Working from home: fine or painful
in the long run?

In 2020, the corona crisis completely turned both our private lives and our work lives upside down. We learned virtual meetings, online acquisition and digital negotiation at lightning speed. We adapted because the situation demanded it. By now, working from home feels familiar to many people. Some organizations even argue that working from home is becoming the new standard. Do organizations look critically enough at the long-term effects? Do they really dare to look at themselves or do they follow the mob? Is “working from home just fine” enough to remain healthy, engaged and effective?

From an ‘us’ to an ‘I’

Working from home has advantages. You avoid traffic jams, you can do some laundry in between, and you work in comfortable clothes. That seems efficient. Yet not everyone experiences working from home the same way. What works well for one person feels like social isolation for another. Teams unconsciously lose part of their mutual rhythm. Informal interaction disappears. The organizational we-feeling slowly shifts to an I-feeling. Organizations must therefore ask themselves what working from home means for the corporate culture. What happens to team spirit when physical meetings decline structurally?

Steering for ownership

With globalization and automation, distances between colleagues seem increasingly irrelevant. Nothing could be further from the truth. A virtual weekly start is fine. Creative collaboration or solving complex issues often requires physical proximity. A hybrid form only works when it is deliberately set up. Not by letting everyone choose freely, but by providing structure.

Research by Nicholas Bloom, published in Harvard Business Review, shows just how wide the differences in preferences are. Of the 30,000 Americans surveyed, 32% said they no longer wanted to go to the office, while 21% said they were completely done working from home. The solution lies not in individual choices, but in shared frameworks. Fixed days at home and fixed days together in the office prevent people from missing each other or feeling left out.

Giving ownership does not mean letting go. It means creating space within clear agreements. With attention to differences in work style and personality. With an eye for the need for connection. This prevents people from feeling excluded.

Herd behavior or critical thinking?

That organizations and media are clamoring en masse that working from home is becoming the norm sounds cool but requires nuance. Is this herd behavior or has the impact on performance, culture, collaboration and well-being actually been considered? Working from home either suits you or it doesn’t. Hybrid working works when you know where the risks are and where the opportunities are. That requires reflection. On your own preferences and on the team. What does the organization need to perform well in the long term? Those who choose hybrid cooperation choose conscious steering. Not for convenience. Not for hype. But for thoughtful change.

The future of work requires more than a practical work-at-home arrangement. The question is not whether working from home is possible. We answered that question a long time ago. The question is how to stay connected as an organization, how to keep teams functioning strongly and how to encourage ownership without losing people. When you pay attention to that, “fine working from home” turns into a sustainable work model that really works.

As an executive, do you want to learn how to excel yourself and your team remotely? Check out the Distance Leadership training course and develop a style that suits hybrid collaboration.

Source: HBR