The pandemic has come to a slowdown and regulations are ending, creating a hard push back into pre-pandemic life. With the world returning back to “normalcy,” employers requiring employees to return to the office has become a point of contention.
As a student who will be joining the workforce in the near future, I believe that employees should still be allowed to continue to work from home. Times have changed and employees and employers have adapted to a work-from-home environment. Technology has opened up the possibility of working full-time at home.
Thanks to innovations in technology, functional work environments no longer require people to go to the office in person. During the summer of 2022, I participated in an internship program with HawaiiUSA. On my first day, I noticed that the office was emptier than I expected due to many employees working from home. As interns, we were introduced to technologies that make office life productive, such as virtual calendars, online meetings and direct messaging.
Based on my experience, I believe that there is no need for people to work face-to-face to have a functional work environment. During my time at HawaiiUSA, I could get detailed instructions from my mentors, like when I was asked to create an informational paper for a mentor who was rarely in the office.
People also enjoy other positives that come with working from home: more flexible schedules, increased family time and reduced commutes. Scott Uyehara, an employee at HawaiiUSA, explained that “the biggest plus is the commute. I spend a total of almost two hours in traffic on most days (working in person) and I don’t lose out on time with family in the afternoon. When work is done, I am already home.”
Being a student who is still planning my future career, the benefits of working from home are very alluring. As a teen without a driver license, my commute to my internship in town from Waipahu would take around an hour-and-a-half.
A quick Google search of “remote jobs near me” will show you just how much working from home has expanded since the pandemic, and proves that most workplaces can survive with people working from home. I believe that a large group of the next generation going into the workforce will choose careers that will allow them to work from home, whether full-time or on a hybrid schedule.
However, people have concerns about how effective remote working is compared to working in person. Because people are not in a professional environment at home, some may take advantage and not produce quality work, wasting time and resources. Moreover, despite the advances in technology, communicating virtually is not always as efficient as talking face to face. For example, some people may miss meetings due to technical difficulties, or they might not check their emails. These issues would lead to miscommunication and the deterioration of a functional work environment.
However, during the pandemic, people have learned their own systems to avoid this. Office workers are adults and are held to a high standard by their employers to uphold their company’s image and to produce quality work. People who do not complete their work face consequences, such as losing privileges and trust. As Uyehara explained: “Working from home is a privilege so it would be taken away, and our work would be closely monitored.”
In order for employees to be able to work from home, employers and employees need to create a functioning system that will facilitate communication and productivity between people working in the office and at home.
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Kimberly Murphy is a 12th-grader at Waipahu High School.
“Raise Your Hand,” a monthly column featuring Hawaii’s youth and their perspectives, appears in the Insight section on the first Sunday of each month. It is facilitated by the Center for Tomorrow’s Leaders.
