New York City.Photo: Getty
More than a year since COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic — forcing employees throughout the world out of their offices and into working from home to curb the virus' spread —new researchshows remote work may become the new normal for Manhattan’s one million office workers.
A few weeks ago, The Partnership for New York City surveyed the island’s largest employers about their return-to-work plans.
About 66% of companies said they will adopt a hybrid model in the coming months, which would see employees commute to the office some days and work from home for the rest of the week, while 22% said they will require employees to return to the office full-time.
As COVID-19 cases decline and vaccinations are on the rise, companies throughout the country are wrestling with a number of factors in deciding when and how to re-open offices: the cost of commercial real estate, the safety of public transportation and the advantages of remote work, among other considerations.
TheWall Street Journalrecently interviewed more than 20 of the country’s top executives about their thoughts on the post-COVID future of work. Some expected their employees wouldn’t feel safe returning to the office until 2022, while others shared they have already offered employees the choice to work from home permanently.
Many, however, expressed a fervent hope that companies will resume in-person work or adopt a hybrid model in the near future.
Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co., told theJournalthat he sees “huge weaknesses” to working mainly over Zoom and other video conferencing platforms.
Dimon predicted that there would be “a large portion” of people who choose to permanently work in the office.
Still, as David Henshall, the CEO of Citrix Systems Inc. said, a return to the workplace will not mean an immediate return to “normal” pre-pandemic work routines in the coming months.
“I mean, you’re going to the office, you’re still going to be subject to personal protective equipment, to social distancing, to discussions about mandatory vaccination or not, travel restrictions,” Henshall told theWall Street Journal. “All of these things will keep the office environment, the good parts of the office environment, still somewhere out of reach for a period of time.”
source: people.com
