Anyone want to chime in on what they think might happen after the pandemic is over.
Will remote working become more common? Will employers let those who want to WFH, do so?
My husband can’t wait to get back in the office. He hates being home, and thinks he is much less productive.
My daughter really wants to stay remote. Right now, her boyfriend has accepted a position a couple of hours from where they presently live. She likes the job she has, she doesn’t mind working from home. She asked her boss if she could continue to WFH and her boss and his boss were ok with it. But they are afraid that the corporation won’t. So her boss says, just stay home and we will deal with things if it becomes a problem (mostly if others in her office complains). Makes my daughter very nervous to do that lol!
I keep hearing young people not living in the area where they were working when the pandemic started and not that interested in going back to the office. Or mostly their significant other has a job in another city and they have to move but don’t want to change jobs.
I really do wonder what will happen when people can go back to the office. When this is over
Assuming you mean after vaccine general availability, and for jobs that could reasonably be done remotely…
Some possibilities, which may be chosen differently by different employers and employees:
Employees return to the office, but greater flexibility with respect to remote work on days when needed (e.g. employee needs to stay at home to take care of a sick kid, or does not want to bring a minor sickness into the office but is not sick enough to want to take a sick day). This was already a trend in some industries before COVID-19; COVID-19 may accelerate that trend.
Some or many employees continue to work as remote employees most or all of the time, only coming into the office occasionally if at all. Such remote employees may not necessarily live near the employer locations or even have a permanent home at all. Some employers may reduce office space if many of their employers are remote most or all of the time.
Office space density may be re-thought, if people are still concerned about higher density offices being potential issues for future pandemics. There has been a trend in some industries prior to COVID-19 of increasing office density in high cost areas. But de-densifying (remaining) office space may go counter to the desire to reduce expensive office space as in 2. above.
Will employers eventually require or strongly encourage vaccination of in-person employees to help protect the few who are medically unable to get vaccines (whether other employees, or any of the general public that employees interact with)?
I’m in New England. Many companies are planning to downsize their office footprints. Some will have rotating folks come into the office, but won’t have two or three or four floors in a building…but rather one floor.
Some businesses are planning a scaled return to in office work.
Some are seeing increased production with their WFH employees.
I agree…it will be interesting to see how this all washes down. I think it will affect not only the WFH employees…but also urban housing, and places like restaurants and other entertainment.
DH has been working from home for the whole year and has absolutely zero interest in going back. He doesn’t miss the hellacious commute at all! The president of the company has said he imagines that there are people working there that he will never see in the building again. It may not be that big of a deal but he works in the media and has been recording his daily radio show in our master closet! He used to have musicians come in to the studio for interviews and performances but has worked out a system where they do virtual interviews and performances. The feedback from managers and record labels is that the system works better than the old way because they can still happen even if the band is delayed. They envision doing things this way going forward because they can be recorded and produced before even heading out on the road. I think the whole situation has forced a new kind of creativity and innovation because you didn’t know what you could do at home until you had to.
College prof here - looking forward to being back in the classroom, but would like to keep the meetings with colleagues remote. I must say, the commute to the spare bedroom beats the one hour + drive immensely, though.
Teaching is one work field that I hope will be in person and not remote forever.
BUT there are pieces that work so well remotely. My colleagues just finished conferences. All parents were able to “attend” even if in different locations. No issues with scheduling and the conferences all ended on time too. They would love to see that continue as more families found it easier to do.
Same with meetings, assigning students to classes for the next year, even fundraisers. They just went well online.
I agree that we have learned many new things in the last year…some that really should be continued moving forward.
Agree that teaching in many cases works better in person. (However, some colleges, even before COVID-19, had distance classes that appealed to students who would have commute difficulties getting to in-person classes.)
But could there be some remote flexibility for mainly in-person classes, so that a teacher or student who is sick that day, or has commute trouble getting to campus that day, can still participate (or at least view) in the class remotely?
Our company’s lease is up in 1.5 yrs. We are discussing reducing our footprint and going to a “hoteling” system. Basically, no one (except maybe CEO) has dedicated office. When you come in you dock your laptop in an empty office and work for the day. They contemplate most people coming in about 2-3 days/wk.
I have to say, I have enjoyed not having to commute every day. But, I do think it is going to be hard to keep up office relationships and hard for people new to the company. How are young employees going to get proper training and mentorship?
I think this will vary quite a bit based upon the type of work, the age of the worker, and the locations involved. The short answer is there will be more work from home than in the past and hoteling (which was already gaining popularity) will increase.
For people who live in the suburbs, like me, the lack of the horrible commute is very appealing. Yet, I hear from my contemporaries (people eying retirement) that they would like to go back to the office a few times a week.
For young people, as others have mentioned, I think they really need to go back to the office to learn and grow their skills. Many have moved in with their parents to make work from home easier (no space in small shared apartments) and they also need to get back to independent living. Those that were in cities, want to get back to their very active city life.
Many people who did a lot of traveling for their jobs, may find that the amount of traveling is less (since they were able to do so much without the traveling).
I think many women who ended up working from home and being full time caregiver and home teacher at the same time, will want to get back to the office and be able to just work their job.
I think companies will save on rental space and travelling costs, but most will not continue without any in office presence.
Also, some services which are now being done via zoom, will probably continue to have a zoom presence. I can imagine that once my yoga teacher can use his studio again, he will continue to offer zoom sessions also.
There are a lot of factors (and fields of work) to be considered with this question. For many, the consumer reaction may make the difference. People may “demand” or prefer that places like banks and other face to face services return. (not me, but others, especially older people).
I work in a health care/academic setting. We are being told we will be back full time in the office June 1. I honestly think they would do it earlier but our last remote work arrangement “contracts” were make through May so I don’t think they will fool with that. Everyone in our department is fully vaccinated. I would like the option to work from home 1-2 days a week - it can be done without issue and worked pretty well over the last year, but I don’t know that I can get approval for it - it would be one of those “what we do for one we need to do for all” kinds of things.
I agree with @kiddie that some learning especially for new professionals can be tough to gain remotely. While it can be annoying there is some value in the water cooler talk, the stop by and chat at someone’s office, the meeting in person.
I do hope that many meetings we used to go to face to face will continue via video. Such a loss of work time traveling around town for 1-2 hour meetings in the middle of the day…
My husband’s company is probably going to do a hybrid of wfh/in the office - they’ve always been able to wfh here and there which has been great as he often travels a lot for work and gives him a break from his commute. He really misses the in person and even his train ride into the city- some of the travel, not so much.
My May 2020 grad started his career from his bedroom and now works from his apartment in the city - never having met anyone in his company in person. He is really looking forward to going in person and has been told they will most likely be a 3 days in the office, 2 days wfh which he thinks is perfect.
I work part time and can be done at home-2days per week with the option of going in to my very close to home office- works well but if I never have to Zoom again or hear that word I would be very happy! I think people need f2f contact and I very much enjoy the work relationships that I have made - my husband, long employed with the same company, would agree.
One of the upsides to the pandemic has been all these businesses figuring this out- some may have thought wfh would never function well but I think in many cases it has proven to work just fine.
I also wonder about younger people. I remember moving 8 hours away from home for a job and not knowing a soul. The first people you meet are your coworkers but that won’t be the case if you don’t work in a physical location with others. I guess you can make the case that you don’t have to move for a job if you work from home but I think it’s hard to work as a team when everyone is scattered and don’t have a personal connection.
DH’s company used to have 2-4 interns every year. No on-site employees = no interns because they can’t have the liability of sending students into people’s homes. How do you get hands on experience when the places you would go don’t have any people working there? And education majors with no in-person student teaching opportunities? It’s not like the jobs are disappearing but the long term implications make you think.
My husband’s company will be downsizing considerably this summer when their lease is up. They are going to have workstations that anyone can use when they are in the office.
My company did a survey over 6 months ago and asked employees how many days they would want to work in the office post Covid. More than 95% of the people responding said 2 days per week. Our lease is up in a year and a half and I’m certain my company will also downsize space.
D2 has been here at home working the past year and 2 people on her team moved (1 out of state) during Covid and they are allowed to stay 100% remote. D2 said she only wants to go into an office 1-2 days per week in the future and sees no reason why her manager will object.
No official word from my company, but all signs are pointing to a hybrid schedule. My company also did a survey at the end of last year, and most employees said they would go to the office 2 days a week. Twice a week would be ideal for me. I do miss socializing in person. My commute is relatively short. After a year of WFH, leaving the house appeals to me.
One unintended but very real consequence of companies moving toward WFH is the loss of income tax revenue for the municipalities where the employees used to work. This will significantly impact their budgets and ability to deliver community services. It will be interesting to watch as this develops, as many areas put pandemic emergency rules into place that have been allowing cities to collect taxes from individuals who neither live and now no longer work within them. Eventually, some hard and potentially unpopular decisions will need to be made around this issue.
My husband’s company took advantage of the pandemic to do this - went to a hoteling system to reduce footprint - except with most of his team already located in other offices in different states, he doesn’t expect ever to set foot in the office again.
I must say, the commute to the spare bedroom beats the one hour + drive immensely, though.