The uncomfortable truth about working from home

There is a difference between working remotely and working from home.

When you are a remote employee in a remote team it simply means that you and your teammates are not located in the same place. And that’s known to everyone from day one. That was a mutual agreement between you and your boss. 

More and more companies become comfortable having distributed teams and remote employees. They put in place rules and practices, which support remote collaboration and minimise the drawbacks of not having everyone available at hand. People who work remotely quickly get to realise that they also need to adapt some routines in order to remain productive. We keep hearing testimonies from companies and individuals, who benefit from remote work and who share advice how to do it in a least frustrating way. Arguably, working remotely is on a trajectory to become the default in IT-related industries and I fully support this trend. 

Then we have this concept of working from home as the opposite of working at the office. Like when you want to stay at home awaiting a plumber or a delivery. When you feel under the weather and call in sick. Or when your kid feels under the weather and you need to keep an eye if they don’t turn the house upside down while not at school. Or - as is the case in March 2020 - when your company mandated work from home to prevent COVID-19 from spreading. 

Here working from home is not the norm - it’s the exception to the rule. Of course you ensure everyone that you’d be approachable anytime on email, messenger and phone. You promise to call in to all the meetings. And you even might tell yourself how much you’re going to get done when you won’t be distracted by the water cooler chats and coffee runs. 

But in reality you end up doing some home chores while keeping your laptop open to pretend that you’re active. You call in to meetings with video off and keep scrolling the internet. You avoid reaching out to people for a meaningful discussion, because you’d rather do it face to face the other day. 

And it’s not because you’re a lazy slacker (except that sometimes everyone is). In fact, you may just feel relieved that for a day or two you are away from the office realm. Your home is a safe place. Here you don’t need to look busy for 9 hours straight. You don’t need to put on a smile whenever your boss is around. And you don’t need to fake enthusiasm and engagement on the second hour of a meeting that doesn’t seem to reach any closure.

That is the problem.

Companies, who resist to set up remote teams, often claim that work from home degrades productivity and breaks social bonds. What I hear beneath these statements is fear of loosing control and power. These are the companies where managers and executives avoid the emotional labour required to build the culture of trust and mutual accountability. In turn, their employees gladly accept an opportunity to do a little bit less. 

The uncomfortable truth is that good advice from all the "10 ways to make work from home awesome" articles will only work if you choose to really do the work. 

Technology offers us increasingly more convenient tools and solutions that support distributed collaboration. Now it’s time for both leaders and employees to do the work and change their postures to adapt to the new circumstances. The consequences of COVID-19 outbreak signal that remote collaboration may be no longer a choice, but a default. 

As a leader it is your responsibility to build the culture and practices that glue your people together into a highly functioning and responsible team. No matter if they work remotely on a daily basis or happen to be working from home. 

As an employee it is on you to find or - even better - create a place where you will generously give your full self. No matter if you’re working at the office or from home.