Bosses want staff to return to offices. Here's why

The Covid-19 pandemic was a life-altering event for people living in the 21st century. 

Delivering a strong shock to our prevailing socio-economic and state structure, the pandemic has compelled us to rethink our approaches to healthcare, education, and welfare sectors.

The pandemic, however, has also challenged the fundamental principles, which governed our workplaces for so long. For most people, commuting to work was a prerequisite.

As the pandemic began to take hold of the world, almost all offices allowed their employees - except for frontline workers - to work from home, reducing the risk of being infected.  

As soon as the situation began to improve and people started getting vaccinated, employees were instructed to return to offices. Be that as it may, remote work had yielded great results during the pandemic. 

A study conducted by Stanford University found that workers were 13% more productive while working from home. 

People who worked from home were also found to be more consistent; working longer hours and producing better results. If working from home increases employees' productivity, why do bosses keep insisting on coming back to offices?

A forced separation

Millions of freelancers have been working from their homes and producing satisfying results for their clients. But the current trend of working from home only started when employees were forced to begin social distancing to curb the spread of Covid-19. 

It would have been great if employees and employers had come to an arrangement beforehand about their preferred work environments, ensuring everyone's satisfaction. 

That, however, simply was not the case. As a result, it is difficult to definitively say whether everyone is happy with this arrangement. 

Logistical and infrastructural inadequacies

For working effectively at any workplace, one needs an efficient logistical and infrastructural support mechanism. Working from home began as a hasty arrangement, leaving no room to establish such a mechanism. 

Especially in Bangladesh, where many people do not have access to computers, scanners, printers, and stable internet connection, working from home has always been a challenge. Internet connection has been a subject of concern for many years. 

Some areas do not have broadband connections. On the other hand, Bangladesh's mobile phone users tend to experience slow internet speed. As a result, working from home may cause disruptions and derail operations of entire organisations. 

Most employees in Bangladesh also do not have a dedicated workspace at their homes. As many people live with joint families, finding a place free of distractions and domestic chaos to concentrate on work is not a luxury everyone can afford.

Isolation and alienation

Besides infrastructural support, offices can provide employees with mental support as well. Having supportive colleagues who help each other out is a facility working from home cannot offer. 

Dr Muhammad Shariat Ullah, chairman and professor of University of Dhaka's Department of Organisational Leadership and Strategy, said, "When employees work together at the office, they keep each other's morale high. There is a sense that they all are in a challenge together, as a team. It helps people to not give up easily if they find a task to be complicated". 

Working from home can alienate an employee from their purpose. They may lose sight of their duties and place in the organisation. This sense of isolation can demoralise employees very quickly, leading to a dip in productivity. 

Increased productivity, but at what cost? 

Multiple studies have found that employees are more productive while working from home. They are working for more hours and days while producing better results. But this increase in productivity is actually too good to be true. 

Workers are more productive, not because their homes provide a better work environment than their offices, but because working from home has blurred the lines between their work and personal lives. 

There are no fixed office hours anymore. I am sure that almost everyone had to attend at least one meeting at an unconventional time - 10pm. 

"This practice is not healthy," said Dr Shariat Ullah, adding, "to function effectively for a long time, one needs to maintain a healthy work-life balance. Employees now face burnouts more often as they start working from the moment they wake up until they go to bed at night."

In fact, a recent study by Monster - a leading US-based recruiting agency - has found that 69% of employees working from home are now experiencing symptoms of burnouts. 

Organisations do not need employees who can produce great results for a short period of time and turn out to be unproductive in the long run. 

These burnouts can result in exhaustion, loss of productivity in the long run and high turnover rates - none of which are ideal for a business operation. 

Comradery and interpersonal relationships

In modern workplaces, no individual can ever truly work alone. Almost every employee is part of a team within their organisations. These team members have to work together for a long time, solving difficult problems for their companies. 

But these tasks are not easy to accomplish while working from home. "Team dynamics cannot be developed if you do not know your teammates in person," Dr Shariat Ullah said. 

He also stressed about developing interpersonal relationships between employees, saying, "Interpersonal relationships are often what bind organisations together. If you do not have a sense of collective purpose, you simply will not remain motivated enough to do your job when things become difficult." 

Problems for the management 

When the lockdown finally ended, decision makers of most companies were the first ones to put an end to working from home. 

From the biggest corporations in the world like Apple and Nasscom to the smallest enterprises, employers were prompt to get their employees back in the office. But why? 

The main reason was communication, said Emran Hasan, CEO of Shanta Asset Management Company. "A company's management has to be aware of every little thing, every moving part of the organisation," he remarked, adding, "working from home simply does not provide that particular benefit." 

It is also difficult to serve clients while working from home, especially while working in a sales team. 

"When you want to sign clients on board, you want to know what they are thinking," Emran stated, adding, "tone of voice, body language, eye movements are crucial during sales meetings. No matter how many Zoom calls you hold, you will simply not be able to read your clients."

Trouble for SMEs

Working from home presented unique and difficult challenges for every business. Small and medium enterprises also had to overcome these challenges. But they faced much more difficulty. 

Even before the pandemic, large corporations had teams of technological experts, plenty of funding to provide employees with laptops, desktops, smartphones and other necessary elements. Those facilities, however, were not available to small and medium businesses. 

"When the pandemic first hit and lockdown was initiated, we could not provide our employees with laptops to work from home simply because we did not have money", said Md Abul Qasim, owner of Anan Chemicals. 

Employees had to adapt - work on their smartphones. But this was obviously not ideal. "When your company only employs a small number of people, many of whom are inexperienced, you would want to work closely with them and show them the way. That was not possible while working from home, said Qasim. 

Be that as it may, working from home is not something that should be discarded as an option. Many organisations have now come to some arrangements with employees about their work environment preferences; permitting them to work from home for two or three days a week.

Working from home has now become a mainstream, viable alternative. Modern offices have had to undergo many changes to become efficient places for work. Perhaps, employees' homes too will have to undergo similar changes, if they want to work from there.