“Not everyone will gain from a cultural shift toward working from home.” (via latimesopinion)
from Europe and North America showed that when people shifted to remote work during the pandemic, they ended up putting in longer hours — not great news for work-life balance, to be sure, but a development that many employers would cheer.So what should we do? My advice is to recognize the reality of the new labor market and adapt. Hybrid schedules are the future, with employees averaging three days a week in the office.
Not everyone will gain from a cultural shift toward working from home. We are now rapidly moving to a three-tier workforce.by Jose Barrero, Steve Davis and myself found that about 35% of workers can work at least partly from home. These are usually college-educated professionals and executives. A further 15% percent of a similar demographic can work remotely all the time. But about 50% of all employees have to work fully in-person.
These include people in front-line jobs in retail, manufacturing, healthcare and other service industries. Their positions are frequently lower-paid and don’t require college degrees. Remote work seems to inevitably widen existing disparities in the workforce. Managers around the country have told me they have been raising salaries for front-line employees to compensate, and are trying to increase flexibility of their working hours.
The hybrid model prevents all of us from getting carried away with the shift to remote work. Some executives are understandably enthusiastic about cost savings, but I worry that a cost-driven push for fully remote work could squeeze the joy out of work life, which includes socializing with colleagues and the chance to shore up shared workplace values. Too much working from home, I fear, could also exacerbate an already highly polarized society.
As employers and employees think about when and how to return to in-person work, we should be open to exploring different approaches. CEOs will need to embrace those three hardest words “I don’t know,” because so much still is uncertain. But if we take this opportunity to reexamine the future of work, we might still make something positive out of the pandemic.
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