Post-pandemic has been a battleground for remote versus in-person work. During lockdowns, non-essential employees in every industry were forced to work from home. This lasted from weeks to months, even years. Kids were schooled from home. Many families and individuals begrudgingly adjusted to the “new normal” and found equilibrium working from their living rooms. Following two years of pandemic and a year post-, roughly 60% of US workers say their jobs can be done from home all or most of the time.[1]
Remote work is not new. A segment of the culture has always worked away from an office. Many salespeople have always worked from the front seats of their cars, traveling from client to client. Delivery and trucking companies employ thousands of drivers whose jobs never had a desk and never will. I have a relative who is an insurance adjuster and works from home—processing claims means he visits various homes and businesses each day and turns in his work via laptop.
Pilots and flight attendants, chefs, plumbers, HVAC technicians, home health care workers, fitness instructors, police patrol officers, firefighters, event planners, nurses, electricians, mechanics, construction foremen—none of these jobs require you to be at a desk for eight hours a day. Remote work is about the nature of each particular job. The pandemic artificially forced everyone to isolate as much as possible from non-family members. Many went from a situation that was forced to one which was favored. A Pew Research study found that early in the pandemic 36% of workers were choosing to stay home versus forced to. Now several years later, 61% of those who are still working from home are doing it by choice. Consider then a viewpoint as to how your work location may affect your impact—spiritually.
Working from home is not all it’s cracked up to be. The nature of your work and/or your productivity when “left alone” may make working from home highly appealing to you. However, surveys post-pandemic find that 73% of at-home workers struggle to maintain a daily routine. 74% say it’s harder to maintain relationships with peers and 68% say it’s more difficult to connect with their manager. More than 50% say they miss their commute, which gave them time for thinking through work problems or catching up on the news.
About half of those who work from home had to shell out all the money for their home office setup. And even though working at home looks more flexible, because of rebalancing rest, family and work time, 60% of employees say they actually take fewer breaks officing from the house.[2] Clearly, working from home is not the “new normal”, but rather an option that may help some but is detrimental to others. The change in work location comes at a cost.
Should faith-centered leaders prioritize relationships at work. If you consider your work leadership as an opportunity to influence others through personal and faith-based principles, working from home may be somewhat detrimental. John 13:34 tells us, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” This verse reminds us that we best demonstrate our faith toward others through our relationships with them. The care, concern and depth of our connection with our reports and peers is of great spiritual significance. And so the question follows: can we best accomplish this commandment from God from home, if we are given the option?
Work relationships of all kinds are more difficult away from the office, simply because interpersonal contact is more limited. Management and productivity have long been tied to in-office attendance, where leaders can see and talk to employees. But an in-person work environment has another advantage for faith-centered leaders, in that they can better know employees.
In Ephesians 4:1-3, the Apostle Paul instructs, “I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” This is another pointed and direct in-person call to the Christ-follower in how he should conduct his important relationships. Though we have multiple means of electronic connection and communication—phone, texts, emails, Zoom—our ability to build meaningful relationships with others is optimized for interpersonal skills. A smile, body language, discussing mutual interests, catching up on family matters, responding with humility, gentleness and patience—these are all accomplished more readily in-person.
What about corporate culture? Many times we hear organizations tout work culture. People like working for this company or that because of how they are treated, or because they feel they are working on something important and meaningful. Culture often includes a relational component—people enjoy working together with other like-minded individuals. Very few companies though can point to a culture developed entirely in a remote environment. Rather it was a strong in-person culture that carried them through the pandemic. Ephesians 4 reminds us that Christ-like character is inherent to the believer’s involvement in corporate culture.
Scripture is filled with instruction on building and maintaining healthy in-person relationships. The Bible tells us to be encouraging, to share wisdom and to keep good company (Proverbs 27:17, Proverbs 17:17, Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, 1 Corinthians 15:33, Proverbs 13:20, Hebrews 10:24-25, 1 Peter 4:8-10, John 15:13). Connecting to others individually and using those relationships as a point of spiritual influence is clearly a biblical priority for faith-centered leaders. This is why a faith-centered leader should look at an in-person work environment as preferred. There’s no question that you can model Christ-likeness, share key moral and ethical principles, and be a more effective teacher and mentor face-to-face than you can from behind a keyboard and monitor.
Faith-centered leaders maximize in-person relationships. The decision as to what work environment is best for a particular business is foremost a business decision. Post-pandemic, some companies offer complete flexibility. Twitter.com told employees they would work from home forever—or in whatever environment they believed was most productive.[3] At Tesla, CEO Elon Musk told all employees to return to the office for at least 40 hours per week or go work somewhere else.[4] Apple has employees in the office at least three days a week.[5] Each company has faced challenges with their plans, as employee family life and schedules have shifted during the pandemic.
Some prefer to keep things as they are, others are happy to get back to the office. More and more though, the sentiment is settling on company leaders determining their course of action based on their business needs. If a company must retain talent, the offer more flexibility. If in-office needs are most important, the company deals with a percentage of employees who leave when flexibility ends and hires replacements. Apart from your particular organization’s business goals, consider too how you may be a faith-centered influence in the work environment favored by you and other leaders.
What would Jesus do? Well it’s a ridiculous question because offices and work culture didn’t even exist in Jesus’ time. And we honestly don’t know how Jesus would handle such a dilemma because beyond the idea of the office, Jesus Himself transcends our culture. Often we try to put Him into situations we face to gauge how we might act or react, but it’s an unrealistic comparison. What we do know about Christ is that He prioritized the Father’s mission above all else, and that He spent the majority of His time on earth with a small group of disciples teaching them how to live like Him.
In our own lives and leadership as we imitate Christ and become more like Him, we might use our work location to prioritize relationship-building in order to be a positive personal and spiritual influence to those in our reach. In many business instances, this would point to in-person opportunities as important and helpful. Whether or not your workplace desires in-person attendance, be prayerful as to how you can best support building meaningful relationships in the workplace. In whatever you work situation, find ways to favor knowing and growing with people, which is a meaningful ministry for faith-centered leaders.
[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2022/02/16/covid-19-pandemic-continues-to-reshape-work-in-america/
[2] https://www.indeed.com/lead/a-day-in-the-life-work-from-home-statistics-insights
[3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2022/03/05/twitter-employees-can-work-from-home-forever-or-wherever-you-feel-most-productive-and-creative
[4] https://www.npr.org/2022/06/01/1102513281/elon-musk-tesla-return-to-work
[5] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-15/apple-sets-return-to-office-deadline-of-sept-5-after-delays