Since there is no separation in work and home life, people who work from home often have trouble unplugging and relaxing after completing their work for the day, which can result in burnout.
The argument
Those who work from home often struggle with unplugging and relaxing after work, and the reason is structural rather than a matter of individual discipline. An office supplies a boundary that nobody has to enforce: leaving the building ends the working day, and the working day ends because the place where work happens has been left behind. At home there is no separation between home and work life, so that boundary has to be maintained deliberately, at every moment, by the same person who is also trying to get the work done. Two pressures then push the day longer. Employees feel they have to keep busier, because without a supervisor present there is nothing visible to demonstrate that work is being done except more of it. And people who work from home work longer because they do not have a set schedule to work within — where no fixed end has been imposed, any moment is as good a stopping point as any other, which in practice means the stopping is postponed. The cost of always feeling 'at work' is burnout, and burnout affects both mental health and job performance. It can leave a person more tired and less motivated to do their job, precisely because they feel as if they are constantly engaged at work and never recovering from it. The recovery that would restore motivation requires time genuinely away from work, which is the thing the arrangement has removed. Working in a traditional office space eliminates the possibility of this kind of overwork, because employees can unplug and relax when they leave for the day — the separation is built into where the work happens, rather than being one more thing the worker has to manage.
Premises
Counter-arguments
Even when working from home, it is possible to unplug and relax after work. By creating a specific time and place to complete work, employees are able to separate their job from home life. Additionally, creating a schedule will keep people focused on their job and build the sensation of being productive. Then, people will be able to comfortably unplug and relax after completing their work instead of feeling exhausted.
Rejecting the premises
[Rejecting P1] The premise offers two incompatible reasons for the same behaviour: that people work longer because nobody is watching, and that they work longer because they feel they must appear busy. Neither is measured, and both describe how a workplace is managed rather than where the work is done. [Rejecting P2] Burnout follows from workload and demands rather than from location, and the argument never explains why office work is exempt when work follows people home by email and phone regardless. The counter identifies the remedy the premise treats as impossible — a set time and place for work — and the conclusion also outruns the premise, since a single drawback would not settle which arrangement is better overall.