Over the last eight months we’ve gone from hearing about this virus on the other side of the world, to ravaging grocery store shelves for toilet paper, to binging Tiger King, but what might be one of the biggest shifts because of the COVID-19 pandemic may be the way we work moving forward. Offices are closing up, workers are being sent home, and Zoom’s becoming more of a household name. Will this be temporary, or are we witnessing a cultural shift?
For most people who were fortunate enough to shift to remote positions, transitioning to working from the comfort of your own home came as a shock. But by the third month, most realized that thanks to new video conferencing systems like Zoom, WebEx, MS Teams, and others, along with email and messaging apps, working from home allowed them to continue to be productive, and in some cases, they were more productive than they were in their former office settings. When asked, an astounding number of pandemic remote workers state they wanted to continue working from home and most said they would even look for a new job if they would have to return to the office. The level of interest in finding a new job instead of going back to a full-time office setting is an important thing to keep an eye on.
When speaking with some C-level executives, experts are finding that more of a hybrid approach may become the norm moving forward. More flexible work schedules, certain days in the office vs. days at home, or only coming into the office on an as-needed basis, whatever it may be, remote work isn’t just a pipedream anymore – this may be the new environment we’re all coming back to.