I visit a lot of offices. I have moved offices 3 times in the past 2 years; so I can speak with authority about offices and I can say for sure that the move to open office spaces does not increase my personal productivity. In fact, I have clocked it: If I stay home and work from 7-10am on a sprint I am getting the same amount of work done as I do in my office during a normal day. That 3 hours of work time is not broken up with meetings and deciding what to have for lunch and coffee runs and chatting about tv shows and the news. In an open office space find it hard to concentrate on a specific task for very long because of the ambient noise and interruptions. Plus, I am not a fan of headphones or going into another space to work.
I realize I may be in the minority and I know I am adverse to change– I still use a Filofax for goodness sake. But everywhere you go today there are open office spaces with distractable perks like ping-pong and plentiful snacks and blow-out bars. I understand it is meant to provide creativity and foster a collaborative environment… but I don’t buy it and the research is now backing me up: in open offices workers spend more time talking to each other online than they do in person. So there.
Another study shows it takes more than 23 minutes to get back on track when you are interrupted. Which basically means proves that when I work in my pajamas in my bed without speaking to anyone except my friends on Morning Joe I am actually way more productive than if I went to work this morning.
Look, I definitely understand the counter-argument and working remotely does have its challenges: you miss a lot not being around the conversations that take place outside of scheduled meetings among co-workers. You may lose out on opportunities that come up on the fly. And while it may be personally more productive for me to work remotely, it may be less productive for my co-workers to have to catch me up on what I missed.
There are, however larger, less personal business cases for why remote work should be encouraged:
- Increased productivity–studies show remote work increases productivity and efficiency.
- Ability to hire from a larger talent pool than only those who are geographically available.
- Parents will flock to work for your business– flexible/ remote work is the number one thing caregivers are looking for when choosing work opportunities through The Second Shift.
- Lower overhead and operating costs without needing to provide office space and all those snacks and craft beer-on-tap.
Okay, time to get up and get dressed and go into work for a meeting. I have been at this computer for 2.5 hours and gotten my entire list of “to do” tasks completed. So now I can go to my actual “office” without the pressure of deadlines and enjoy myself and my co-workers.
From Jenny Galluzzo: Co-Founder/ Luddite/ Possible Curmudgeon?