Are We Ready to Return to the Office?
One full, blurry year into the pandemic, and one full year into athleisure life, many offices are still pausing on bringing back 100% of their workforce, awaiting further vaccine rollout for their employees.
Workers are also reluctant to return to the shared office, but for very different reasons. Many report higher productivity working from home and benefit from the convenience it offers; what’s not to love about a zero-minute commute and no longer sitting through meandering meetings.
But WFH has revealed a rising concern surrounding lack of privacy. Home-life has become further enmeshed with work, particularly with employers and educators requiring meeting cameras be turned on.
And yet, despite increased connectivity thanks to apps like Zoom and Microsoft Teams, employees who work virtually are even more disconnected from core cultural components, says a recent Gallup Report
“Remote employees are 7% less likely to see their connection to the mission of a company. ”
Employers are rightly concerned to want to retain the integrity of company culture, yet many job functions have transitioned well-enough to remote models, especially in tech.
Facebook and Twitter announced that they would let workers work from home indefinitely, while Google's parent company, Alphabet, shared that it will let Google employees remain at home until September and then move to a hybrid model. This hybrid model has yet to be puzzled out.
With so many unknowns as to the future of the office as we know it, as well as increasing awareness of different working and personality styles across employees, we’ve entered a new era in the dynamic between employee and workspace.