Working from home, the office, or anywhere… My story.

(Disclaimer:  This is my story from my perspective. Yours may vary.  All opinions are mine and not that of my current or former employers.)

It’s Monday and that can only mean one thing. It’s time to share!! Ok, it can mean other things, but your commute time could be spent listening to this instead of reading. Up to you! The podcast versions, in English and French, are here:

People Power Everything Podcast (Version Francophone)

If you are like me and stories about remote work jump out at you, you might have seen a study published called Return-To-Office Mandates, which basically says they don’t work. On the contrary, they reduce employee satisfaction, and do nothing to improve productivity. I was going to write about articles and the debate about it, but ended up writing a summary of my personal history and opinions about it. Happy reading!

For over 20 years, I have enjoyed, and I mean really enjoyed, the option of working from pretty much anywhere.  It started with taking my laptop home in case I got called on pager duty.  Yes, I am pager duty old.  I was on call, which meant that the pager could go off at any hour of the day or night, weekday or weekend, and I had to be able to respond.  Sometimes, that just meant a quick call to make sure things were going ok and to know if I had to login to check more details.  If that was the case, I would boot up my computer, login through VPN from no matter where I was at the time, and check things out.  Through my computer, I also had access to chat, phone and teleconferencing applications that let me “be in the office” just like anyone actually at a desk. 

Over time, the on-call capability slowly morphed in to working from home on days when the weather was particularly bad or that I wanted to focus on something in particular, but it was still rare.  Then, I started working on projects where the team was scattered across geographies and being in the office started to lose value.  I was on my computer all day on teleconferences, direct calls or doing focused work. The people physically around me grew to be less and less.  At one point, I was going to the office in Montreal, a 2 hour drive away, more often than the one in Ottawa where my assigned desk was.  It got really clear to me that going in to the office was much more of a burden than a benefit.  Mostly because I wasn’t actually seeing the people I worked with, but also about cost. In technical terms, the ROI sucked.  It got to be that there were so few people in the office that without coordinating with others to meet, I was alone.  I probably had at least 2,000 square feet to myself.  Luckily, I had a wireless headset and could use the space to get some exercise. 

After a while, I started doing the mental math of how much going in to the office was costing me.  Parking was at least $15 a day, then coffee, sometimes lunch if I was lazy, which came up to anywhere between $20 and $40 a day.  Multiply that by lets say 220 work days in a year (assuming 4 weeks vacation and some sick days thrown in for good measure.) and $30 a day, it adds up to $6,600 a year, and that is after taxes!  So, I was probably throwing close to $10,000 of my yearly salary down the drain to be in a place where I didn’t see or work with anyone in particular.  Add to that the cost of gas, insurance, wear and tear on the car, or a bus pass if I took public transportation, and you can see how it all adds up.  Not even to mention the time!  Oh, the time!  Ottawa traffic is really not bad compared to other locations, but my commute could easily be 45 minutes each way, meaning I was spending an hour and a half in traffic every single day.  For nothing.  So, I just decided to work from home most of the time.  If there was a meeting or other important happening in the office, I would happily go in without a fuss, even on a Monday or Friday. I know, how very magnanimous of me.

At first, the company I worked for didn’t condone or approve of it, but it became an unspoken agreement.  Nobody complained and the work got done, so it was all good.  Team members started taking a month to work from more tropical locations in the winter.  As long as the internet connection was fast, most people barely noticed.  Sometimes, people had better internet service abroad than at home.  Being in Ottawa or Orlando didn’t matter.  We didn’t say anything because we thought we might have been a few disclosures away from being mandated in to the office.  In some places, they tried that and people promptly pretty much just ignored it.  It was obvious that people wanted the flexibility and few saw the value in forcing people to be in their cubes every day. 

Then came COVID.  For our team, we had a call on that fateful Friday, March 13, 2020, and the boss looked around the virtual room we were already used to being in and said “everyone should stay home on Monday and for the foreseeable future”.  We all just had a blank stare and said “ok, this is basically what we do already, so no problem”.  Little did we know about the length of the lockdowns and health measures.  While it definitely affected our lives, our working lives went on virtually unchanged for the most part. 

In early 2022, the company started “calling people back to work”, which several of us were upset with for several reasons.  First, don’t say “back to work” when we’ve been working our tails off keeping things going while the world suddenly changed and we ended up with a lot more to do very quickly.  Our teams were called upon to enable the technology, in a secure fashion, so a lot more people could join our wonderful world of remote work.  It was hectic, but I was happy to see many more people enjoying the flexibility of working from home.  The communications teams adjusted and started using “back to the office”, which we still didn’t like, but we let that go. 

In the team I worked in, spread out among many cities across the country, and even with a colleague who lived in Central America (This wasn’t new.  He had lived there a long time.), we weren’t too excited about being forced in to an office we already didn’t really go to before the pandemic.  Upper management on the other hand seemed very keen to see their office spaces filled with people, somehow to justify the rent being paid maybe, and to fit an antiquated view of the world that only people who see each other live and in person every day can be productive, innovative and creative, somehow ignoring the amazing work that had happened over the previous 2 years. The Human Resources director who thought she would hate working from home who had developed a taste for it, admitting that freely over a conference call, somehow suddenly forgot about it.  We had a presentation about how the company was revamping office space to be collaborative.  Bizarrely, they had the third party company who does office space renovations present it.  The staff quickly called out the blatant bias involved.  Still, leadership pained to properly explain the benefits of taking away their people’s autonomy and flexibility in the name of some unproven concepts of collaboration.  Honestly, I don’t judge them for it.  They didn’t know anything else.  They were doing what they thought was right and towing the company line. Here were people who had flourished in an office environment, being promoted to higher ranks. This is what they knew.

Personally, years before I had gotten myself moved to a location where I was in an office with 4 other people with whom I never worked.  My arrangement was to simplify taxation for me and to give me a location that was not my home, but only 10 minutes away and had free parking, if I wanted to get out of the house, which is something we absolutely need.   So, without needing to go to an office for a specific reason, I just didn’t go.  I saw leadership touting how great it was to see each other and that people were happy to have been together physically for the first time in 2 years.  Somehow, that became the basis for the explanation on how amazing office life is.  I don’t deny that humans need to see each other in the flesh from time to time.  I just have no belief that it has to be every day, or several days a week, in order to develop relationships and work productively.  And, for the nitpickers, yes, I do think humans should see other humans on most days.  We live in communities, families, circles of friends, and work.  But work is but about a quarter of the time for most people (40 hours in a week that has 168 hours = 24%), so a minority.  There are other ways to get your people fix than an office. Not to mention that if you want a broader labour pool, remote work gives so many more options.

Since then, the company has implemented several measures to track and force people to be in the office 3 days a week minimum.  Many of the people I speak to go in grudgingly, suffering through long commutes to spend extra money on all the things I am saving on to be in front of their screen and talk on the phone.  I hope they do get the benefit of “watercooler” moments where they can connect with people they may not otherwise.  Personally, I will continue to schedule virtual coffees and ask my colleagues to suggest new ones on a regular basis.  We can build relationships and new connections remotely.  It takes some effort, but so does saying hi to random people and asking them questions about themselves without much context.  I actually find my virtual coffees to be easier to get off the ground since my introductory message gives them the context and why some weirdo in IT wants to get to know them better.  My long time friends who are still working there aren't in a bad situation. Far from it. But, they could be happier, more satisfied and have some extra money in their pockets if they didn't have to go to a central office all the time to basically do what they can from home.

A few years ago, I left that company and now work in a job that is officially 100% remote.  I still see people live.  I go to the headquarters about every month for a few days for specific meetings, but also just to see people and develop closer relationships.  The important part of this is that I do it on my own terms.  Having the choice is powerful.  To be clear, I didn’t leave my previous employer because they wanted me to “come back to the office”, but it was a small part of it.  I value my freedom and independence.  As basic psychological needs theory says, autonomy is key to intrinsic motivation.  When we take pieces of that away, people feel it and respond with less productivity, less satisfaction and less motivation.  The concept of giving people all the autonomy we possibly can is simple, yet there are many companies that struggle to balance it.  And, I should be clear that my previous employer was really good overall.  I had many opportunities to learn vast amounts and work with amazing people.  I would recommend it as a good place to work, as long as you want to go in the office regularly. 

For all my friends and former colleagues who feel like they are wearing golden handcuffs like a pension plan, work stability or just a fear of change, I hope you find balance and can work with your leader to “adjust” your interpretation and application of policy to fit your needs.  Maybe you actually love going to the office every day.  If so, awesome! I know some of you who can’t stand working from home.  I am happy the office can be your escape or simply provide you with the boundary you need to keep the balance in your life.  Or just fulfil your desire / need to see other humans.  Working from home can certainly be difficult for some who are challenged to walk away from work, take breaks, actually move around, or just don’t have the space.  And, working from the kitchen table is far from ideal or ergonomic. 

When I sat down this morning to write about back to office policies and my opinion on them, I didn’t think this would be the product, but I was just in a state of flow and it came out.  I ended up writing a summary history of my experiences, which may vary from yours greatly.  In the end, what I really want to convey is that blanket policies that force people to do things they don’t want to without sufficient justification is a recipe for lower staff satisfaction, reduced productivity, and certainly worst of all for the company: increased turnover.  Remember that replacing someone ends up costing companies anywhere from 3 months to a year salary equivalent to recruit, train and ramp-up someone new, not to mention all the corporate memory being lost, so beware how your policies affect your people’s intent and actions to leave for somewhere that better fits their needs. 

Last, I have to acknowledge the many people can’t work remotely, even on my own team, which is unfortunate, but some jobs are just about being on-site like retail, manufacturing or construction, just to name a few.  For those of us in roles that can be done from anywhere, why would we limit ourselves with policy against it?  Why not enable better conditions, policies that support remote work and personal autonomy.  And, support all that with regular face-to-face meetings, funded by the savings in real-estate because you don’t need as many mostly empty cube farms.  Bring people together in a meaningful, impactful way, and let the relationships flourish and be maintained remotely in between.  Support your people in exploring the world, , or just our own backyard, which will actually stoke creativity, while continuing to be productive members of the team.  There are so many good ways to work together with the technology at our finger tips. Let's take advantage of them and be happier humans.

Thanks for reading my little historical adventure in remote working.  I hope this has given you a perspective that helps make you and your people happier at work.  After all, People Power Everything.  

 Thanks for reading.  If you see yourself in this, or if you are completely in disagreement with it, I would LOVE to hear from you.  Send me a note at [email protected]