What’s Next For Work: The Workplace Reimagined

It’s a story stranger than fiction. Overnight, the COVID-19 pandemic redefined what it means to “go to work.” Millions of workers around the world traded their conference room meetings and office commutes for video calls and a spot on the couch. Masks became the new uniform and hygiene hypervigilance the new mandate for those who needed to stay on the frontlines. For many, modified operations created new or additional job duties, some of which required learning new skills.

A month of this strange dystopia turned into two, then three, then four. At the height of the pandemic, almost twice as many employees were working from home full-time as those working on business premises, according to Stanford research. But what happens when social distancing becomes a distant memory? Should you stay or should you go?

In this second of a three-part series on what’s next for work, we break down the big trends shaping the workplace of the future.

Trend #1: The Remote Office

For a large part of the working population, the pandemic has proven that many organizations are able to function—and in many cases, function quite well—working remotely. Research from the University of Chicago’s Becker Friedman Institute indicates that nearly 40% of all U.S. jobs can be performed effectively from home. The stigma of remote work is virtually gone. Allowing employees to work-from-home permanently is becoming increasingly common, with companies like Twitter and Slack leading the charge.

Read the entire article at BDO: https://www.bdo.com/insights/business-financial-advisory/whats-next/the-workplace-reimagined