Working from home improves mental health

The argument

People who begin working from home have found their mental health improved in comparison to when they were employed in a traditional office, and the reasons are specific enough to trace. Usually, remote jobs are extremely flexible, which reduces stress and allows more freedom in scheduling. Much of the strain of office work comes not from the work itself but from having to fit it into hours someone else has fixed, so that everything outside the job, including appointments, family, rest and the times of day when a person actually works best, has to bend around a timetable they did not set. Commuting is the clearest case. Commuting to and from work can be stressful, especially during rush hour traffic, and it is stress with nothing to show for it: the journey produces neither output for the employer nor rest for the employee, yet it bookends every working day. Working from home eliminates driving, which creates less stress and more time for a person to work or relax, and it returns that time at both ends of the day rather than in a single block. Allowing more flexibility within a work schedule has been proven to reduce stress levels and burnout in employees, and burnout in particular is what accumulates when pressure never lets up. Since people are able to complete their work at their own time and pace, they do not feel pressured to finish quickly, and work done without that pressure tends to be done properly. This can result in more thorough, better work for the company, because employees have the freedom to be more detailed. Working remotely is therefore better than a traditional office on both counts: the drastic improvements to stress and mental health for the employee, and the quality of work those conditions produce for the employer.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Working from home can be detrimental to a persons' mental health due to the isolation and lack of in-person communication. An employee may feel alienated from their co-workers because they only communicate digitally. It is lonely for a person to spend every workday alone, and can lead to poor mental health.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P4] Working from home can damage a persons' mental health due to isolation and loneliness.