UNITED STATES—It is a debate that has been ongoing since the start of the pandemic in 2020. Companies were placed into a melee as they had to figure out a way to keep business afloat amidst COVID-19, where employees and workers were forced home. It led to a transition of working from home, something not many Americans were familiar with, but it soon became a trend. So much to the point there are companies who are now against the mantra of allowing their staff to do their work from home.

I have worked from home and done it for quite some time, but I also work in an office and have done that for quite some time. Do I have a preference? I guess it depends on my mood, but overall, I do like the notion of working in an office setting. Why? I get to chat with people, I get to socialize more, I can also get work done to the degree that once the workday is over, it truly is over.

When you work from home it is slightly different. How so? You must tend to distractions. It does indeed require a strict focus when you work from home that I think a lot of people fail to realize and acknowledge. I have seen some people ‘work from home’ and the problem is they’re barely working at all. So, I can understand why employers want to force them into the office. If I am paying you a salary, that salary is not for you to sit on your butt and watch TV, cook dinner and do everything, but actual work and collect a paycheck.

There are some people who actually work from home and do the actual work while they are working, and I am one of those people. If I have a scheduled shift, I’m working during that shift. I’m not searching the internet, watching TV or doing other menial tasks that are not productive. That is the focus for many employers, where is your level of productivity. Are you actually completing the assignments that you are expected to do or are you trying to fake it, so no one spots it?

There are tech companies that can use to track the level of work their staff is doing, but I don’t think many companies want to be placed into that role of having to literally monitor what staff is doing. There can be some bartering there, where the employer allows the employee to work from home maybe two days a week, but the other three days they are required to work in the actual office.

It gives a balance of things. Hate to say it, there was this belief that before the pandemic you truly couldn’t work from home, but that has proven NOT to be the case America. There are a lot of jobs, especially if you utilize a computer and a phone that you can do from home. Now, when we get to the auto industry, where you’re building cars, or the food service industry, you must be there in person, I guess that is a large bulk of the service industry if we have to be honest.

Back to the office setting because it helps morale for the company, it pushes the importance of being team players and it’s just easier to sometimes communicate with individuals in person, than sending an email or communicating in some other fashion where the actual intent can be lost throughout the process. Not to mention I just love the notion that when I leave the office, the day is over. When you work from home that is not always the case.

You might be asked to check an email or to this or do that; simply put it is sometimes difficult to disconnect when you’re working from your home office. You must force yourself to detach and that isn’t always easy because you like to have things completed, but sometimes no matter how hard you try, there will always be something that has to be done, it’s up to you to decide if you’ll do it or not. It is going to be a debate that we have for years to come, I guess we’ll just agree to disagree about whether to work from home or the office.

Written By Jason Jones