Companies typically view workplace in terms of cost: “Cramming more people into smaller desks (or providing them with no assigned desks at all) is cheaper, so we should do more of that.” Most people, on the other hand, view where they work as a matter of convenience or comfort: “I can work just as well from home in my pajamas, and I don’t have to commute to work.” Everyone is wrong.
Where we work has a profound impact not just on our own performance, but also that of our teams and organizations. As I’ve previously written, individual performance is strongly predicted by interactions with coworkers. In addition, by far the biggest influencer of communication is physical space. By working from home, in many cases you’re reducing that positive impact on yourself and everyone you work with.
Some people like to work from home because it frees them from distractions. The workplace certainly can be distracting, but how much focus time do people really need? Across data from tens of thousands of people that we’ve collected at Humanyze, we see that over a year-long timescale most people engage in focus work no more than around 40% of time. Assuming an employee did no focus work in the office, he or she could accomplish all focus work in just two days from home per week. More realistically, assuming employees sprinkle some focus work throughout the days they work in the office, working from home one day per week should be sufficient to accomplish the bulk of focus work.