Philosophically, I am against full-time staff working from home. Here’s why:
We read in Mark’s gospel “And he [Jesus] went up on the mountain and called to him those whom he desired, and they came to him. And he appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach and have authority to cast out demons.” (Mark 3:13-15 ESV)
From this passage we learn that Jesus had a chosen method for developing those who would become the leaders over his church. How would they be developed? They would be with him – and as much as possible.
How would being with Jesus help develop them?
- It allowed them to see what Jesus did and to learn from what they saw (John 13:3-17).
- It allowed them to ask questions based off what they saw (Mark 9:11) and to learn from Jesus’ answers (Mark 9:12-13).
- It allowed them to listen to Jesus’ teaching (Matthew 5:1-2) and learn from what they heard.
- It allowed them the chance to do ministry (John 4:1-2) while Jesus watched and gave feedback, which was yet another means of learning.
In Matthew 10 we learn that Jesus sent his disciples out to minister, and the question begs, “How did they know how to do it? How did they know how to 1) preach, 2) heal the sick, 3) raise the dead, 4) cleanse lepers, and 5) cast out demons?” And the answer is: Jesus taught them! They learned all of this from being with Jesus.
Now Jesus’ example here is the ideal that we, as church leaders, ought to be striving to emulate. We ought to try and develop leaders the same way Jesus did. Reminder: A disciple is a learner. A disciple of Jesus is a learner of the words and ways of Jesus. And clearly, when it comes to developing leaders, Jesus had “a way.”
Ok, now that we know the ideal, we have to ask ourselves, “What will best help us develop leaders like Jesus? Having people work from home, (where they’ll be alone) or having people work in the office (where they’ll be together)? Obviously, having people work together in the office brings us closer to the biblical ideal.
When an employee is around his/her supervisor…
- It allows them to see what they do and learn from it.
- It allows them to ask questions based off what they saw and to learn from the answers.
- It allows them to listen to their instruction and learn from what they hear.
- It allows them the chance to do ministry while their supervisor watches and gives feedback, which is yet another means of learning.
When everyone is working from home, by themselves, it doesn’t facilitate the above nearly as well, which is why, at New Day, we don’t have, and won’t have, a remote work culture, regardless of what may or not not be happening in culture. As disciples, our aim is to follow Christ, not culture.
Interestingly enough though, if we were to study culture as a model, we would find that by and large, it gravitates towards the Jesus way of developing leaders, not towards having employees work from home. The vast majority of companies around the world still require workers to come into the office. Only 12% of the workforce works remotely full-time and only 35% of the workforce does a hybrid model (working sometimes from home and sometimes from the office). And that’s because coming into the office provides the accountability that most people need to work to their full potential each day. At home people end up doing laundry and other house chores, taking a nap, getting into long conversations with their spouse and/or kids, etc. And with no supervisor there to see that they’re doing this, no coaching/correction takes place and bad habits thrive. When you’re in the office, you have built in protection against stealing company time with personal errands and issues. Admittedly, there are unicorns, people who could work from home and be even more productive than in the office, but this is not the case for the vast majority of people. The other reason that most companies still want employees coming into the office is because they see great value in the mentoring and peer to peer learning that takes place when employees rub shoulders with their supervisor and with each other.
All this to say, moving forward at New Day we’re going to do our best to make one change after another – slowly and methodically – that will result in us, incrementally, moving closer and closer and closer to the biblical ideal.
If your response to this is, “But even when we’re at the office, we’re really not spending much time with each other,” far from providing justification for remote work, this only highlights something that needs to change as soon as possible. If your staff are coming to the office (like you) and you’re not spending time with them, you need to begin working on doing what you can to change that because, from this day forward, we are actively chasing the biblical ideal. You may have to have your staff start working the same hours as you, you might need to begin collaborating more with them, you might need to start inviting them to eat lunch with you, you might need to start inviting them to join you on site-visits or conferences, you might need to invite them to come watch you do a funeral or wedding, or have them sit in with you on a counseling session, etc. Jesus developed leaders by having them be with him, and this is the direction we’re moving in as a staff…the Jesus way of developing leaders.
In my experience if you’re disconnected physically, you become disconnected mentally as well. For example, during the final two months of our Agawam build out the DLT stopped having our normal weekly strategic meetings. As soon as the build was done we began meeting together again and found ourselves on completely different pages on any number of issues. No one intentionally strayed and no one was being rebellious or anything like that. We were just apart physically and got on completely different pages, so we had to spend that first meeting after the build out getting back on the same page. And this is the power of being together, and the danger of being apart, which again, is why we’re not on board with staff working from home.