioned experiment revealed that the attrition rate of home workers halved, while they reported being happier with their job in comparison to the times when they had to travel to the office (Bloom et al. 16). It can be due to the fact that freelancers are free to create their working environment; they do not care about weather conditions and how to reach the office in time and appropriately dressed. In the same way, freelancers are able to independently organize their work and rest what helps to adjust it to individual sleeping patterns. They no longer have to spend time on the way to and from work and waste precious hours being in dense traffic. In other words, the WFH approach provides professionals with the desired flexibility and feeling of being free.
However, there are some doubts concerning virtual office influence on job satisfaction in terms of communication and social relations. According to Zhang, WFH limits employees communication with co-workers that contributes to lower effectiveness and social presence (43). The poor quality of online communication in comparison to face-to-face interaction often leads to lower productivity, higher turnover, and increased absenteeism in the long run. The home environment deprives those who work remotely of activities and interactions that help to fit in the organization. Working in a traditional office provides better culture transfer, stronger social cues, more information to interact with colleagues, and better top-down management. The 2020 State of Remote Work Report revealed that 40% of freelancers indicated collaboration and communication/loneliness as their biggest struggles of working at home (Moss). All in all, despite the presence of modern online communication methods, face-to-face communication remains a superior one in terms of social relations quality.
Nevertheless, the coronavirus prevention measures revealed that remote working also has some social benefits. The adoption of WFH by top corporations, such as Twitter, Amazon, and Google, was successful as it ensured social distancing, provided relief from office-related stress, and increased time spent with family (Kelly). For instance, people who have sick or old relatives utilized a chance to look after them paying more attention to family issues. Remote workplace enabled individuals to be closer to family members what eased stress and overload obtained at the office before. Employees improved efficiency as they did not have to devote time to gossiping with time-sucking co-workers and attending continuous meetings, while technologies like Zoom and Google Hangouts were successful enough in work coordination. In other words, social connections at home help individuals to relax and enjoy their work; thus, one can expect that WFH will be applied more frequently in the future on a rotational basis.
Another important counter-argument is that WFH can result in a poor work-life balance, especially when employees fail to set an individual boundary between life and work. Despite increased flexibility, working at home may result in a complicated mix of these two life aspects and cause conflicts coming from the multiple roles people play (Zhang 44). Virtual staff usually face external challenges coming from their home environment, including their family members. For instance, the employees wife may ask to carry heavy packages from the vehicle to the house what will not take much time and energy but will definitely distract him from the assigned task. Freelancers often try to deal with such work-life conflicts and be simultaneously successful in both that adds a new level of complexity. Therefore, the WFH flexibility may cause problems if a virtual employee fails to establish a proper buffer of changing roles.
Conclusion
To conclude, Covid-19 upheaval forced the world to change the way people work and ignited the debate on whether work from home is better than in an office. Earlier presented arguments suggest that currently, WFH is the right choice, especially in terms of white-collar jobs such as managers, advisors, and market researchers. Homeworking increases the performance of professionals, leads to higher job satisfaction due to more convenient workplace, relative freedom, and time-saving, whereas employers reduce costs needed to house their people in costly skyscrapers. In the long-run, WFH can be dangerous for individuals social life and work-life balance if they fail to establish a proper boundary between the two elements. Nevertheless, the flexibility of remote working liberates employees and makes them able to spend free time with family and friends that is saved due to the absence of commute and unnecessary meetings.
Works Cited
Bloom, Nicholas, et al. Does Working from Home Work? Evidence from a Chinese Experiment. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 130, no. 1, 2015, pp. 1-35.
Booth, Barbara. Skilled Freelancers, Earning More per Hour Than 70% of Workers in US, Dont Want Traditional Jobs. CNBC, 2019, Web.
Dingel, Jonathan, and Brent Neiman. How Many Jobs Can be Done at Home? NBER Working Papers 26948, 2020, Web.
Kelly, Jack. The Massive Work-From-Home COVID-19 Test Was a Great Success and Will be the New Norm. Forbes, 2020, Web.
Moss, Jennifer. Dealing With Social Isolation. SHRM, 2020, Web.
Routley, Nick. 6 Charts that Show what Employers and Employees Really Think About Remote Working. World Economic Forum, 2020, Web.
Zhang, Jindan. The Dark Side of Virtual Office and Job Satisfaction. International Journal of Business and Management, vol. 11, no. 2, 2016, pp. 40-46.
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