I am astonished at the number of articles and think pieces that continue to come out comparing the pros and cons of WFH to WFO. Somewhere, the world collectively decided these two concepts are mutually exclusive when the truth is the opposite. It is entirely possible for companies and individuals to maximize the collective benefits of both models by simply thinking differently than they use to. There has never been a one-size-fits-all approach, yet many are nostalgically looking back as if there was.
For those the remember Blackberries, the single key feature was the fact that they allowed people to receive and respond to emails from anywhere. With this single device, the ability to work from a golf course became a real possibility. It was the Blackberry that first allowed large groups of people to view spaces outside of the office as realistic places to work. This was followed by improved smartphones, wifi hotspots, portable laptops/tablets, and increased bandwidth for most homes. Technology has paved the way for people to no longer need the office as the anchor for their work, yet we never collectively looked back to realize the ground had shifted.
The global requirement for many types of professionals to work from home has introduced the opportunity to think about how work is best done without tying ourselves to past definitions. Unfortunately, change is very hard; particularly when that change goes against the experience that made so many managers seem successful. Work from Home/Office should not hinge on a daily decision of “where should I work today?”. Instead, it should be about what I need to do and where is best to do those tasks. What does it matter if your commute is at 10 and 2 instead of 7 and 5? If the same (or more) work is getting done and the same interactions occurred and the commute is easier, doesn’t everyone win?
Ultimately, so much of the current conversation is being driven by fear. How people work is believed to directly impact whether a manager succeeds (and theoretically whether a business succeeds or fails), but the reality is that the correlation between where people work and how good a manager is, does not really exist the way people (managers) imagine it. Overcoming this fear needs to be a function of time and patience. The future will look different from the past, but it will take time for many fighting against it to realize it. There will be winners and losers in this change and anyone seeing themselves on the wrong side will fight harder before it is over.