To Work From Home Or Not To Work From Home

Four years from the pandemic and the debate still rages on, with employees attempting to take back some time and companies fighting for control. But is there really even a debate worth having? I think working from home provides balance in our lives and helps us feel trusted by our employers. And as for the companies, truly what is harming them in allowing this? 

This seems to be the first time employees are putting their foot down to corporations about how they want their working lives to look. We finally have leverage, give us work life balance or we’ll find it at another company. I’m glad to have entered my working life during this revolution, I can happily figure out what I want my career to look like while having balance and freedom. 

The freedom of throwing in a load of laundry before a meeting. Being able to cook whatever you want for lunch. Being there to let your dog out in the middle of the day. Taking a quick lap around the block for your break. Saving money on coffee because you can use the fancy Nespresso machine you got your Christmas. 

The list goes on and on, changing depending on each persons circumstances. It’s something that’s become so normalized in our lives and has made positive impacts across industries. Yet the debate still makes headlines, to let people work from home or not. I truly don't think we’ll ever have a definite answer, but I can give you mine: yes!

For my generation, we never experienced the full-time working world pre-covid. A lot of us, myself included, will never know what it was like working without the hybrid/remote model. As bad as covid was, I’m almost thankful for the changes it brought to the working world. Goodbye business professional everyday, hello flexibility! 

Older generations who are decades into their career are quick to turn up their noses at us younger workers, calling us lazy, when in reality I think we’ve come to realize we can have careers and lives outside work. We don’t have to choose anymore between the two. We can climb the latter and make names for ourselves from the comfort of our home offices, in clothes we actually enjoy wearing.

I was a sophomore in college when covid hit, which means fears were still very much alive into my junior year when internships were expected to be taken. I ended up accepting a position with the art department at Charleston Magazine, remotely. 

While the thought of a summer in Charleston was exciting, having the internship be remote worked out to my benefit. No trying to find a place to live, paying two rents, and looking for another part time job in a city I knew nothing about. I was told I was more than welcome to spend the summer in Charleston, but would still be working from home even within the city. 

While some argue that concentration and motivation levels plummet when working from home, I found mine to be equal if not more so than the office. I love feeling productive and when I can say I accomplished something at the end of the day, no matter how small. On a slow day in the office, I leave feeling idle and often with brain fog. However when I’m working from home, I can use this downtime to get things done around the house (with my laptop always close by) and end the day feeling just as accomplished. 

According to a survey done by Gallup, the majority of employees who are remote-capable work in either a fully remote or hybrid model. Six in ten employees that have the capability want a hybrid work arrangement, one-third prefer full remote and less than 10% prefer to work on-site. Times are changing, and the data says so.

For companies with offices scattered around the United States, or even globally, employees might not even be in the same physical space as some or most of their team. The work and communication that these teams do are a remote set up, so why not work from home? 

From my internship to my past two jobs, my situation was this way, with my supervisors in different office locations as me. While I do understand that there are certain jobs or cases that need you to be in person, in my experience this argument cannot be made for everyday.  If we’re already communicating remotely and aren’t in the same office, what is the difference from where I work? 

It’s exciting to be apart of this change in the working world and see progress be made to more work life balance. Careers are a big part of our lives, but they aren’t everything. Being with family and friends, being able to do the things we enjoy outside of work, all of this helps us grow. Growth outside of work is just as important as growth in a career, and now we can have the chance to do both without feeling guilty.