Working from home can be a joy - pyjamas until noon, getting boring errands done, swapping any commute time for making delightful lunches that cost half the price of a Pret, not having to answer to anyone else and watching lots of people contort themselves into pretzels for porn you're not even turned on by. But if done full-time for a long time all its benefits to your productivity can evaporate, according to a study from the London School of Economics.
Right now, over 4.2 million Britons (or one in seven workers) work from home, but according to Dr Esther Canonico, from LSE’s department of of management, when you get used to it, it doesn’t seem like the perk it used to: ‘This study provides a glimpse into a future where flexible working could become business as usual. Whereas once people saw it as a favour and felt the need to reciprocate and give back more to the organisation, in this future they will not.’
Anyone who’s had a hangover on a work day will know it’s always worth lugging yourself to the office when you’re in the pits of a hangover, because all you have to do is turn up and do the minimum. Whereas if you’re at home, you have to do double amount the work to a) thank your boss for giving you the day to work from home and b) prove you’re doing anything at all. Dr Canonico explained that, after a worker works at home for a while, they begin to feel an entitlement to certain benefits that they previously got in-office, reports The Times: ‘The study showed that some home working employees feel resentful that employers don’t pay for utility bills or cover stationery costs, for example. Some managers feel homeworkers take advantage of the situation.
‘If the company expects homeworkers to be a lot more productive or workers expect employers to give them a lot of flexibility and not have to reciprocate in kind, one or both are likely to be disappointed.’
On top of the push-pull of dealing with bosses from home? The isolation can whither away the home-worker's confidence, leaving them ‘socially and professionally isolated’ and eventually less able ‘to accurately interpret and use information’. Indeed, as any home-worker or self-employed person you know who’s spent the day literally wanking/eating peanut butter from the jar and getting into arguments on Facebook will tell you, perhaps through claggy peanut butter-glued lips: ’The intensity of home working accentuates the negative impact of professional isolation on job performance.’
The research, conducted among 500 staff and managers is one of the first studies of its kind, but there are some lessons learned already. If you’re set to work from home, make sure you and your boss know exactly when you’re doing it and for how long. Try to see the joy in it, too. Think of all the smelly people you don’t have to rub up against on the commute! Also make sure you get out a bit, talk to people. Also try not to get into fights online. And have a little confidence in what you’re doing! Well, unless it’s the peanut butter eating you’re doing.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.