Why remote work shouldn't be up for debate

The opinions expressed by entrepreneurs contributors are their own.

's recent announcement that employees can no longer leave their homes has sparked a lot of discussion. In leaked emails, Musk told staff who wanted to continue working remotely that they could "pretend to work somewhere else".

While he has a habit of making what some consider divisive statements, Elon Musk isn't the only founder to think that people who work from home are "not actually doing anything." /p>

Related: How Leaders Can Make the Most of Remote Work

The remote work debate rages on

Some business leaders think long-term remote work is a financial liability. Employees working from home lack productivity, they say. The former Google CEO told CNBC, "I don't know how you virtually build great management." Goldman Sachs CEO says remote work culture is an "aberration" that needs to be fixed "as soon as possible".

Yet others wonder if this is just a smokescreen; speculation that Musk is making a decision that will undoubtedly lead to the spontaneous departure of a significant part of the staff creates an opportunity to circumvent the necessary large-scale layoffs. Big brands are already waiting in the wings to poach members of Tesla's expected exodus, with Amazon being among them.

Not such a far-fetched theory, as many companies are re-strategizing and considering downsizing amid the recent economic downturn.

Views on remote work aside, I believe requiring staff to return to the office full-time while fuel and running costs for commuters are at an all-time high is bad for . According to Global Workplace Analytics, "the typical employer can save about $11,000 per year for each person who works remotely half the time." On the other hand, workers can earn between $2,500 and $4,000 more per year by working only half of their hours remotely.

In lean times, savings like this could help both parties better stay afloat.

Immediately following the Covid-19 shutdowns, many businesses found their wings as new remote work operations. Although it was a decision made out of necessity, more than one decided to make the change permanent.

Twitter, Spotify and Facebook are among them. On Twitter, Jack Dorsey urged team members to work from home if they wanted to in a company-wide email last year, noting the positive impact the change was having had on its own productivity levels.

Related: 4 Remote Work Transition Moves to Consider

Humans are comfortable with what they know

The reality is that working in an office is the way things have been done for generations. Many of those in positions now have worked their way up the ranks of this system and understand it, find solace in it, and may assume that it is the only way to achieve something meaningful on a large scale.

Functionally, it is easier to operate in the "status quo". If, as a business, you've always relied on in-person interactions, revamping everything to accommodate remote working can seem daunting.

As an app development company, it made sense to use the same online tools we believe in and develop for our clients to manage our own operations. Of course, as a first-time entrepreneur still a teenager when I founded my company, I also didn't have the advantage of having experience working in an office environment. I had no preconceived idea of ​​how things "should be".

It turned out that this lack of experience on my part would be a stroke of luck for Chop Dawg in the long run. Having been founded in the late 2000s, we learned a long time ago how to work with our remote model. As such, the momentum of the early lockdowns did little to disrupt our business operations on the web.

Of course, working in an office has its...