Will Work Ever Be the Same After This Pandemic Ends?

April 15, 2020 – A friend of mine who is recovering from a heart bypass operation done during this period of pandemic crisis in hospitals, sent me an interesting article published on the Vox website entitled, “This is the end of the office as we know it.” The article had caught his eye because he and I have been working on a policy resolution that could become Canadian law in the future.

The article written by Rani Molla points out that the idea of working from home may become institutionalized even after the COVID-19 pandemic has passed. Will working remotely become the norm here in Canada and elsewhere around the world? Will we even need the big overhead of bricks and mortar office space in the near future?

A survey this month by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, and the U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), reported that more than 34% of workers not yet laid off were commuting virtually by working from home.

Were businesses investing in employees’ remote workplaces? Whether employees were using home computers or company systems such as laptops which they were allowed to bring home, it is clear that “the crisis has forced people to try out new approaches, some of which may be unexpectedly efficient or effective. In either case, lasting changes from the crisis would be expected.”

The implications for the long term are many. The structure of a wide range of industries may permanently be altered. And distancing may no longer be seen as a problem for those who are hired since the tools and technologies to work remotely will become permanent fixtures in business environments.

In Rani Molla’s article he notes that “prior to the pandemic, the number of people regularly working from home remained in the single digits.” That is likely not to be the case in the post-pandemic. Companies that hadn’t invested in remote work because of the pandemic now have out of necessity. To get their return on investment, it is more likely that working from home will become more the norm.

At-home offices will alter work-life at central offices as well as opening up office space. Instead of open concept rooms filled with cubicles, for social distancing purposes alone, workers will enjoy much greater office living space. Distancing will necessitate this for health and safety reasons. Expect private offices to become more common in centralized work environments. Staggered hours will allow for distancing as well.

The Brookings Institution, a U.S. non-profit public policy organization based in Washington, DC, describes the COVID-19 pandemic as an extreme test that will remake all of our assumptions about the workplace environment. They describe a surge in teleworking and ask whether the technologies in place can handle the scale of the teleworking requirement in light of the pandemic. Their research shows that in 2018, about a quarter of the U.S. workforce worked part-time from home. They also note that almost 10% of working-adult Americans lack a home broadband connection which obviously makes telework from such environments impossible. That’s why a commitment to telework requires high-speed Internet connectivity for all who work from home.

Telecommunications and telework strategies go hand-in-hand. And although telework cannot replace all face-to-face business activity, and the need for social interaction in work, the technology answers the needs clearly established by the pandemic.

There is no telling how long the current pandemic crisis will last. Businesses who do not redeploy to working from home strategies may find themselves out of business once the pandemic ends. It becomes critical, therefore, for companies to embrace telework and provide training and resources to accompany the change.

In the policy resolution the reasons for telework go far beyond just answering the pandemic. With a national telework strategy it will:

• reduce commutes and greenhouse gas emissions helping to mitigate climate change.
• address economic disparity across the country by allowing employees in remote communities to work with companies in large urban settings.
• help those who are housebound through disability and other circumstances to find gainful employment.