COVID threw many people into working from home with no preparation. Sometimes it seems to have worked well. Others perhaps not so much. All of the remote office world may change as management wants “the people” to come back. CFO’s may have concern about the cost of leasing space. Where will it all end up?

When I was a corporate CIO, we began experimenting with an office anywhere approach. We had combined this with a new collaborative environment in our physical office. So … after a year in, how was it working? Here are a couple of quotes from 2 of our staff.

I feel like I have the best of all worlds… I can come into our open area at work when I need to meet with staff or someone in particular. I can hole away in my home office to do solitary work, and I am in fact, in my home office most of the time. My home office is a quiet environment (most of the time) and I can actually think and work. While there, I feel totally connected just by having my Lync window up showing all my team’s status colors. I think the work-life balance benefits of this arrangement are incredible and I feel empowered knowing that I don’t have to “show up” in the collaborative area just to be seen.

And another.

I enjoy telecommuting because I have the option of staying away from the masses, the drive byes, and the side conversations if I wish.  My favorite days are those where I have few meetings and I can actually do work.  Unfortunately that doesn’t happen very often so I have to find other ways to get real work done or to just think/strategize.

Now, as a consultant, I work from home a lot but from lots of other locations as well. I happen to enjoy the freedom. I know others don’t however.

So, what do you think? Are you an anywhere office kind of person?