Due to health concerns over COVID-19, almost two-thirds of Americans are now working remotely full-time. Many companies are preparing to allow for this to continue beyond the pandemic — Slack and Facebook are just two examples of new permanent work-from-home policies.
At first glance, it seems like the convenience of getting to roll out of bed and log into work in just your pajamas will finally become a long-term reality. However, just because the ability to work from home when needed or in special circumstances is considered a perk, this doesn’t mean that permanent remote work is ideal or even beneficial for the vast majority of employees.
First, without clear location-based boundaries between work and home, remote workers may end up working longer hours and blurring the boundaries between work and family. Microsoft’s July report on COVID-19 remote work suggests a lack of work-life balance, and other studies suggest that employees are working an average of three extra hours per day. Effective teleworking requires carefully set boundaries to maintain a good work-life balance. For many who aren’t able to set up such boundaries, a permanent work from home option may not be the best idea.
Second, having a majority of the workforce teleworking could widen the power gap between high-ranking and lower-ranking employees. There’s something called the “water cooler effect,” where much of the office networking, productivity, and success at work depends on the casual conversation that happens between coworkers during breaks and unofficial passing-by chats. Remote workers aren’t included in these on-the-spot conversations; meetings have to be scheduled in advance, and casual networking takes place in blocked-off team-building time.
Being “in the know” at your organization requires face time, and without such face time, remote workers risk being passed over for promotions and coveted assignments with more authority or responsibility. Sure, this isn’t a concern right now, since everyone is working from home, but when some return and others don’t, this creates a natural divide that only further widens the gap between those with power and those without. Employees who have the ability and resources to work in-person will be the ones who get the promotions, while employees who don’t get passed over.
Finally, remote workers rely disproportionately on the trust relationship with their supervisor and coworkers. Despite any constant reassurance you might hear that “we don’t care where you do your work as long as you do it,” having worked in remote settings before, I can assure you people will wonder what you’re doing with all that time at home. Effective remote work relies on mutual trust between the supervisor and employee, but trust is a fragile construct, and it’s affected by numerous factors not within the employee’s control. Making one’s effectiveness and performance evaluations so reliant on a subjective construct creates even more space for bias and unintentional discrimination, especially against disadvantaged groups.
Proponents of permanent telework often cite research that shows how working from home leads to improved job satisfaction and reduced stress, among other benefits. However, it’s worth noting that the extant research on teleworking was conducted on employees who had a specific reason to work from home (e.g., child care, commute, etc.), and usually only a few days a week or as needed. Thus, results may not be generalized to the average employee who has no specific reason not to work in the office, other than federal or company policy. It would be like surveying expatriates who opted to move to a foreign country and reported having a great experience, then using that to make the argument that every employee should be forced to work for a year abroad.
This is not an argument to ban teleworking — in the right circumstances, it’s incredibly valuable and beneficial to both employees and employers. We all need the flexibility to stay at home sometimes, and remote work opens doors for people living in areas far from major cities where most companies are headquartered.
Rather, take this as a warning that the rosy-eyed outlook of more and more companies allowing or even forcing the majority of their workforce to work remotely may be a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It sounds great at first, but there are likely a number of hidden and unexpected negative side-effects that negate any benefits of teleworking.
Steven Zhou is a Ph.D. student in industrial-organizational psychology at George Mason University. His research interests and expertise include leadership development, employee motivation, and psychometrics.
