Nearly a year into working from home because of Covid-19 closures, each day seems exactly like the one before. I wake up at 7 AM, prep meals, help my son with online school, work alone in a makeshift office, exercise, and finally drop into bed exhausted. Personal-professional boundaries\u2014once difficult to manage\u2014have been entirely erased. As many people in similar situations have noted, we aren\u2019t just working from home (WFH) anymore. We are living at our jobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For some, this has led to greater productivity. I certainly feel that I\u2019m getting more done: for work, with my family, and around the house. What\u2019s more, I have greater flexibility to decide what to do when, whether that means answering emails in the evening or spending time with loved ones during the day. There\u2019s a reason that WFH was on the rise even before the pandemic, and now both organizations and individuals seem more comfortable with it than ever before. In September 2020 the Conference Board surveyed more than 330 HR executives at large U.S. companies and reported that one-third expect 40% or more of their employees to work virtually past the spring of 2021, while 36% say they are now willing to hire workers who are 100% remote. But are we ready for that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The downsides of prolonged WFH\u2014monotony, social isolation, burnout\u2014can\u2019t be ignored. According to one survey released in 2020, employees working apart from colleagues were most concerned about diminished collaboration and communication, increased loneliness, and being unable to unplug. And studies show that what remote workers gain in efficiency and productivity, they lose in harder-to-measure benefits such as creativity, innovation, teamwork, trust, and empathy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Several new books aim to help us figure out this WFH reality\u2014analyzing the pros and cons, offering dos and don\u2019ts, and making predictions about which Covid-era changes we\u2019ll keep and which we\u2019ll jettison. How can we re-create positive real-world interactions and outcomes in mostly virtual settings? Can we reintroduce the office without succumbing to the same old inefficiencies and stressors? Or should we look to a future in which the workplace is more an idea than a location?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Working from Home: Making the New Normal Work for You<\/a>,<\/em> the Salesforce executive Karen Mangia argues that permanent WFH can be a viable career choice as long as you avoid the biggest pitfalls, such as never putting away your laptop. \u201cLike those pretzels or potato chips or donuts right there in your kitchen, work is always available,\u201d she warns. \u201cBut you know that always grazing isn\u2019t a healthy strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her recommendations for WFH the right way? She suggests separating work and home by means of rules and rituals. Instead of logging in right after you roll out of bed, follow a more traditional morning routine (exercise, walk the dog, grab breakfast). Be deliberate about how you use time throughout the day. Build in \u201cpauses,\u201d taking a few minutes to listen to music, to write in your journal, or to take a walk around the block. This helps preempt the WFH<\/a> time warp (in which you\u2019ve somehow spent the whole day staring at a computer screen) and makes room for new discoveries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Perhaps we can take a cue from the 70 location-independent professionals whom the professors Rachael A. Woldoff and Robert C. Litchfield interviewed for their book Digital Nomads: In Search of Freedom, Community, and Meaningful Work in the New Economy<\/a><\/em>. These are mostly Millennials who fled cities, corporate offices, and cultures of busyness in search of more autonomy and mobility and a better quality of life while remaining gainfully employed thanks to telecommuting technologies. Critically, however, they have not done so at the expense of human connection; in fact, the authors note that all the nomads insist on \u201cthe necessity of an in-person community\u201d and \u201cmeaningful\u2026face-to-face social networks,\u201d whether they\u2019re \u201cin Bali or elsewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some, like Oscar, a Canadian life coach and podcaster, also create group accountability rituals that Mangia would appreciate. When friends came to his villa to work with \u201cgood Wi-Fi\u201d for the day, he asked them all to write down what they wanted to accomplish. \u201cYou show up, you declare what you are doing, and you do it,\u201d he told the authors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Digital nomads may not be colocated with colleagues who share an employer, but they enjoy working alongside and bonding with a changing cast of characters from diverse companies, industries, and countries. And they find both personal and professional success along the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The authors note that although Covid-19 has perhaps disrupted a globe-trotting lifestyle, people can still be mobile and work flexibly within their home countries. And once vaccines have been distributed and travel bans and quarantine rules lifted, we may find many more knowledge workers considering nomadism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In following Mangia\u2019s and Woldoff and Litchfield\u2019s advice, we can improve remote work for individuals. But how can an organization manage dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of dispersed teams? A recent Slack survey found that only 12% of knowledge workers want to return to the office full-time. Many employers may struggle to go back to business as usual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Remote Work Revolution: Succeeding from Anywhere<\/a>,<\/em> the Harvard Business School professor Tsedal Neeley offers guidance. Although she acknowledges that \u201cthe more time we spend without regular in-person contact with coworkers, the more persistent and urgent questions about bonding, trusting, and alignment become,\u201d she also believes that research-backed best practices can help fill those gaps. Consider, for example, a \u201claunch session\u201d\u2014an open, leader-led discussion during which remote teammates clarify shared goals, individual roles, constraints, resources, and collaboration norms. Neeley recommends that teams communicate via video when possible (but not always), encourage differences of opinion, and spend more time on small talk to build trust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n No one knows what the new normal will be for knowledge workers. But as individuals, teams, and organizations, we all need to find ways to leverage what\u2019s good about WFH while creating better work\/life boundaries and staying connected and engaged. I don\u2019t feel the need to get back to my cubicle anytime soon, but I do miss great brainstorming sessions, team lunches, and coworker camaraderie. And I\u2019m still not sure we can replicate all that digitally\u2014despite the sunny attitudes and sound advice to be found in all three of these books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Originally published at Harvard Business Review and written by Vasundhara Sawhney<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>