What does “home” mean to you? For me, home is much more than a house with four walls. Home is a place to spend time with family. It is a place to have family meals, play in the yard, do homework with the kids, help them with music lessons, and spend time with loved ones. Home is a place where I can wake up and have a coffee and read the morning newspaper in peace and quiet, enjoy the gardens and play with our kids out in the yard.  Home is not my office.

Personally, I don’t want to work from home. I don’t want to have to choose between playing with one of my children, or be on a conference call. I don’t want to be at my home, and not be present for my family. My family does not need to listen to my conference calls and zoom meetings. We don’t need to compete for family time versus work time and have arguments over internet usage, “quiet time” and bandwidth issues.

There is more value to an office than just the four walls. An office space or out-of-home work environment creates separation. In my opinion, these two worlds provide invaluable separation, between home and work. As many companies struggle with this question of remote working, there are more factors to consider besides productivity, potential efficiency and dollars and cents. A workplace environment, solely dedicated to the operations of a business, is critical for developing a core culture, fostering collaboration, and building positive energy shared by people working towards a common goal. A dedicated work environment also benefits employees’ focus, avoids the many “home distractions”, and provides a place where the tools of business and critical personnel are readily accessible and available. A dedicated workplace environment provides an invaluable separation between work and family.

While this pandemic has proven that remote working is possible, it has not proven to be a more effective manner of working and beneficial for all.  The sanctity of home is important and once we can all go back to work safely, we will once again have our homes back.

Drew Sigfridson, SIOR

The Boulos Company