I have been working in IT for almost a year now. I was interviewed at home, hired from home, and started working with my team from home. This is the first time in my life where the job has been entirely remote, digital and virtual for me. Initially, just like many of us, I also was excited for this work from home experience. Moreover, we all were thrilled with the idea of not going to the office, hence avoiding the need to see the angry face of the typical Hari Sadu like a boss or attend those boring meetings in person.
At home, we could multitask and work at flexible hours. We could even watch Netflix shows or eat while working. Moreover, there was no need to wear formal clothes anymore. As most team meetings are audio meetings, there is no need to worry about the dress code, and even something as simple as a T-shirt and shorts would suffice.
Additionally, there was also the benefit of saving the everyday hustle of going to the office by either driving a company bus or trains. Many also saved money which used to be spent on petrol, eating outside with colleagues. Those who had relocated from small towns to big cities like Bangalore or Pune were elated to save the rent expenses, which eventually ended up in bank savings or the stock market.
All these benefits and perks, however, came at an exorbitant cost. Very few thought that working from home would end up becoming a liability for the employees. Because despite all the perks, employees are not happy anymore.
Their assumption of flexible hours was soon replaced by long working or never-ending hours. Their savings in petrol and rent often ended up getting spent ordering food from Zomato or Swiggy, as no one could find time to prepare food every day. Those who got time became so tired after long work hours that they preferred ordering food online over cooking at home.
The virtual work environment led to more alienation amongst the employees as there is no more human contact left in work from home culture. Even though video calls are an option, many don’t like them. It exhibits the privacy of their home environment to the company and requires the person to get ready with the formal dress code and other personal formalities.
The work has become more banal and demands long hours. This is because of a lack of team motivation, distractions at home, family gossip, or the need to take care of kids while working. Even worse is the lack of stable and robust infrastructure such as uninterrupted power supply, fast and reliable internet/broadband connection and Virtual Desktop (VDI). My personal experience with a VDI client has been highly frustrating. This is because the VDI has never worked flawlessly for even a single day, and it needs to be reset many times during the day.
This demands calling a US-based helpdesk, where a support representative having admin rights will reset the VDI for me to work. Due to these distractions, the work that can be completed in 8 hours often gets extended 10-12 hours minimum daily. Lack of networking and team collaboration is another side effect of the work from home culture.
Before Covid, people often networked a lot besides doing work. They took water cooler or coffee breaks, walked in the corridor or office campus and shared their insights about work, goals and team objectives. But that no longer happens. The HR in my company has started an online water cooler break session for people to talk and relax, but very few attend those because they feel like another meeting!
Nowadays, people log in to work, attend meetings, complete the daily tasks before the deadline, update the team by EOD, and this cycle repeats the next day. I wonder what the difference between a factory worker and a white-collar employee these days is? The digitisation and virtual work environment have made the white-collar IT employees like the digital era blue-collar workers.
Apart from all the above problems, I cannot conclude my post without writing about the terrible side-effects on employees’ physical and mental well-being. From my personal experience, working from home rigorously demands sitting on a chair in front of a laptop for long hours because scheduling back to back meetings often. The consumption of junk food like pizza has increased because of the lack of time to prepare home food. Many employees drink less water, especially those who work in air-conditioned homes. Reduction in physical activity has resulted in a rise in unhealthy habits.
Even the employees mental well being is disastrously affected. The stress levels have risen, the need for focused work has reduced due to continuous team chats, emails and calls. In addition, the virtual work environment demands the need to be consistently online, which has led to a lack of personal time and space for many employees.
They complain about how much less time they get to spend with their loved ones, even though they are working from home. In addition, for the projects involving the need to support onsite clients, the employees are often expected to work till late at night, which has affected their sleep cycle and disrupted their biological clock. That’s why the cases of people suffering from anxiety, increased stress levels, insomnia, and body pain have escalated in the last year.
Thus, the perils and liabilities of work from home are more than its benefits and perks. After all, what’s the use of saving a few more bucks if one’s health is adversely affected. Moreover, what is the point of working from home for long hours, when the same work could have been done in fewer hours in the office due to teamwork and networking?
Are the employees professionally growing with their remote work? Are they motivated during the start of their day? Has their productivity risen really as claimed by the companies, or do the employees spend long hours working hard to meet the deadlines, despite all the distractions and unreliable infrastructure?
I am sure many employees, especially IT, will agree that the liabilities of work from home are far more, and the initial bullish excitement of this work from home has taken a bearish mode for the last few months. If this continues, the graph of personal health, motivation and work satisfaction will continue to plummet and eventually collapse someday.
Instead of mandatory work from home, let people decide how they want to work, either entirely from the office or home, or in a flexible way, with three days from the office and two days from home. A balanced, hybrid form of working will be far better for both the employees and companies in the long run.
The article is originally written on author’s blog- AbhiKNotes