Working at Home = Not all it cracked up to be?
Generation Y Veneration has some predictions about working from home:
Despite the ability for many people in my industry (and other industries) to work from home everyday if they wanted to, they don’t.
Why?
Because nothing beats a face to face conversation.
I think it’s dangerous to conflate ‘working at home’ to ‘never leaving your house for work-related reasons’. The Generation Y-fueled change is not necessarily a shift towards impersonal business, but rather toward increased fluidity between work and life. Depending on the industry, your office can be a kitchen table, a coffee shop, a hotel lobby or a rented meeting space. Or, when it works, a virtualized online space.
It’s about being flexible and being open to new ways of work. Because, really, is there any real logic to the belief that work needs to be done collectively at a physical location with a water cooler and fluorescent lighting?
Tags: flex time, generational shift, offices
Related: February 10, 2008: Slaying the cubicle | March 30, 2008: The modern workplace: Creation and Collaboration | April 13, 2008: Saving the environment by not commuting to work |
I’ve seen it in my workplace where “working from home” is a euphemism for “not working at the office” - I think Gen Y understands this better, and takes it to the next level. We’ve grown up with ubiquitous portable technologies of one kind or another, and many of us want to be able to take that skill and understanding and translate it into work-anywhere or any time careers. This is the sort of situation that co-working at Jellies or dedicated co-working space is meant for - work with the freedom of a freelancer with the environment and camaraderie of an office-worker.
Interesting thoughts on the mobility of work. Yet, I believe that a lot of people actually enjoy the experience of going “to work”, standing around the water-cooler etc.
What I did not include in my post, and I probably should have, was that I see the workplace remaining a separate place but it may actually be a place that looks and feels a little more homely. Think, decks, couches, soft lighting, informal areas…it’s already happening I know - but I think it will become even more common.
With the amount of technology I have grown up with, I feel like the more I can spend my work hours personally interacting with people the better. Technology is great, but nothing will beat a face to face meeting. And I would rather do this in a space that represents my company, a place where my colleagues and I can connect and share ideas under one roof.
“Because, really, is there any real logic to the belief that work needs to be done collectively at a physical location with a water cooler and fluorescent lighting?”
Because some jobs just can’t be portable. Manufacturing is one. If you want to work from home in some jobs at my company, it’s going to take an on-call delivery service and over $350K of specialized machine tools.
Not going to happen for any company I know of.