Working from home on a continual basis is an unstable business practice that will rarely be successful, and one that businesses should attempt to mitigate, by ensuring employees work from home days are limited. This is because working from home greatly reduces employee productivity; limits teamwork potential; destroys the camaraderie of a work group; reduces socialisation; increases individual loneliness; and provokes burnout and exhaustion.
Teamwork is absolutely vital in the office, and without face-to-face communication, is simply put, fractured. Zoom, Slack, phone calls and SMS all allow communication, but none of them are as effective as in person meetings. Body language assists in communicating tone, engagement, asking questions or voicing concerns. This of course increases efficiency of team tasks.
As well as this, working from home reduces the amount of social activity enjoyed by individuals. It is difficult to interact with our colleagues socially through a computer screen, leading to feelings of isolation. Throughout the worst months of the pandemic, mental health issues reached an all-time high, a result of being locked inside one's domicile. Seeing work colleagues in the flesh will certainly relieve feelings of isolation.
Working from home is also responsible for increased exhaustion and possibly burnout. Whilst having no set hours may at first feel like a blessing, it often ends up turning into an excuse for employers to often swamp employees in more work than could have been completed in the 9-5 workday. With no set boundaries comes exhaustion, demotivation and burnout, greatly reducing employee efficiency.
Therefore, it is clear the work from home model is unsustainable as it makes workers less productive. Employers should prioritise encouraging employees to work in the office.
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