A lot of us are working from home and have been doing so since Spring 2020.
The Covid-19 pandemic brought the world of work to a standstill and had many of us around the world running out to buy Ikea work-from-home desks.
Now that the pandemic is settling down a little (although it still has a long way to go in many countries) there are still lots of us continuing to work from home with no signs of this changing any time soon.
As it has been going on for so long, we are able to take a lot at some trends and patterns that have been emerging from the rise of working from home and we can start to see how it is benefiting us at large.
In this blog, we are going to talk about 4 effects of working from home that have emerged over the last year and a half.
Let’s jump right into them.
Smaller friend groups
It has been widely self-reported across the world that people have fewer friends than they did pre-pandemic. Our friendship groups have gotten smaller and tighter and we have cut off a lot of people on the periphery of our friendship groups.
Working from home has meant that we are physically with other people far less often than we would’ve been before, and we are missing out on frequent social opportunities such as being in the office, having office lunches, and being in break rooms together.
But is this really a bad thing?
A lot of the research emerging in this field is suggesting that while we have fewer friends now than before, we are happier before it. A lot of us have felt a release from a lot of social burdens and we are in no rush to have them reinstated.
Sobriety
Working from home and becoming sober might seem like two randomly thrown together topics but they are a cause and effect to a certain extent in recent trends.
Working from home means we are less likely to nip to the bar with colleagues after work, it means that getting out into town takes more effort, and it means that we don’t feel that same aforementioned social pressure to make an effort for things we don’t want to.
More and more young professionals are giving up the booze and opting for more wholesome and healthy habits post-lockdown.
For many of us, lockdown gave us time to think and reflect on how we spend our time, money and energy. For those of us who continue to work from home, it seems that we want that reflection to continue and we want our positive habits to continue.
That seems like a good thing to me.
Better work boundaries
Now, this is one for which the contrary can unfortunately also be true in the statistics. But, for a lot of people, working from home has allowed them to have better personal boundaries when it comes to working.
Taking breaks on time and stopping work on time is easier when your office is your home. You are more in control of your day and you can use your breaks in whatever way you want. This can allow people to feel more rested and switch off when they want to.
There are both sides to this coin, however.
For the most part, there are lots of benefits from working from home and these have become evident through the pandemic and after. The pandemic has pushed working from home into the forefront of our working models and it seems like it is very much here to stay going forward.
How do you feel about this? Leave a comment below and get the discussion started!