Home office vs. in-office work. What modality to choose?

The home office modality began to spread to most business sectors as an alternative to overcome the geographical barriers of employees who were too many kilometers away to travel by car every day.

It was also a competitive advantage for growing companies that did not have a physical establishment and preferred to invest in technology rather than maintenance since technology precisely allows you to connect and work from anywhere.

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The objective of this article seeks to present home office vs in-office work modalities to try to establish, if this is possible, which one is better or more convenient for the growth of companies, in a panorama that covers the current context even within at least three years.

Home office: from work alternative to business reality.

Initially, home office or telework did not represent a threat to in-office work, since the office modality was still very much in force and was preferred by most companies because it maintained permanent contact with the people involved in projects and activities.

Therefore, it was easier to plan objectives and schedules from a face-to-face meeting, where you could simply raise your hand to ask, suggest or challenge than to exchange data and ideas from a company chat.

In short, the home office was an alternative when in-office work was not possible, but it was not a reality for the rest of the workers who were not separated from their offices by long distances.

However, the pandemic made the home office a safer reality than the face-to-face modality, since it avoided contact between people, but at the same time, it did not prevent the activities and tasks that companies demanded from happening.

Around 21% of companies are implementing the home office as a qualitative benefit. This trend is stronger in the technology sector and is adopted more by the millennial generation.

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Moreover, in many cases, the statistics showed that in the home office mode, employees are more productive because they feel more comfortable working in their family environment, without as many meetings and distractions as there are sometimes in offices. The truth is that in the home office, people can make a better selection of information because the distance forces them to define scheduled and brief meetings where specific issues are discussed.

The rest of the time is up to the worker to choose the working hours in the home office mode. In addition, the use of technological tools with an Internet connection has the advantage of allowing the flexibility of the routine, as long as the activities and tasks are carried out.

Home office vs. post-pandemic in-office work.

The pandemic accelerated the process of changing to the home office or telecommuting modality, which led to the advantages of working from home and the fortune of having technological tools available to dispense with face-to-face work without slowing down the commercial activity of the company.

More than a year after the start of the pandemic and after having adopted the almost permanent home office modality, companies open the debate on whether to return to in-face work, continue doing home office or balance both modalities in a hybrid work that allows exploiting the benefits of both.

As you are probably in a similar situation now that we are in full mass immunization and the world is expected to return to a certain state of normality, we list below the advantages and disadvantages, both of home office and in-office work to promote a more objective criterion, which clears all kinds of prejudices of one and the other.

Advantages of the home office.

• Schedule flexibility: greater autonomy over the work schedule to manage time.
• Individual responsibility: allows self-discipline and establishes a work structure.
• Less travel time: Traffic is avoided as there is no need to travel to the job site.
• It improves the quality of life: it allows to achieve a balance between work and personal life.
• Leveraging technology: 75% of the work is based on the use of technological tools, which have shown progress in business management and in the way they operate.
• Cost reduction: infrastructure, production, and energy.

Disadvantages of the home office.

• Distractions: Household activities can distract us from our work obligations.
• Tendency to work more hours: being a more flexible schedule, it is also possible to work more hours.
• Lack of work environment: labor relations between co-workers is important and the home office does not allow personal interaction.
• Interruption between work and personal life: the demand for work can mean that we do not have time for the family. That's why it's important to have the discipline to set a schedule.
• The worker is the technical support itself: if your internet connection is cut off, you must solve it yourself because you are at home.

Advantages of in-office work.

• It facilitates understanding. Written communication requires more work than verbal and spontaneous communication. With in-office work, misunderstandings are avoided and communication between team members progressively decreases due to the extra effort involved.
• It facilitates learning. With closer collaboration, synergies are drawn between workers, who can help each other more easily.
• It is good for emotional health. Excessive isolation can cause anxiety or, on the contrary, apathy.
• It facilitates concentration. The offices are designed to favor the productivity of employees through the environment, the light, the furniture, and the technical resources.
• It helps to develop the feeling of belonging to the company. Daily contact makes workers feel like they are part of a team.
• It facilitates the integration of new members. The inclusion in the physical workspace facilitates the integration of the workers who join the team: without chatting with anyone informally or having a coffee, it is difficult for the employee to learn the dynamics and roles of the team.

Disadvantages of in-office work.

• It makes it difficult for workers to reconcile their personal lives since they have to spend time commuting, which makes it difficult to spend more time with the family. This can cause talent to be lost in the company.
• It can strengthen the culture of presence. Making progress in the company those who 'let themselves be seen' more in the office.
• In situations such as those caused by the pandemic, it implies having to take health prevention measures (ventilation, sanitation, registration of contacts, etc.) to guarantee the safety of workers.
• You can save costs on office maintenance or supplies. Although, with the approval of the Teleworking Law, companies will incur different costs, since if teleworking is carried out from home, they must provide employees with the necessary materials or means, such as ergonomic chairs or cover part of the bill for internet or light of the worker (as agreed in the collective bargaining).

As you may have seen in the home office vs in-office work, both modalities are effective to carry out the different activities and tasks that companies require today.

They present advantages as well as disadvantages: while the home office makes you save on travel, allowing you greater availability of your time to divide it according to your needs and obligations, in-office work offers a productive environment that allows greater use of time and learning of the knowledge concerning specific functions of the company, which may be more difficult to acquire from the solitude of the home office.

Based on all of the above, saying which modality is better or recommending what to choose will depend purely and exclusively on the needs of your company. For young and growing companies that have progressed with the home office modality, perhaps they should continue that way, although establishing a schedule of face-to-face meetings every certain period for strategic planning and defining objectives.

The largest companies that are more used to in-office work should at least establish strict control of health protocols while remnants of the pandemic remain to return to the offices. Now, if you do not want to opt for one or the other as a definitive solution, hybrid work can mean the prudent difference between your comfort zone and your risk zone.