From open plan to the open home

People are up in arms over working from home. Some need it, some don’t mind it, and others cannot handle not being in conversation with their closest work neighbour to break up the monotony of their joyless role. If we forget about our personal bias and simply look at efficiency, working from somewhere that removes the need to commute to work is the most optimal way. If it means the company doesn’t need to rent as large of an office space, reducing fixed costs is a no-brainer. The only question a company should ask is does the value of the space equate to the amount of work lost or gained from working at home? Most likely you can’t answer an arbitrary performance question anyway, as the value your employees bring to your company is hard to quantify to a dollar value. 

Just remember to turn your camera off

There are always people who prefer the old way of doing things, reluctant to change. There are those who prefer older versions of computers, or of not having a mobile phone. They are slow to adapt, reluctant to take up the new and improved even though all of those around them have agreed it’s the better way. It’s no different from working from home. As time passes, more and more people will get better at it. The next generation of workers will be better at being remote, more accountable and more collaborative on demand. Those who think working from home is inefficient is because they themselves and those around them are not good at it. There are many global brands that are able to communicate effectively across remote teams with a high degree of success. Those reluctant to jump on board will be leap frogged by those who source the talent from where the talent resides. 

You could browse every streaming service at once

Now I'm not advocating for the complete removal of face to face work. It will still have its place. Working in person will be left for peak periods or in person cultural boosters and get-togethers. A few weeks of the year for hardcore planning, distribution and portfolio ownership. It’ll be used for emergency war rooms and major roadblocks. It will be less often, used more effectively. We won’t automate ourselves out of a job, but we will automate ourselves out of the office.