We’ve been told we need to work from the office full-time. Why?

A guardian is more like a goalkeeper: they get judged on how many shots they stop. How many they fail to save is also critical because their job is to prevent problems and preserve what’s good or valuable within an organisation. They work in administrative roles or perform customer-service tasks.

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“I believe that, for the star jobs, organisations will be more open to allowing people to work from home, as it is a merit-based [category of work]. For guardian jobs, the stability of the system is the first priority, and thus asking people to work on-site is easier for organisations to monitor the working process and minimise errors.”

Another crucial point possibly affecting your employers’ decision-making, according to Chiu, is that performance is more than productivity and satisfaction.

“When we discuss the benefits of working from home, we usually focus on the in-role performance – that is, how you fulfil your job duties. But it might potentially inhibit the extra-role performance – decreasing the opportunity for people to showcase their extra behaviour.”

An example of extra-role performance is what Chiu terms organisational citizenship behaviour, or OCB. That’s “proactively helping others at work”.

Now, working from home doesn’t make OCB impossible but it might “inhibit” it, certainly in the case of some jobs – and when those jobs are matched with certain management styles. And that brings us to Chiu’s overarching conclusion.

“The real challenge lies in how organisations can improve their leadership development and HR policies to optimise the benefits while mitigating potential drawbacks of working from home.”

Working from home isn’t a simple question and it doesn’t have a “one-size-fits-all solution” (as Chiu terms it). That makes me wonder whether a blanket everyone-back-to-work policy such as the one instituted at your workplace is ever a judicious move, let alone when so many employees are content with the existing policy.

Send your question to Work Therapy by emailing jonathan@theinkbureau.com.au