THE concept of ‘work from home’ was alien to most before the pandemic. Covid created social distance at many levels, caused heavy losses to many industries, and even led to the closure of several businesses. As calls for social distancing grew louder, organisations let scores of employees go, switching to the work-from-home model with fewer people. Those in manufacturing jobs, or employed as hospital staff, had to observe strict precautionary measures.
As no country was spared pandemic-related damage, work from home was adopted by all. Today, other than the United States, work from home is allowed only when employees cite exceptional circumstances. However, major companies in the US — Home Depot, Target, Microsoft, 3M and Intel etc — prefer regular office routines. According to a survey by prominent economists, remote work rates support the notion that more people are working from home now than they were in pre-pandemic days. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal discusses how remote and hybrid work has reached a “new equilibrium”. Before the pandemic, only seven per cent of workdays were remote. The rate shot up during Covid, and has now settled at just over a quarter of all workdays.
Many high-profile chief executives push for a five-day office week. Despite this, economists note that the fact that remote work rates are barely dropping shows employees have successfully negotiated a middle ground. The remote work reality is entirely different from the ‘remote work is dead’ claim. It entails tangible advantages. The US has stuck to the work-from-home phenomenon because the country has an employment market that is more robust than others. Therefore, people are in a better bargaining position to get jobs of their choice.
The benefits of working from home are many, such as no commute, which also means reduced pollution. Employees get more time to rest, save transportation costs as well as the money spent on meals during office hours, greater flexibility in managing work, more independence, and no office distractions.
Remote and hybrid work has reached a new equilibrium.
The disadvantages include isolation, lack of motivation and frustration as there is no one to monitor individual performance. This is even more detrimental for employers who are unable to build a team, initiate and invest in innovation, battle challenges in communication, and are unable to monitor performance in person. It is generally believed that some of the jobs may be best performed while working from home. These include web development, therapy, pedagogy, financial analyses, interpretation, and those of writers, editors, social media professionals, graphic designers, and computer engineers.
The solitary nature of working from home can drain people who are extroverts as they thrive on collaborating with others on work assignments. I did not find my stint with online teaching pleasant. Before the pandemic, I taught one semester to IBA students in the classroom. The live interactions with learners were enjoyable and satisfying both for the students and myself. During the second semester, the pandemic struck, and I was forced to take online classes, which became so frustrating that I decided to quit. As I have always been a part of the human resource function in various organisations, my key responsibilities have included interacting with labour unions, addressing employees’ grievances, ensuring statutory compliance, dealing with government officials and handling discipline issues. All these activities cannot be carried out effectively without personal interaction with colleagues. Even in the event of ensuring compliance with labour laws, one may have to visit places within the establishment where non-compliance has been reported.
During the periodical negotiations with labour unions over their charter of demands, both the management team and those representing the workers sit in the same room, facing each other. The emphasis of both parties is more about evaluating what tactics should be used to convince the other side of its sincerity while conveying the management’s point of view to the workers, and vice versa for union representatives. The rapidly changing positions during negotiations make it necessary for both parties to observe and understand each other’s body language and respective behavioural patterns.
Similarly, when a manager meets an employee to resolve his grievance, it is necessary for him to understand the underlying cause of the worker’s grievance as mostly employees simply narrate symptoms without explaining the reasons driving their complaints. It is knowledge about the latter that enables the management to strike a solution.
The writer is a consultant in human resources at the Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi.
Published in Dawn, August 7th, 2026