What’s more important at work: being physically present, or being productive? I think it’s the latter, but thousands of corporations are now (in 2022) setting their mandates about returning to the office.

Since I’ve been working remotely since 2005, I’m a pro at it, and I love it—I have NO plans to ever work in a corporate office again. This article shares my thoughts about remote work, and findings in the latest HubSpot Hybrid Work Report as a Black woman working remotely in tech for my entire career, both as an employee and an entrepreneur.

Remote-Working OG? That’s me!

I started working from home (WFH) as a “virtual employee” in 2005–that’s how I was referred to within the company. Back then, it was widely referred to as telecommuting instead of remote work, but it’s the same thing. So when the whole world started working from home, I didn’t have to adjust. However, it DID help me leave a job I held for 22 years to move on to greener pastures.

I was the envy of everyone I knew, because not only did I get to work from my house, my employer at the time also allowed me to get reimbursed for my internet and phone expenses, since they were required for my home office. (They were already saving money by letting go of the real estate that held all of our cubicles.)

One of the reasons I stayed with that employer for so long was that I was 100% remote. Somehow, I survived multiple mergers and acquisitions in those 22 years. It’s a known fact that being visible, that is, physically present in an office (”presenteeism”), often weighs in on promotions and upward mobility, regardless of the individual’s contributions and productivity. But thankfully, I’ve never had that problem—one of my promotions happened during a time of layoffs, simply because I kept track of my accomplishments and was vocal about it.

WFH opened doors wider for freelancing and entrepreneurship

Over my 23-year writing career, I’ve also become a speaker, an author, a life coach, a podcaster, and a professional voice actor. I started all of my businesses while WFH. Sure, I could have done all of those things as a work-from-the-office employee, but not as fast or as effectively. This is especially true when it comes to voiceover work, where auditions come at any time of day, and recording sessions must be done during normal business hours.

Who should be forced to go back to the office?

Some types of work are obviously most suited to be in-person, face-to-face. But what about those who have successfully been WFH during the pandemic with no adverse affects to the quality of their work or productivity with their teams?

It depends on whether your leadership values presenteeism over productivity.

First, the phrase “return to work” should be called “return to office” instead — we’ve been working hard at home too. Sometimes harder than when we were at the office (for those who don’t have strong boundaries around their work schedules and personal lives).

The Great Resignation is still in full effect. A recent Inc. article says that over 50% of employees plan to look for new jobs unless leaders do specific things regarding recognizing workers’ contributions, diversity and inclusion, and work/life balance. (The findings in that article came from a Workhuman research report).

I’ve been looking at some other recent reports too. Findings from the HubSpot 2022 Hybrid Work Report released in January reveal several interesting findings in its concise 8 pages.

They surveyed 4K workers in 8 markets, and reviewed comments from 6K hybrid-only employees. 39% wanted to stay at home, 18% want to go back, and the rest, 43% wanted to keep their hybrid arrangement. The most interesting stat I found: 36% said they’d rather go to the dentist very month than commute to work every day!

WFH is not necessarily isolating

Many of the HubSpot respondents felt disconnected or isolated from their teams by working from home, and this seems like a no-brainer. However, I wonder what about whether these folks’ personality types are introvert, extrovert or ambivert?

I’m an ambivert, and while I get a lot of energy from others, I cherish my alone time too. While I’ve dealt with chronic loneliness, I rarely feel lonely WFH. I prefer to be alone (not being alone means you’re lonely—it doesn’t). To be most productive, I need to work in a calm, quiet environment to concentrate.

Regardless of your preference to work with people around or not, you may not feel isolated just because you WFH alone.

Productivity and boundaries

Speaking of productivity, 70% of respondents said that too many calls and meetings are disruptive to their concentration and 58% feel at least half the meetings they joined could have been emails instead. 68% prefer only email or video calls for workplace communication.

I would think that Slack would be included in that preference. Like many tech companies, I work in a place where Slack is used heavily throughout the company instead of email. There are several of my co-workers have explicitly stated that they check their email very infrequently, and prefer Slack.

50% of respondents said their productivity is the same when WFH as when they weren’t, while 39% say their productivity has improved. But 58% still struggle with boundaries between work and personal life. It’s so easy to work longer hours in your house, with so many conveniences right there.

So again I ask: what’s more important at work: being physically present, or being productive?

“Anonymous” surveys, transparency
and implementation

31% of respondents (especially Black workers) said that opportunities to provide feedback anonymously would help them feel more supported and included at work. This is not a surprise to me! I just wonder how many of those surveys are counted. Are surveys sent to employees only, or contractors and freelancers too?

Where I currently work, I’m a contractor and not eligible for these kinds of surveys, even though I’m doing the same work as employees in my department. To give you an idea, there are about 20 writers in my department, but only 5 are employees. The rest of us are contractors. Therefore, 5 people are speaking for all of us, and we as contractors don’t have a voice, even though many of us stick around for more than 6 months, which is long enough to comment on what the work environment is like, whether we’re WFH or not. Contractors do all the same work that the employees do, dealing with most of the same problems, if not more.

People need to be able to provide feedback anonymously so they can feel free to express their true feelings without consequences or retaliation. I talked to a family member about this, and she said that some leaders have access to filter the results by cost center or department. (This makes the results seem less anonymous, especially if you have a department like the one I described with only 5 employees.) When you consider the limited space for answers, and no nuances from voice and tone, the answers can be taken the wrong way and easily misinterpreted. Sentiments like hers make her feel like it’s easier to not be 100% transparent, because otherwise, there could be repercussions.

Another important thing to consider is, who is implementing the feedback? When a company gets free-form responses where workers are expressing their pain points, what does the leadership do about it? How do you know if they plan to address the issues?

Valuing freedom and autonomy over money

Everyone needs money to live, and it’s certainly a big factor when deciding where, and for whom to work. But it’s not everything.

If your workers and business are thriving while WFH, let them continue to do so if they want. If they want to maintain a hybrid schedule where they work for only part of their week in the office, let them do so.

Bottom line? We all have choices. Let people do their best work in the best way for them.