The coronavirus pandemic has caused working habits to change drastically with many jobs becoming “work from home”. This caused many offices to employ ‘hybrid' models with many places in India like Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys as well as HCL asking employees from work from remote locations. There are benefits to both systems and workplaces are constantly trying to find the right balance.
But according to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, working from home "can distract employees". Speaking to The Guardian, Mr Johnson weighed in on this issue, saying “My experience of working from home is you spend an awful lot of time making another cup of coffee and then, you know, getting up, walking very slowly to the fridge, hacking off a small piece of cheese, then walking very slowly back to your laptop and then forgetting what it was you're doing.” He went on to add, “We need to get back into the habit of getting into the office. There will be lots of people who disagree with me, but I believe people are more productive, more energetic, more full of ideas, when they are surrounded by other people.”
While the British PM thinks working from home can be quite distracting, social media giant Twitter earlier this year had given the option to its employees to work from home for “forever”. This, of course, was prior to Elon Musk's takeover bid, so it is unsure if this policy will continue.
Earlier this month 800 employees reportedly quit the office of White Hat Jr when they were asked to cease working from home, and to rejoin office.
Even tech giant Apple has not been immune to this debate with The Verge reporting that Ian Goodfellow, the director of machine learning, has left the organisation. Reportedly he left due to CEO Tim Cook's push to get employees back into the office. Apple has incorporated a hybrid model wherein employees are required to come to office three days in a week.
