Work-From-Home Stronger Than Ever, Practically the New Norm

A man works from home in Arlington, Va., on May 25, 2023. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images

It was a largely untried business concept before the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, but now, working from home has become a revolution, touted as the new normal, the new hybrid, and the future of the office.

But regardless of the moniker or the reactions it inspires, work-from-home is not only here to stay but is also expected for the rest of the decade to become a major influence in how U.S. business and industry will be structured, and perceived, in sustaining a national workforce.

“Working from home is dominating our lives,” said Stanford University economics professor and researcher Nicholas Bloom. “The office will survive, but working from home post-COVID should be what we look forward to.”

For example, in a June 2020 Stanford University study, Bloom found that 42 percent of the U.S. workforce was working from home full time just as a way to combat the pandemic.

But once the pandemic and several recurrences subsided, a new 2023 study authored by Bloom titled “The Evolution of Work from Home” revealed that 28 percent of U.S. workers were entrenched fully or in a hybrid manner working from home.

Realtor K.D. Simmons Monteith, for example, is one.

Monteith, a broker associate with Realty One Group Freedom in Greenville, South Carolina, has been helping buyers and sellers with their property acquisition and disposition needs since the beginning of the pandemic.

“There is a lot of paperwork and computer work behind the scenes,” Monteith said, further explaining that prior to COVID-19, working from home “was never an option.”

Now, that option covers a vast array of jobs, and sometimes entire industries, such as accounting, media, real estate, medicine, education, finance, technology, retail, and manufacturing.

“The information sector has the highest work-from-home rate at 2.6 days per week among employees who work at least five days a week,” said Bloom, who also pointed out that work-from-home intensity is higher in the United States than most other countries partly because it has “an unusually high share of workers in information, finance and insurance, and professional and business services.”

The incentive of work-from-home in competition for talent now includes battlegrounds for flexible work support, such as stipends, home office equipment, and technologies.

“There was a massive stigma about work-from-home pre-pandemic, with a lot of jokes around that ‘working from home is shirking from home,’” Bloom said. “The pandemic changed all of that, so now, typically, executives and senior managers get to work from home, so it’s a signal of success.”

Long-time Florida resident Tina Dudley is a typical test case.

Dudley took a job in 2021 with CitiQuiet, makers of hurricane-proof doors and windows in Boca Rotan, Florida, handling quotes and permits for a client base heavily centered throughout all of South Florida.

But when she and her family moved nearly 700 miles to Inman, in upstate South Carolina, in January this year, she simply brought her job with her without missing a customer.

“Most of what we do is on the computer,” Dudley said. “We can handle the permitting online, and then send out crews. And no matter where I move, I can still do my job.”

When asked how much influence the pandemic had on her arrangement, Dudley said, “No effect. But I believe it opened a lot of minds to that concept.”

Her judgment is shared by both Bloom and a number of business forecasters.

Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, reported in early 2023 that 35 percent of workers with jobs that can be done remotely are working from home all of the time.

And Global Workplace Analytics (GWA), a research-based consulting company in San Diego that helps organizations optimize work-from-home, telecommuting, and on-site workplace strategies, currently estimates that if work-from-home were applied at its fullest in every segment of U.S. business and industry, the economic benefit alone could mean a savings of more than $700 billion a year.

“Consumers would gain back the equivalent of two to three weeks’ worth of free time per year—time they’d have otherwise spent commuting,” the report says. “The nation would reduce greenhouse gases by 54 million tons—the equivalent of taking almost 10 million cars (the entire New York State workforce, e.g.) off the road for a year.”

Bloom predicts that by 2030, the work-from-home hybrid model will emerge as the dominant approach to work location because it combines the advantages of remote work and in-person collaboration, offering a flexible and efficient solution for both employees and employers.

But regardless of which survey or outlook you prefer, one thing appears certain: The separation of work and home life among U.S office workers from now on will be a lot closer—and a lot more to look forward to.

“The COVID pandemic has challenged and changed our relationships with work and how many of us do our jobs,” Bloom said. “Work-from-home was like letting a pent-up genie out of a bottle. And after proving itself over the last four years, there’s no way that genie is ever going back.”