The Future of Work: Is the Office Dead?

However, the rapid rise of networked technologies, plus the COVID-19 pandemic, has more recently driven many professionals right back to where most people worked before the Industrial Revolution — home. In the years to come, such remote working arrangements will rapidly become the norm.

That’s one narrative about the past and future of work, at least. But is it the correct one?

Companies well-positioned to offer remote work — for example, technology organizations, marketing agencies, and professional services firms — have diverged sharply in their long-term plans for remote work. The future of work is still very much an unresolved issue. Let’s look at the arguments for and against the proposition that the office is finished.

For: Remote work makes the office obsolete

Microsoft, Twitter, Coinbase, and Shopify, among others, have all approved indefinite work-from-home for their employees from 2020. They made these moves in light of several overarching trends that have spurred the uptake and acceptance of remote work as a more productive, enjoyable, and healthier alternative to the in-office grind:

Technological advances

Real-time collaboration tools for voice, video, screen sharing, and chat let workers finally move on from age-old in-office staples such as conference room meetings and long email exchanges. These solutions help keep meetings focused by minimizing time wasted. Consulting firm, Korn Ferry, has found that two-thirds of workers think meetings take up too much of their workday, underscoring the importance of more streamlined collaboration — which is more achievable than ever, thanks to the technologies that underpin remote work.

Productivity

Remote workers may be even more productive than their in-office counterparts. A Salesforce Research survey from May 2020 found that 86% of teleworkers rated their productivity as “excellent” or “good” and 81% felt the same way about their communications with colleagues. Another study conducted by a Stanford University professor and the CEO of Trip.com revealed that remote workers had 13% higher daily output than on-site ones due to fewer distractions.

WFH as a job perk

Even before telework began its rapid acceleration in 2020, many workers were seeking additional flexibility and employers were positioning WFH as a pivotal job perk for landing and retaining talent. According to Global Workplace Analytics, 72% of talent professionals see remote work as integral to employee retention. Separately, Buffer found that virtually all (98%) remote workers as of 2020 wanted to continue teleworking for the rest of their careers.

Health concerns

A 2020 Wakefield Research survey commissioned by Envoy showed that 73% of respondents thought returning to a physical workplace was a risk to their health and safety. For this reason, some large organizations have repeatedly pushed back their timelines for a return to the office. For example, both DocuSign and Slack have allowed for full-time telework until at least the summer of 2021. Working from home makes it easier for employees to limit their exposure to others and also to avoid auxiliary health risks such as automobile accidents during rush-hour commutes.

Against: The office is still alive and well

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings expressed frustration with remote work’s negative impact on the company’s culture. He predicted that the norm for many workplaces would eventually become four days per week in the office and one day at home, since WFH can’t simulate the experience of an in-person environment.

It also remains to be seen whether the widespread adoption of core WFH technologies such as real-time chat, voice, video, and screen sharing can truly replace face-to-face interactions and the conventional office setup itself. Earlier tech such as the telephone, the fax machine, and email all enabled work to be performed even from a great distance. But far from supporting a shift toward telecommuting, these previous innovations all reinforced the importance of corporate offices, in which workers made calls and sent faxes and emails from their desks.

Will the same trend play out with collaboration solutions? In other words, will we eventually return to an in-office “normal” of people sending messages to one another across the room and setting up video, audio, and screen share links with offsite colleagues and prospects as needed?

Perhaps, although an en masse return to offices hasn’t materialized as of late 2020. Research found that US office visits had declined by over half year-over-year in September 2020. At the same time, activity had been quicker to bounce back in factories and warehouses, in which common jobs are more difficult to perform virtually.

Ultimately, the answer to whether the office is finished will vary by organization type and industry. But the advance of remote work, as a more common practice supported by technologies that are steadily improving, means that the office does finally face a formidable challenge.