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Will Working From Home Become the New Normal?

Denise Grier — Tue, 01 Sep 2020 11:47:42 +0000

Early in the spring of 2020, due to Covid19, those in professional fields who were lucky enough to keep their jobs were sent home to work. This group consisted mainly of office workers, like accountants and others in white-collar fields. In a reversal of fortune, retail workers and those in service positions became what was dubbed 'essential." Those were strange days, to say the least, but what has happened over the last few months is that society's view on working remotely and the view of those actually working from home may be forever changed.

Today on the Rules of Thumb blog from MoneyThumb we are going to delve into this article from the New York Times, titled The Office Will Never Be The Same. The article explains how many white-collar workers say their lives are now much better since they are working remotely. They have adjusted their schedules to fit their lives, and they’re enjoying it, according to a new, nationally representative survey by Morning Consult for The New York Times.

Leslie Perlow, a professor at Harvard Business School who has spent her career going into companies and convincing them to abolish things like meetings or weekend work — in order to add back only what they truly need — said she never imagined she would see this experiment happen on such a large scale.

“People are seeing a different world,” she said. “That’s going to create the revolution to change the way we work. A lot of this is possible in a way we never knew.”

America’s office workers have been miserable and burned out for a long time. The expectation of long hours at the office has been particularly hard on parents — especially mothers. Women, young people and people with disabilities have for years been among those at the forefront of pushing for more freedom in where work gets done.

Perhaps not surprisingly, employers have offered many reasons they can’t give people quite so much autonomy. People can’t be trusted to get their work done on their own, they have said. Clients expect in-person, round-the-clock service. Running into co-workers in the hallway is sure to spur serendipitous ideas, right? And, people need to attend meetings, as well as meetings to prepare for those meetings and meetings to debrief after them.

But in the last few months, it has become clear to everyone what was really going on. Corporate America just didn’t want to change. “All these things could be done yesterday: This is the reality,” said Betsey Stevenson, a labor economist at the University of Michigan.

It’s also clear that America’s workers actually like the new way of doing things, even amid the challenges of the pandemic. In the survey by The Times and Morning Consult, which polled 1,123 people who have worked at home these past few months — representing the range of jobs, demographics, and income levels of America’s remote workers — 86 percent said they were satisfied with remote work.

However, not all white-collar employers are committed to this new way of work, either. Some bosses schedule back-to-back Zoom meetings and monitor desk time by whether a green Slack light is on, signifying employees are available. Others have already summoned people back to work. There is also the possibility that employers could panic about trying something new in a recession — and with high unemployment, workers have less power to make demands.

Even for the lucky ones, all-remote work into the winter could become dull and lonely, which is one reason that most office workers say in surveys that they prefer a hybrid arrangement: in the office some days and remote some days. Still, many analysts say that lockdowns are an unexpected opportunity to remake work for the long term and that there’s no reason a work-life balance shouldn’t be the norm in a post-COVID world.

Researchers who have spent years trying to convince companies to operate this way warn that the new movement could backfire. To do it right, they say, managers should be very clear about what’s expected (“send me this report by Tuesday at noon”) and then leave it to employees to determine how it gets done. “Manage the work, not the people,” said Jody Thompson, a founder of a firm called CultureRx, which helps companies figure out how to measure results instead of desk time.

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Advice for Those Transitioning to Work From Home

Denise Grier — Fri, 20 Mar 2020 12:33:52 +0000

MoneyThumb has customers from every walk of life and across the globe who use our PDF financial file converters. Many of you are employed by companies who are requiring you to work from home since the world is basically shutting down and social distancing has been implemented due to the Coronavirus. Accountants and others from many different business niches are making the transition. A lot of small business owners have been forced to close their offline stores and are now strictly selling their products and services online.

To help you with the transition of working in an offline world to working from home the Rules of Thumb blog from MoneyThumb would like to offer some solid suggestions to make the transition less painful and more successful. Our main suggestion is that you treat your morning the same as you would if you were heading into an office. Set aside a designated workspace (even if it’s just your kitchen table), make yourself some breakfast and yes, wear regular clothes, not pajamas. This is all a part of keeping your mind in work mode.

For further steps to make the transition easier and yourself more productive and less stressed, we are referring to an article from The New York Times, How to Work From Home If You've Never Done it Before. Below is advice from that article:

Keep the Same Schedule--“Try to get up at the same time, and do all the things you would typically do to get ready for work,” said William Castellano, a professor in the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations. “Make sure you’re thinking about how you’re going to structure your day similarly” to how you did before. So if you made a to-do list every morning, make the to-do list. If you checked in with the same person every morning, check-in with that person.
Set Boundaries--Pick a spot for your office. It doesn’t have to have a door, but it should be away from distraction. You don’t need an expensive setup. The boundaries you set up also pertain to other people who may be sharing the same space. This will be especially important if a partner or roommate is also working from home or children’s schools are closed. Sara Perry, Assistant Professor of Management at Baylor University says, “There’s a lot demanding of your time and energy and resources right now. This may mean having conversations with managers about adjusting their expectations, given the extraordinary circumstances."
Take Breaks--Be sure to take exercise, meals and stretch breaks. If your commute used to include walking, and now you have no reason to leave the house, you might forget to move. When you suddenly lose the pace of your day, everything can start to bleed together. You may be used to relying on cues from your workplace (i.e., other people) to remind you to get up and stretch or get lunch.
Prepare For Isolation--Even introverts who work in an office can suffer from isolation at suddenly being moved home. Dr. Perry suggested proactively staying in touch with others rather than waiting for someone to reach out. That could mean emailing colleagues more often, having conference calls, video conferences, using chat tools or just picking up the phone. Some at-home workers play music or movies in the background to keep them company or take social media breaks to feel less isolated.
When You are Done Working, Leave it Alone--For those who are used to working in an office, the evening commute is often a way to end the workday and begin home life. Dr. Perry said it’s important to continue to make the same transition, even if you’re just moving from one spot on the couch to the other. So put your work materials and your laptop away (or just shut work applications if you want to use your computer for something else). She added that this is crucial right now because “you’re already being challenged in terms of your personal resources,” she said. “You still have to take that recovery time from work.”

We are going through some very challenging and strange times, that is for sure, but we are a very adaptive species and we will be ok. If you need further help transitioning to work from home, or you are struggling to find work from home opportunities, leave us a comment below and the team at MoneyThumb will do our best to help. Please share this blog post on your social media pages so your peers can benefit from the information provided.

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