In a world of social media lingo and abbreviations, you may at some point wondered ‘what does WFH mean’? To answer simply, in the working world it stands for working from home or in other uses stands for work from home. Both meaning the same thing that you’re not at the office or physical workplace and rather, carrying work duties from home. This broadly applies to knowledge-based work occupations.
Increase in Popularity
With the huge increase of working from home since the Covid pandemic the use of ‘WFH’ has become very popular, as evidenced by the chart below (big spike towards March 2020):
Alternatives to WFH
Now the WFH acronym is more widely used you can be confident in using it and being understood! In terms of alternative acronmyms the closest one is working remotely. Also, some people use OOO which translates to ‘Out of Office’ but this isn’t the best of alternatives as OOO means you’re away from the office but not necessarily working.
WFH Will Become WFA
When you’re WFH you don’t necessarily need to be at ‘home’. You can spend a morning in a coffee shop, afternoon at a shared co-working space or simply spend all day at home and all of these scenarios will come under ‘working from home. In reality, the definition or acronym Working From Anywhere (WFA) is better and may in the future replace WFH. The pandemic has taught many people that they don’t necessarily need to be in an office and can perform their knowledge-based work remotely; it can be from home, nearby co-working space, or in theory, an entirely different country! This has become popular with millennials as the prospect of working and travelling/better lifestyle is very much appealing.
The future of WFA work is most definitely an interesting one and goes beyond simply understanding what WFA stands for. We are sure that WFH or WFA (whichever term you decide to use) is here to stay!