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everything but the job at hand when they’re out of
sight. (Not that office workers don’t do things like
shop online and scroll Facebook on company time.)
In fact, 76 percent of HR leaders reported to
Gartner that the top employee complaint during
the coronavirus outbreak thus far has been “con-
cerns from managers about the productivity or
engagement of their teams when remote.”
But many managers are likely to find themselves
surprised. More than a quarter of workers who’ve re-
cently switched to telecommuting say they’re clock-
ing more hours than they normally do in the office,
according to a survey by G&S. And a study from Har-
vard University last year found that people were morea break and come back.” She adds: “In the office
there are a lot more distractions.”
The not so good: “It does mess with my work-life
balance,” Gonzalez says. “The first night I worked
remotely, I ended up going back to my computer
and working at 10 p.m. My boyfriend was not happy.”
That double-edge to remote work, Gonzalez
discovered, underpins one of the biggest miscon-
ceptions and key adjustments managers will have
to make as they embrace a fully remote workforce.
A common reason employers cite for not offering
remote work prior to the pandemic, Lister says, is sim-
ply that they don’t trust their staff to work untethered.
They fret that employees will use working hours forBATTLING
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