Our Remote Work Future Is Going to Suck

Businesses, employees and the self-employed have found working remotely to be essential during COVID-19; many companies expect remote work to become the new normal even after the pandemic.

Workers and employers have found that remote work from home offers advantages: providing access to employment for people who can’t or won’t relocate; offering independence in managing time and productivity, reducing distractions and interruptions; conveniently eliminating commuting; and enhancing family life.

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There is one consensus prediction that is emerging…The distributed workforce is here to stay. And, furthermore, this change is a good thing for workers and welcomed by all. To which I say: ‘Um, have you ever worked remotely?”

Companies that promote remote work are not necessarily disinterested advocates. The most vocal proponents are frequently those who profit from providing communication software or selling tools that enable far-flung workers to collaborate or that facilitate e-commerce transactions. Media outlets often adopt and disseminate their claims – essentially marketing for their products – without critique or inspection. Activities that once were available in the work environment without overhead or planning, like a water-cooler conversation, get monetized into, for example, a Slack channel.

While remote work has advantages, it also has potential downsides, including career-stunting isolation.

Each positive claim from proponents of remote work has a corresponding dark side. While making employment available to a distributed workforce sounds great, and is probably inevitable, no evidence suggests that this will benefit current workers.

“These remote technology jobs don’t just go to a version of you living on a cute farm in the Hudson Valley. Those jobs go to anyone, anywhere.”

Many workers will find themselves competing with people all around the world who will do their work, just as well, for much less money. Perhaps technological innovations will emerge in your home country, but nothing guarantees that local workers with outsourced jobs will benefit from those advances.

The independence of work from home has disadvantages. Such freedom can come at the price of your employer ignoring or overlooking you. Managers find it harder to conduct a meaningful performance review when all they have to go on are your productivity numbers, which give them little insight into how you accomplished what you did. If your primary role is supporting others, you may become invisible. Managers lack an objective method for monitoring the quality and usefulness of the human interactions that make a team’s work go smoothly. Thus, remote work diminishes the value of “soft skills.”

“We bemoan the loss of empathy and context created by solely getting our news and interacting via social media… and we then turn around and set up our working lives in their image.”

Another disadvantage of working from home is the loss of learning that occurs through daily interactions with co-workers and mentors. When work focuses entirely on productivity, opportunities to encounter novel ways of thinking or people who do things differently disappear. Informal learning is vital to building a corporate culture and learning the skill of resolving conflicts. A co-working space comes with its own costs, and substitutes a group of strangers for the much more meaningful and helpful environment of colleagues working to fulfill the same organizational mission. Younger employees who work remotely may miss out on building the professional networks vital to a successful career.

Working from home does not guarantee career advancement, expand your sphere of influence or optimize your income.

The conceptual advantages of remote work are predicated on assumptions that don’t apply to many workers. 

Proponents of working from home assume that employees are comfortable linking their entire identities with their jobs. Merging home and office space makes keeping those roles distinct more difficult. The disruption of family life replaces office interruptions. The assumption that everyone can create a quiet, private home workspace is equally faulty.

“We cannot completely decouple the working experience from being in the physical presence of others without causing a slow-simmering existential crisis in its participants.”

Workers with families face challenges – especially since those with children who aren’t old enough for school may lack access to childcare outside the home.

Rather than adopting all-remote-all-the-time as the default, companies should create more flexible work scenarios that benefit the entire spectrum of employees.

People don’t work only to earn money; they find purpose and community in their workplace. Working from home is going to be a feature of the future employment mix and should be combined with other considerations.

“Remote friendly offers each worker the choice that works best for them. Remote required…forces everyone to adopt working styles that may be damaging to their personal lives and/or productivity.”

A new emphasis on “localism” would sustain the amenities that make a community a good place to live. Companies should support the cities in which they’re located. That means contributing in the form of taxes, expanding educational opportunities and building up cultural institutions.

Giving employees a choice between working on site or remotely makes sense only if companies provide childcare options to parents of young children. Whether companies lobby the government for subsidized childcare or provide services at their own facilities, every company of a certain size – the parameters may vary locally – should be obligated to make childcare available to its employees.

Remote work should always be optional. And similarly, managers should place confidence in their employees, whether on-site or remote, to manage their time responsibly. If an employee shows up when its essential, he or she should be trusted with the time to take care of personal matters. Even when working from home is as easy as possible, many workers are going to want to reclaim the pleasure and productivity of being in the same place at the same time as their colleagues.