It’s Time To Close The Home Office
The Saturday Huddle is a weekly column that features opinion, analysis and reflections on Huddle stories, podcasts and business news in the region. This week, Derek Montague shares his thoughts on why it’s time to return to the office after more than a year of isolation. Huddle editor Mark Leger will return next week.
More than a year ago, I began working at Huddle. Halifax was a brand-new location for the company, and my colleague Trevor Nichols and I were just getting our feet wet.
We didn’t have a permanent workspace in the city, so we worked in the open office area at Volta on Barrington Street. About a week into my new job in March, Volta closed when Covid-19 hit and we started working from home.
My colleagues in New Brunswick were faced with the same fate. Suddenly, all of us who spent our careers in an office were working remotely, along with millions of other Canadian workers. The great experiment had begun.
Cherise, my talented jack-of-all-trades co-worker, sent us out a list of questions, asking what it’s like for us to work from home in these strange times.
I, of course, procrastinated on answering the questions. But now that it seems the worst days of Covid-19 and isolation are behind us (fingers crossed), I feel now will be the best time to reflect on the past year.
In June, I finally went back to work at an office in Dartmouth with other colleagues. The stark contrast in this group atmosphere, compared to the solitary one, really gave me a perspective on what’s lost when I work alone.
I understand why many people say they want to continue working remotely, either full-time or part of the time. But, based on my own experience I absolutely don’t recommend it. I would plead with you, dear reader, to go back to the office if you can. Here are my top reasons why:
1) A Change In Scenery Stimulates The Brain
Everybody’s brain chemistry is different, so I know not everyone will have had the same problem. But working from the same place where I slept and chilled did little to get me motivated in the mornings.
I have long noticed that leaving my apartment and choosing a designated workplace does wonders for writing stories. When I’m at home, it’s like my brain doesn’t get the message that it should go into “work mode.” I find it harder to concentrate at home, and writing a story takes longer than it should.
This is something I knew long before the pandemic. Before working for Huddle, I did some freelance work as a journalist. I would conduct phone interviews from home, but then would pack my gear and set up shop at a Tim Hortons to write. My brain would “click” from changing locations.
I guess I didn’t do remote working the right way. I should have set aside a designated work area to try and get my brain clicking again. Instead, I tried writing from my bedroom – a big no-no in the remote working handbook. Then again, in a small apartment, it can be tough to find a space that you don’t use while off duty.
Now, back in a newsroom setting, I find my concentration and speed have vastly improved.
2) “What is a Cathedral Without People?”
This is a quote from a short story I read in a college English class. It’s pretty easy to interpret; life is meant to be shared with people, not in isolation. In my professional career, no matter what my job entailed, it has been far more rewarding to work amongst a team than solo.
That feeling of unity and camaraderie was desperately missing in my life between March 2020 and June of 2021. It’s hard to feel like part of a team when you’re physically alone.
Like most workplaces, mine did the very best it could through virtual meetings, emails, and phone calls. But those methods don’t even come close to replicating face-to-face interactions.
A couple of co-workers and I were recently chatting in the office, swapping stories and ideas. Towards the end of our conversation, one of them said, “You don’t get these kinds of chats on a Zoom meeting.”
He is absolutely right. In a virtual meeting you can’t pick up on body language and other social cues we process subconsciously. That’s why Zoom meetings can seem so stiff and awkward. With in-person communication, conversations happen organically, and that’s where some of the best work ideas are formed.
3) Mental Health
This is a big topic in the whole “working from home” debate that I don’t see enough people talking about. Instead, I hear people discussing levels of productivity, commuting time, and work/life balance (all important factors to be fair). But I feel the mental health of employees should not be ignored.
I have had trouble with depression and anxiety since I was 12 years old. Throughout therapy and medication, I discovered that prolonged periods of isolation almost always triggered a state of depression.
It causes a vicious cycle where the longer I stay inside, the harder it is to go back out again, which in turn prolongs and deepens the depression.
Several months into the pandemic, and working exclusively from home, I went into one of these cycles. I would go in and out of such cycles until I got to return to an office setting again.
I have chatted with many friends and acquittances over the last several weeks who are still struggling with leaving their house or apartment and socializing again, even though the world is opening back up.
Being isolated for so long (and having previous mental health issues in many cases), has created anxiety at the thought of returning to a normal routine again.
I know the sense of isolation was caused by more than just offices shutting down. Everything people did to socialize outside of work was shut down as well. But for many people, an office setting is their main source of contact with friends and peers.
So, if you have the option to work from home, I beg of you to still venture into the office regularly, even if it’s not five days a week. I’ve heard many people say over the course of the pandemic, “this could have been said in an email…or Zoom call.” There is absolutely no replacement for the face-face contact that office life affords us.
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