Once upon a time — about 35 years ago — working from home was considered the way of the future. Telecommuting was where everyone was headed; labor marketing experts predicted that driving to work was going to be obsolete by the end of the century. And this was before a little thing called the internet came along.
These same companies reversed direction within about 10 years because innovation and productivity suffered. So, almost everyone went back to work on site.
But with the arrival of COVID-19 and the lockdown that everyone has had to live with since last spring, being a stay-at-home employee is getting the thumbs-up again. The Brookings Institution estimates that up to 50 percent of workers now do so remotely, more than double the total who did in 2018. About 25 percent to 30 percent of those people may keep that status once the pandemic is over, according to research-based consulting firm Global Workplace Analytics.
Similarly, research by COGNITION Smart Data reveals that one-third of all American workers are able to work from home and that 98 percent of these would like the option of continuing to telecommute for the rest of their career.
As more people work from home, numerous optional amenities have become must-haves. Here are 10 things that telecommuters expect in their current and/or next homes:
There are reasons for society’s shift to a telecommuting mentality. The obvious one is the pandemic: For months, people in “non-essential” jobs simply weren’t allowed to go back to the workplace. Also, a faster, more-stable internet has made it the remote worker’s premier information and communication tool—for example, web services giant Comcast reported a 60 percent increase in internet usage and a 212 percent jump in video conferencing tools in use since the pandemic began in March.
Smartphones, the cloud, and communication aids such as Zoom, Skype, and Microsoft Teams have made it easier to collaborate with coworkers. Schedules can be more flexible, with some employers taking a “just get it done on time” approach. And there’s the appreciated informality—formal office attire and being constantly clean-shaven are out; working in a t-shirt and jeans, with three days’ facial growth, is in.
In an April 2020 Brookings Institution report on the pandemic’s impact on telecommuting, coauthors Katherine Guyot and Isabel V. Sawhill note that employers are pushing telecommuting harder than they used to because it saves them money through lower operating costs. It keeps employees off the road (up to 164 billion miles annually, according to researchers at the University of Chicago) and out of traffic jams, which reduces stress.
Driving cars less also cuts down on air pollution (by a mere 66 million metric tons of CO2 emissions annually, according to UChicago), which helps the environment. And, in many cases, employees’ productivity increases from working at home because they are happier, which leads to better worker retention.
There are secondary positives. Employees are healthier thanks to home gyms, lower-stress household environments, and better eating habits. There are few, if any, personality clashes with colleagues. They get to spend more time with family.
And, of course, working from home means increased protection from the coronavirus.
Zillow economist Jeff Tucker says that could mean a housing market that includes almost 2 million new homeowners within a few years. “It’s going to be huge,” he says. “If remote work becomes a bona fide long-term option, especially with the pandemic, that could reshape the U.S. housing market.”
But remote working is not without its drawbacks. Telecommuters report feelings of loneliness and being “disconnected” from their coworkers. They often end up working longer hours than they might if they were still in the office.
There’s a lack of privacy, as many employees’ homes weren’t designed for on-demand videoconferencing and all-day laptop use. There are even career concerns, as being off-site means not being seen by the boss when doing something exceptional, which could mean missed promotions, or possible job elimination.
“We traditionally tend to think of working from home as a perk,” notes work advice writer Allison Green in Slate. “You can do your laundry while you work. You can stay in pajamas and control your own thermostat. You can take the dog for a walk. But after being abruptly forced to work from home full time this year, a lot of people have discovered they don’t like it nearly as much as they thought they would.”
An ongoing study by the IBM Institute for Business Value indicates the arrival of “work from home fatigue.” In July, the percentage of Americans who indicated that they would like to continue remotely even part-time sat at 80 percent. By September, that optimism had dropped to 67 percent. In addition, only 50 percent reported they wanted to primarily work remotely, down from 65 percent two months earlier, according to the study.
The bottom line is that telecommuting, and its pros and cons, are here to stay.
“COVID-19 may permanently change the way many of us work,” Brookings coauthors Guyot and Sawhill note. “At present, shifting as many people as possible to home-based telework is a necessary response to a terrible crisis. In the post-pandemic world, it may stay with us as a popular practice.”
Architect David Hart, CEO of Steinberg Hart in San Francisco, agrees. “The renewed emphasis on dedicated home offices will persist even as the pandemic passes,” he predicted in Bloomberg CityLab. “Now that millions have gotten a tantalizing taste of life without daily commuting, we’ll insist on keeping one foot of our laboring lives in our homes.”
The most effective home offices are built around one thing: contentment. Here are ideas to get there.
Steinberg Hart architect and CEO David Hart remembers when a home office was merely an add-on to a floorplan, or an option for an existing room. But the stay-at-home status most people experienced during the early months of the pandemic has changed all of that.
“Pre-COVID, only about 10 percent to 15 percent of the apartments we built had some type of dedicated office space,” Hart says in a report to Bloomberg CityLab. “Going forward, we expect that figure to be more like 75 percent.”
Designers and contractors today have a lot to consider when meeting that demand. People who plan to work from home want more than just a kitchen table and chair to work from. They want a place where they can feel comfortable—because they’re going to be spending a lot of time there.
Here are six design elements that architects, builders, and customers should keep in mind whether crafting a home office for a client or even for themselves.