Working from home; office no more?
Fri 8 Apr 2022 17:00 UTC
The COVID-19 lockdowns in the Netherlands forced people to work from their homes instead of their offices. A burden for some, an opportunity for others. But will we be working from home permanently in the future?
Working from home has been on the rise in the Netherlands for a couple of years, long before COVID-19 started. It has become apparent in the past decade that The Netherlands is a frontrunner when it comes to remote working. As shown in the graph below, the amount of people working from home either incidentally or regularly has been increasing steadily since 2015, with the trend showing a steady climb upwards. This is often attributed to the open work environment in the Netherlands, promoting flexibility (in case of sickness), cost efficiency (less office space needed) among other reasons. The COVID-19 pandemic rapidly accelerated this growth, because of necessity, rather than choice.
However, this hasn’t been the case everywhere around the globe. At the start of the pandemic, somewhere at the beginning of 2020, the opposite of what happened in the Netherlands, took place in the United States. There, people quit their jobs en masse because of dissatisfaction with working from home. From clunky remote working tools such as Teams and Zoom, to small desks crammed into the kitchen, people longed for their desks, colleagues and even their nagging bosses did not seem so bad.
For the longest time it was expected that this would also occur in the Netherlands. However, it didn’t. Data shows that, while unemployment was at the highest point it had been for 3 years in June 2020, the general trend continued downwards, and this peak was quickly corrected. Aside from that, a large part of this peak can be attributed to the fact that people working in hospitality, construction and other ‘’physical jobs’’ were unable to work due to the nature of their profession, not because of them leaving their position due to dissatisfaction with remote work. It seems like the Dutch were either already accustomed to working from home, or they took well to the change.
While unemployment did peak between 2020 and 2021, the trend did continue downwards. Source: CBS
This leaves us with a myriad of questions: Is the change as big as we think it is? What possible external factors made this shift towards working from home possible? And how will remote working affect us in the future?
As shown in the graph below, there has been a trend where even as the workforce increases very little, there are relatively more remote workers ever year. Though, while the amount of people working from home did increase in 2020, it didn’t spike. How come?
Source: CBS
If we look at the ways in which people are working from home, we can see a more clearer picture in the shift that took place; people started working from home more regularly. In the following graph, people working from home regularly are the people that work from home most if not all of the time. The people working from home incidentally work from home a part of their week/once a month. We can see that in 2020, the change in people working from home regularly and incidentally on set days are quite large in comparison to previous years. The amount of people working from home regularly increased by 400.000 people. This is exactly what would be expected during the COVID-19 lockdowns.
Source: CBS
But we still don’t have the full picture with these graphs alone. As previously said, some sectors don’t allow for employees to work from home. A comedian doing his show through a laggy Zoom call is not what most people would consider fun, and cooking dinner for a table of 8 through the internet is something out of a bad sci-fi movie (although Elon Musk is probably working on it as we speak).
Therefore, we turn to looking into the different sectors. CBS’s data shows that in the sectors where it is relatively easy to work from home, the increase was extensive during the first lockdowns. Especially in IT, Business economics & administrative work and the commercial sector; in all of these sectors the amount of people working from home doubled. This graph shows us that if we look at the data at face value, it gives us a skewed view of how the work environment changed, as we can conclude that, the sectors where working from home isn’t possible left out, the increase in remote work is indeed a game changer. As economist Aaron Levenstein once said: statistics are like a bikini, what they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital.
Source: CBS
So now that we have established that the change is indeed a big one, how will this change impact us? This is, of course, a highly speculative question, but answering it might be interesting to get a glance at how our working environment will look in the near future. The LISS institute did a survey and accompanying study into how workers experience working from home and what they expect to be doing after the pandemic. The data reveals that it is expected that post-COVID-19, the hours worked from home will be doubled compared to the situation before COVID-19.
Source: LISS Institute
This leaves opportunities for both employers and employees. Employers can start thinking about selling office space, since more of their employees are working from home, people can start sharing desks, saving costs. Being physically impaired to come to work is also no longer an excuse. Broken leg? No problem! Remote work it is. Even hiring people from overseas is less of an issue, as they can also work remotely.
Employees can combine their work with their hobbies and other chores. They can watch the kids at home while working. They can use the time they usually spend traveling to work to exercise, or some gardening. Not having to pay a babysitter, someone to watch or walk the dog can also save some money. The possibilities are endless.
But, let’s not forget the downsides.
In the current times, with mental health issues being more prevalent than ever, work can give us loads of stress. But it can also give people joy and social connections. Going to lunch with your colleagues, cracking jokes at the coffee machine; small, but for some people very important moments. Adding to that, not everyone has the space or the funds to install a desk, a chair, a monitor etc. needed to work from home. Especially now that rents are higher than ever and the housing market is hell for students and starters, let’s not make life more claustrophobic than it already is. As students ourselves: we can assure you that our rooms being a place to sleep, a living room, a gym and an office during the lockdowns wasn’t exactly what one would call ideal.
Aside from this, if we start working from home more and more, it becomes increasingly difficult to monitor workplaces and make sure that laws, regulations and CAO’s are complied with. Working becomes more opaque, while it should become more transparent.
So in short, yes: working from home is here to stay. It has been an increasingly popular thing to do, and COVID-19 really accelerated the shift towards it. It can be a wonderful and extremely useful tool, for both employee and employer. But there are downsides, which should be considered and acted upon. For the near future, we will still be spending most of our time in offices or other workspaces. Next time that one colleague makes a terrible joke, perhaps we should appreciate it.