Many aspects of everyday life were transformed during the COVID-19 pandemic and the government’s response to it.
Lockdowns quickly created a remote working environment that hasn’t fully reversed.
And while attitudes are still changing in the evolving post-COVID era, many workers and businesses are beginning to realize that the future of the workforce may not be fully in-person or remote, but somewhere in between.
Allie Clough of Columbus, Ohio, has worked remotely for most of her full-time career.
Having earned her graduate degree at the height of the pandemic, Clough only worked briefly in an office environment before shifting into her current role as a freelance writer. And although she hasn’t started a family yet, she said she believes the flexibility of working from home will be invaluable to her when she does.
“As a woman in my 20s, one of the biggest benefits that I see to remote work is the fact that it seems like it'll be much friendlier to family life,” she told The Epoch Times.
Clough recently made the move from Washington to Columbus to be closer to her partner. While she works remotely full-time, he works a hybrid schedule—a combination that she said has strengthened their relationship.
“I don’t think we would have been able to really date at all if we didn’t both work remote to some degree,” she said. “It has really afforded us the ability to not have to miss a beat with our jobs while still being able to be near one another. And when the workday is over, we can be together.”
Before the pandemic, Clough said she found the idea of juggling motherhood and a career to be “intimidating.” But now, with the rise of remote work, she no longer fears that she will have to give one up for the sake of the other.
“It makes me much more bullish on the idea of starting a family and having children when I see that the women that I work with, even if they take time off when their kids are little, there is a lot more flexibility for them to roll back into the workplace and even be in management or leadership roles,” she said.
That’s a benefit that Katie Bridge of College Station, Texas, has also realized in the wake of the pandemic.
Bridge was a stay-at-home mother of two before COVID-19 transformed the workforce and the world. Now a communications strategist at Lockheed Martin, she works from home four days a week, 10 hours a day.
Katie Bridge visits the Messina Hof Winery with her family in Bryan, Texas, on Aug. 12, 2023. (Courtesy of Timothy Bridge)
“I love it,” she said of her working conditions. “The kids know that I don’t work Fridays, so that’s the day that they get to plan what they want to do with me.”
Bridge, a U.S. Army veteran, put her career on hold for six years so she could raise her children at a time when working from home wasn’t as common.
Before, she noted, remote options were typically only available for call center representatives—a job that typically requires a quiet work setting.
“As someone with two babies, there’s no such thing as a quiet place for eight hours a day,” she said.
But amid the global shift toward remote work during and after the pandemic, Bridge found the courage to reenter the workforce through a job that began as a hybrid role but has since evolved into a fully remote position.
“One of the things that was on my resume was my time as a stay-at-home mom. Because there is no job that requires as much as a stay-at-home mom,” she said.
Varying Perspectives
Remote work’s family-friendly reputation could be the reason women are still pursuing such opportunities at higher rates than men.
And to Ryan Niddel, CEO of wellness company MIT45, that all makes perfect sense.
“I believe that men still have something inside of them that is that hunter-gatherer protector somewhere inside,” he said. “And I believe that women still have a sense of, you know, creating family and nesting.”
Staff at work in the Boatsetter office, a boat-renting tech company in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Aug. 7, 2019. Women are 26 percent more likely than men to seek out remote jobs, according to a 2021 study. (Gianrigo Marletta/AFP via Getty Images)
From that perspective, Niddel said it only stands to reason that women would feel more productive in a home environment. But in his case, he said he is more productive in an office setting—about 20 percent more productive, to be exact.
“I just quantified it using a series of time management platforms on my computer to see where my focus and attention was going,” he said.
While working from home proved “a distraction” for Niddel, at the office, he was able to focus on the tasks at hand. Meanwhile, he found that keeping his work and personal lives separate allowed for stronger relationships and productivity in both spheres.
Describing the pursuit of work-life balance as “a fool’s errand,” the executive said his goal is not to strike a balance between the two but rather to be fully attentive to each at the appropriate times.
Shifting Expectations
While Niddel prefers working in an office, he encourages his employees to work wherever they feel most efficient.Other employers, however, have chosen a different path.
Amazon, Apple, and Google, for example, have all mandated that their employees return to the office at least three days a week.
Jeff Herzog, president of the recruiting firm FPC National, said the shift back toward in-person work has created “an abyss” between the expectations of job seekers and employers.
While many job seekers have now become accustomed to working from home, companies are increasingly calling their employees back into the office.
Employees are welcomed back to work with breakfast in the cafeteria at the Google offices in Chicago on April 5, 2022. Google employees began returning to work in the office following a two-year hiatus during the COVID-19 pandemic. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
The resulting tension, Herzog said, is creating friction in the workforce.
“I know a ton of employers who were extremely frustrated with their lack of ability to get people to be more productive because of management issues,” he said.
He said he has also spoken with many workers who say they felt most productive while working from home. Plus, from a recruitment standpoint, remote and hybrid positions can expand the talent pool for hiring companies and put them in a competitive position to attract top-tier candidates.
Ultimately, Herzog said a company’s decision of whether to embrace remote work comes down to the nature of the job itself and the employer’s level of trust in their employees.
At FPC National, he noted, hybrid workers are trusted to do their jobs from home without constant supervision.
“I’m not an employer who wants to have them login to software first thing in the morning and make sure they’re chained to their desk their whole day,” he said.
The Future of Work
Looking ahead, Herzog said he anticipates that the workforce will continue to shift back toward largely in-person work—provided that the U.S. economy doesn’t enter a recession.“I’ve seen too many companies that have, you know, their earnings have cratered, and they all of a sudden call everybody back to the office thinking that that’s going to change the dynamic,” he said.
A person working on a laptop remotely from a home office in Los Angeles on Aug. 14, 2021. (Chris Delmas/AFP via Getty Images)
Nevertheless, Herzog said he believes the hybrid work environment is “probably the best—and that’s actually worked out really well for a lot of our clients.”
The hybrid model is also working well at MIT45, where Niddel’s employees are able to meet in person when necessary and work from home on other days.
“What we focus on as a company is, are you meeting and exceeding expectations that we have previously agreed to? And if you’re able to do that from home, or from a beach, or from the office … doesn’t matter to me,” he said.
While he noted that other companies have to determine what model works for them, Niddel agreed with Herzog that “hybrid is the way to go” in the post-COVID era.
“There’s such polarization right now,” he said. “Everything seems to have to be black, or have to be white, or have to be left, or have to be right. I think there’s a lot of brilliance that can exist somewhere in that middle.”
