An alternate title of this post: It’s the autonomy, stupid
Working remotely is not about working from home for me. On the contrary, it’s exactly NOT that. Remote work is about having the autonomy to work where I choose.
Job autonomy is included in canonical research describing the components of job satisfaction. However, lacking a definition in the paper, I suspect this considers “job autonomy” – autonomy as to how one gets the job done. The concept of location autonomy doesn’t show up, perhaps because this particular research involves healthcare, which up until recently was broadly assumed to be only be completed on-location.
Many more professions beyond healthcare can have at least some, if not all, remote work component: anything that involves administrative tasks such as email or phone calls, interacting with web services, scheduling doesn’t require co-location. And now various kinds of client services, ex. telehealth, real estate, and more, can be conducted without co-location.
We need to expand the concept of “job autonomy” from “how work gets done” to include “where work gets done.”
Viewing work through this lens changes how to approach designing an office life.
I worked remotely for years before 2020 & the pandemic forced a “new normal” and I rarely worked at home. I did frequent a coworking space, or otherwise worked from where I chose. It happened that I chose a consistent place to work. Why?
There are some tricky balances however – it’s nice to go to a coworking space (or office), but not if feels empty or sad. I’ve heard from more than a couple people that they’re ‘required’ to RTO or be in-office, only to go to the office and it has no people in it. That’s not fun either!
I’ve toured coworking spaces and decided not to work at some because they had too few people. At one coworking space, the lights would turn off because there wasn’t enough movement to set off the motion sensors! Or on the opposite side of the spectrum, it would be a miserable slog competing for a “hot desk”[1] location if the office is over-capacity.
There’s a lot to be said for design of spaces not for ~ collaboration ~ as the RTO is oft touted, but for generalized human interaction.
It seems like executives approve office plans that make people miserable, probably despite the recommendations of architects and designers. And then they are surprised that people are upset at being required to go to such a place? If you make it a place that’s pleasant to be, there won’t be a need for requirements.
When RTO is covered by companies or the media, I don’t see companies talking about how much effort they’re putting into their spaces as spaces people want to be compared to spaced where they force people to be. And that’s a very key difference compared to “people don’t want to leave their house.”
[1] A “hot desk” is a term where you have space at an office, but not a reserved desk/office. This term is also used often in coworking spaces when you don’t have a reserved desk.