Why the Work From Home vs. Work From The Office Controversy Is Irrelevant For Most Employees And Managers
Much digital ink has been spilled in the last few months by companies and commentators (including this one) weighing in on where and how work should get done in this post-pandemic ever-changing “new normal.” Work From Home (WFH) advocates can passionately list multiple advantages to working almost anywhere but from the office or a hybrid of splitting time between home and office. Among them:
- More personal control over their work and other activities
- Reduction of commuting time and costs
- Avoidance of working with covid-contaminated co-workers
- Being more productive because of a reduction in office distractions.
But the promoters of “back-to-the-office” are equally vociferous about the benefits of returning to a company facility as the “real” workplace. Examples are:
- It contributes to effective teamwork and positive company culture
- It increases the ability of people to handle issues faster than a chain of text messages or emails
- A potential increase in innovation because of co-located colleagues
- Ensures that employees are engaged in work activities and not online shopping.
There are legitimate rationales for all sides of the issue and many observers expect there to be significant churn in the workforce as WFH true believers opt to find themselves new employers who can offer WFH. Turnover is also expected to increase as employers terminate the recalcitrant WFHers for refusing to return to their former desks, cubes, and conference rooms.
It’s About The Nature Of The Work
It’s a real issue but for a large number of U.S. employees — I guesstimate perhaps as many as 75% of the workforce — it’s a non-issue, a non-starter. The nature of their jobs simply doesn’t permit them to work from home or from their nearby Starbucks. What they do for a living requires them to be onsite in an office or in a hospital, a factory, a truck, a classroom or in the field. They don’t spend most of their days peering into digital screens and they can’t perform their job duties via Zoom or Teams or whatever.
That is, the WFH issue is only relevant for about 25% of the U.S. workforce in my view, despite a vast range of different numbers — some of which are as high as 50–60% — that I’ve seen in published articles about the subject. Some of those estimates are products of survey results which likely have some questionable questions in what respondents were asked, leading to dramatically different pictures of the WFH landscape.
In addition, some of those surveys were sponsored by companies that sell products and services aimed at the WFH economy so they might benefit immensely because of survey results which project a veritable WFH tsunami on the immediate horizon. Those are hardly disinterested researchers excavating for empirical truth. As it’s been said, “Some people use statistics like a drunk uses a lamppost — more for support than for illumination.”
Which is it, then? A future of the workplace that is largely home-based or a future that while having a significant home-based component, is still predominantly centered in an organization’s facilities or in the field? To borrow from Mark Twain’s purported quip, reports of the death of work-from-the-office have been greatly exaggerated.
In July of last year in the early stages of the pandemic, I published a piece about the likelihood of someone’s future work being home-based or office-based and I suggested that one of the considerations is whether their work involved “moving carbon or moving electrons.” That is, does the nature of the work primarily involve tangible things (carbon-based) or digital things (electron-based)?
That is one useful way — I think — of distinguishing between whether work tasks can be accomplished away from the business facility or not. But it’s not the only way and in the next few paragraphs I’ll lay out the evidence and the source for why I think that for about 120 million workers/managers — that 75% of the workforce referenced earlier — it’s likely that all the consternation about where to work is just irrelevant background noise that doesn’t impact them personally.
The Source For My 75% Estimate
Thus, even though the popular narrative is highly focused on the WFH vs the office debate, I think the issue is a nothingburger for a large proportion of our workforce. A glance at the National Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates (link) report published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) tells the story about why I think that’s true.
In a taxonomy called the Standard Occupational Classification or “SOC” for short, the BLS classifies all jobs into one of 867 occupations and groups them by sub-categories and ultimately into 23 main categories. The Occupational and Employment Wage Estimate report (linked above) lists them all, along with the associated numbers of people employed in the occupation or group and the mean wage data for that occupation.
I know — it sounds like dreary, soporific reading. Another government report and one put out by an agency with the word “statistics” in its name. Your eyelids are already getting heavy. But it is enlightening to cursor through the 50+ digital pages and appreciate not only the diversity of so many occupations (like the 3,860 “Embalmers”) but to then discern or speculate — as I did — how many employees and bosses have jobs which almost certainly preclude them from having a WFH option.
Such as? The majority of the 8 million+ healthcare workers as well as the 6 million+ employed in “Healthcare Support Occupations.” While telemedicine for routine “visits” might be convenient for the patient, with the ebbing of the pandemic the healthcare providers will likely be hosting those Zoom calls from their hospital or clinic offices not from their homes. And it’s hard for a provider to change a dressing from the confines of their spare bedroom “office.”
Who else? Police and firefighters (“Protective Service Occupations”); Cashiers; Postal Service Workers; Retail Clerks; Pharmacists; Building and Grounds Cleaning and Maintenance Occupations (of which there are over 4 million employed). The also 4 million+ Construction and Trades Workers (Occupation code #47–2000).
Carpenters. Welders. Bus and Truck Drivers. Installers and Maintenance Workers. The 116,000 Sewing Machine Operators (I’m not making that up). Assemblers. Fabricators. The 6 million+ Laborers and Material Movers. Most people in the military, although they have their own occupational classification scheme.
Woodworkers. Electricians. Plumbers. Inspectors. Butchers, Bakers, Candlestick Makers (OK, full disclosure — there’s really not a separate code for candlestick makers. Perhaps “Craft Artists” comes closest.)
The list goes on and on. Anyone who wears a uniform, whether it is military, law enforcement, custodial, etc. is someone who almost certainly cannot work from home. And let’s not forget all of the folks working in any of the 17 “Farming, Fishing and Forestry” occupations, although I suppose a farmer working their own back-40 would be considered a WFH employee in a way. And yes, many of those farmers are outstanding in their field. Hmm…
Spending time reviewing the aforementioned National Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates report and subjecting the data to the time-tested MACS method (Massive Amounts of Common Sense), then, is where my 75% WFH “non-impact” figure I suggested earlier came from.
Without the benefit of a $4 million grant from the BLS to do a more robust analysis, for now that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. At least until I see compelling evidence otherwise. It’s too bad Mythbusters is no longer on the air — this would be a worthy segment.
About the author: Mike Hoban is a business topics writer and leadership coach/ advisor. He is actively working at becoming a world-class grandpa to his five young granddaughters. In addition to his 35+ years experience as a leader, consultant and business owner he has also published extensively in Fast Company and wrote a business column for 12 years. Many of his recent commentaries — including several about leading during the COVID crisis — can be found on his LinkedIn page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-hoban-b5756b6/He can also be reached at mjhoban99@gmail.com.
Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.
