It’s a few days into 2022. In Singapore, droves of people have been recalled (most against their will) back to working in their offices. The rat race is mostly back in full swing. Working from home is a dream that’s ended for many folks.
It shouldn’t have.
There’s proof that working from home (for jobs that are possible to do at home) is more productive than working in the office. So why are most people being forced to return?
The fact of the matter is, the working office is an archaic concept. It’s from a time when work had to be done at a place separate from the home because it wasn’t possible to do it anywhere else.
Nowadays, that’s mostly no longer true. Yes, there are still a lot of jobs that require you to be physically present at your worksite, that’s unavoidable.
By large though, the advent of computers, the high speed internet and other technologies have pretty much erased the need for a lot of work to be done in the office. Yet, people are still being forced to do it simply because that’s the way things have been done.
The pandemic has shown us all that working from home is more than possible today. It’s feasible, it’s a healthier alternate…but it does require a lot of willpower. It’s easy to be distracted when you’re at home. Nobody will really know if you slack off. It’s hard to balance everything if you’re not strong-willed.
That doesn’t mean that working from home should be nixed.
To be fair, a handful of modern companies see the point too.
These companies are mainly led by young, open-minded people. The companies are usually tech-based ones too, and are at the forefront of their industry. I won’t really call them futurists, but they do see the need for a change to the stifling work culture we have now.
I’m personally of the school of thought that it’s the companies helmed by the old guard or the stick-in-the-muds that are usually the ones behind making their workers do their work in the office instead of elsewhere.
There’s no other explanation for it and it’s a shame that Singapore’s work culture enforces it instead of siding with the workers on this.