What If Almost Everyone (Who Can) Worked From Home?

WHAT IF

What do you like most about work?

Transcript

00:00 "What do you like most about work?"

00:12 Early mornings?

00:14 Coffee spills?

00:16 Desk lunches?

00:18 Back pain?

00:19 Wrist pain?

00:20 Neck pain?

00:21 Sore ears?

00:23 Why not stay home and get paid?

00:26 How does that sound?

00:28 This is WHAT IF,

00:30 and here's what would happen

00:31 if everyone who could

00:33 worked from home.

00:34 Working from home is not an easy sell.

00:38 Convincing your boss that,

00:39 yes, you can be productive in your pajamas

00:41 without getting distracted

00:43 or sleepy again.

00:46 Plain and simple,

00:47 a lot of employers believe

00:48 working remotely hinders productivity,

00:51 which doesn't seem totally off-base.

00:54 But a two-year study out of Stanford University

00:57 says otherwise,

00:58 claiming that working from home

01:00 actually increases productivity,

01:02 along with employee satisfaction.

01:05 So if the proof is there,

01:07 why aren't more of us working from home?

01:09 It's because you don't actually want to.

01:13 From a business perspective,

01:14 having your employees work from home

01:16 makes a lot of sense.

01:18 Let's start with the obvious,

01:19 rent.

01:20 Office space is expensive these days,

01:23 but working remotely is a nice little hack

01:25 that can keep you within budget.

01:27 For example,

01:28 when the CEO of China's largest travel agency

01:31 had some of his employees

01:32 work from home for nine months,

01:34 he saved $2,000 per employee on rent alone.

01:39 His employees also saved money by

01:41 not having to pay commuter fees to get to work.

01:44 But let's move past cash for a moment,

01:46 and consider the increase in job satisfaction

01:49 and performance.

01:51 Employees were motivated to work harder

01:53 due to the flexible nature of their hours.

01:56 They took fewer breaks and shorter ones,

01:58 occasionally pausing work to walk their dogs

02:00 or run errands before returning to their assigned tasks.

02:04 And while these benefits of working from home

02:06 only come from a handful of studies,

02:08 we can start to imagine a world

02:10 in which working remotely is the new norm.

02:13 Not only would the general workforce become more efficient,

02:17 but another bonus would be a drop in housing costs

02:20 once we convert all those office towers into condos,

02:23 helping to ease rent prices in high-density cities.

02:26 You might not have seen this one coming, but

02:28 working remotely is also really good for the environment.

02:32 In 2007, the U.S. Patent Office had roughly

02:35 3,000 of their employees work from home for a year,

02:38 which ended up saving $1.8 million in fuel costs,

02:43 and preventing the release of 9,600 tons of carbon emissions

02:46 into the atmosphere.

02:48 So you see,

02:49 how could anyone be accused of goofing off at home

02:52 when they're also preoccupied with saving the planet?

02:56 Make any case you want,

02:57 the real reason why remote work might not catch on for a while

03:01 is simply because humans are social creatures.

03:05 And many of those who've given remote working a try

03:08 often find themselves feeling lonely.

03:10 This has prompted some companies to allow their employees

03:13 to work two days of the week from home,

03:14 so that they can take advantage of increased productivity

03:18 while keeping them close as team members.

03:20 At the end of the day,

03:21 whether you're on the couch or in a cubicle,

03:24 everyone's looking forward to 5 o'clock,

03:26 when they can relax for a bit,

03:28 maybe curl up with a loved one,

03:29 and binge-watch more episodes of What If.

03:33 (upbeat music)

03:35 (upbeat music)

03:38 (upbeat music)

Category

Transcript

Recommended