WFH Lies

There is an interesting debate that has been going on for a couple years now about the work from home options, and while it has been consistently talked about for ages, it has been brought up again loudly through an Elon Musk interview recently. Musk brought up the "immorality" of the demand for WFH, considering that the majority of workers and especially the lower-paid, don't have the option and are expected to do their job from location.

Work from home has been a topic that I have talked about a fair bit since the start, because while I do think the option for working from home should be there, I also think that it is being misused and perhaps, misunderstood. The reason is that many people see working from home as a benefit, without factoring in all of the other aspects of it that aren't so great - like work-life balance.

One of the common complaints I heard throughout the Covid pandemic in regards to working from home, was that holidays didn't feel like holidays, for as people were forced into not travelling, there was no distance from work. They spent their time in their office, slash home. There was little change of scenery. Similar complaints have come up when people have days off, are ill or have sick children. At least in Finland, when sick or a child is sick, the law says that you don't have to work - yet, with work from home possible, people are working and there is "almost" an expectation that this will happen.

What people haven't seemed to realize in this argument, is while they are fighting to stay at home for convenience, the corporations are able to have less sick days, as well as reduce office space and provide less specialized equipment. While people are sitting at their kitchen table making Teams calls from a chair that is nowhere near ergonomically designed and in a position that puts unnecessary pressure on the body, a company is still getting productivity out at a lower cost. But, it is lower productivity in general, so they are weighing up the costs and since bottom-line is the driving force, it is still cheaper in the short-term.

But, for an employee, there is still very much an out of sight, out of mind factor in play, which means that the people who aren't making themselves visible in the organization, are going to increasingly miss out on advancement opportunity, even if they are doing their job well. While companies work on a profit maximization algorithm, promotions still have a very high human element involved, and not building internal relationships will mean missing opportunity. This is also part of the reason that people who work from home have to change company in order to get a promotion more often than those in the office. The other part of that is likely due to those working from home not being part of the social culture of the business, not having any personal relationships with their colleagues, making work, all very robotic.

People think that working from home empowers them in how they spend their time, but this is only have the story. What it does is makes their home an extension of an office without as good facilities or equipment, no cleaner, no discounted lunch place, no coffee with colleagues, no social events, no separation. In some ways, the lie I see in work from home is a similar lie to what is happening on OnlyFans.

What?

For decades women have been fighting for their right to not be sexualized or objectified, yet, now people call this female empowerment. Women are actually volunteering to be sexualized and objectified for money. And people justify it because the money that some of the women are getting is very, very good. Yet, because this has been normalized, they don't factor in that it has also lowered the bar to women been put into abusive situations and because it is all done at distance through a webcam, they have little chance of getting helped.

Isolation.

Work from home is a divide and conquer strategy that has further isolated us, taken away random interaction and reduced our personal time and space - and we feel empowered by it? We no longer get to talk with colleagues over a coffee in the same way, we don't see how corporations treat their people, we don't know who is hired and fired, we have little visibility on any of what is going on. We are in the dark.

But, our instant gratification culture means that because there is surface level convenience for it because we don't have to commute or wear pants to work, that is fine.

We also don't see when people are replaced by AI.

Winning.

Just like Nike doesn't care about whether the people who buy their products are healthy or not, corporations are looking to maximize the value of their employees. Through technological advancement, the per head value has increased in many industries, and now we are moving into a world where decreasing headcount and replacing it with processing power is the next major shift. Processors don't require offices, coffee or a desk - and they don't need a carpark. They work from anywhere and they don't complain about their conditions.

But, while this might not be the major concern for many now, what should be a concern is that the less face time they have with colleagues and supervisors, the more irrelevant they become in the organization. Sure, many will be able to keep changing jobs for a raise in salary for some period of time, but eventually, that plan falls through too, because without track-record which comes through references and results, they will not be hired.

Musk is not wrong when it comes to much of what he has said about working from home culture, but he is thrown under the bus because he talks in terms of productivity and profit. However, all companies are doing the same and for many of those companies, it is actually more profitable to have people work from home, because they see their people as more disposable, more replaceable.

It is getting very, very hard to find highly skilled and motivated people for specific positions, but there is a lot of middle of the road people out there who can fill a basic slot, get minimal training, require no space and will churn in six months when they move on, as they inevitably do. People don't commit to their workplaces anymore, but working from home means that companies don't have to commit to their employees at all either - everyone is faceless, just a number.

It is funny, people used to demand better working conditions, but now, they are demanding lower quality conditions being sold under the guise of convenience and options. Workplaces have got worse, and we think we are winning - even though salaries aren't increasing ands depression is on the rise. Add up the pros and cons, the costs and savings of working from home, and the positives are far slimmer and have a lower value than what people's intuition award them.

But, they are convenient.

Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]