What do you like most about work?
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00:00 "What do you like most about work?"
00:12 Early mornings?
00:14 Coffee spills?
00:16 Desk lunches?
00:18 Back pain?
00:19 Wrist pain?
00:20 Neck pain?
00:21 Sore ears?
00:23 Why not stay home and get paid?
00:26 How does that sound?
00:28 This is WHAT IF,
00:30 and here's what would happen
00:31 if everyone who could
00:33 worked from home.
00:34 Working from home is not an easy sell.
00:38 Convincing your boss that,
00:39 yes, you can be productive in your pajamas
00:41 without getting distracted
00:43 or sleepy again.
00:46 Plain and simple,
00:47 a lot of employers believe
00:48 working remotely hinders productivity,
00:51 which doesn't seem totally off-base.
00:54 But a two-year study out of Stanford University
00:57 says otherwise,
00:58 claiming that working from home
01:00 actually increases productivity,
01:02 along with employee satisfaction.
01:05 So if the proof is there,
01:07 why aren't more of us working from home?
01:09 It's because you don't actually want to.
01:13 From a business perspective,
01:14 having your employees work from home
01:16 makes a lot of sense.
01:18 Let's start with the obvious,
01:19 rent.
01:20 Office space is expensive these days,
01:23 but working remotely is a nice little hack
01:25 that can keep you within budget.
01:27 For example,
01:28 when the CEO of China's largest travel agency
01:31 had some of his employees
01:32 work from home for nine months,
01:34 he saved $2,000 per employee on rent alone.
01:39 His employees also saved money by
01:41 not having to pay commuter fees to get to work.
01:44 But let's move past cash for a moment,
01:46 and consider the increase in job satisfaction
01:49 and performance.
01:51 Employees were motivated to work harder
01:53 due to the flexible nature of their hours.
01:56 They took fewer breaks and shorter ones,
01:58 occasionally pausing work to walk their dogs
02:00 or run errands before returning to their assigned tasks.
02:04 And while these benefits of working from home
02:06 only come from a handful of studies,
02:08 we can start to imagine a world
02:10 in which working remotely is the new norm.
02:13 Not only would the general workforce become more efficient,
02:17 but another bonus would be a drop in housing costs
02:20 once we convert all those office towers into condos,
02:23 helping to ease rent prices in high-density cities.
02:26 You might not have seen this one coming, but
02:28 working remotely is also really good for the environment.
02:32 In 2007, the U.S. Patent Office had roughly
02:35 3,000 of their employees work from home for a year,
02:38 which ended up saving $1.8 million in fuel costs,
02:43 and preventing the release of 9,600 tons of carbon emissions
02:46 into the atmosphere.
02:48 So you see,
02:49 how could anyone be accused of goofing off at home
02:52 when they're also preoccupied with saving the planet?
02:56 Make any case you want,
02:57 the real reason why remote work might not catch on for a while
03:01 is simply because humans are social creatures.
03:05 And many of those who've given remote working a try
03:08 often find themselves feeling lonely.
03:10 This has prompted some companies to allow their employees
03:13 to work two days of the week from home,
03:14 so that they can take advantage of increased productivity
03:18 while keeping them close as team members.
03:20 At the end of the day,
03:21 whether you're on the couch or in a cubicle,
03:24 everyone's looking forward to 5 o'clock,
03:26 when they can relax for a bit,
03:28 maybe curl up with a loved one,
03:29 and binge-watch more episodes of What If.
03:33 (upbeat music)
03:35 (upbeat music)
03:38 (upbeat music)