https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/5248498001

As offices reopen after COVID-19, more companies will let employees work from home or hire workers who live far away

Further fueling the telecommuting movement are nationwide worker shortages that are giving employees more leverage over how and where they work. That's also forcing companies to hunt for staffers who will have the flexibility to work from wherever they happen to be – across the country and even the world. A large share of the companies surveyed say they’re struggling to find and retain qualified workers.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesrealestatecouncil/2021/06/01/how-remote-work-is-rearranging-renter-priorities-what-investors-need-to-know/

How Remote Work Is Rearranging Renter Priorities: What Investors Need To Know

Over the course of the pandemic, real estate investors have faced many challenges, with some asset classes soaring and others left struggling. In multifamily, the pandemic has created new demands from renters and new priorities for investors and developers with the rise of remote work. While there’s no doubt the traditional office will live on, it’s safe to say that many employers will continue with a hybrid approach to work, meaning workers will continue to stay remote post-pandemic, leading tenants to expect and require more out of their living space.

Across the U.S., as companies create plans for the future of their workforce, we can expect many to take on a hybrid schedule, if not a continued permanent remote work arrangement. This ongoing presence of remote workers means that changes are coming to traditional living spaces, especially in the rental market.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/joemckendrick/2021/05/30/remote-work-evolves-into-hybrid-work-and-productivity-rises-the-data-shows/

Remote Work Evolves Into Hybrid Work And Productivity Rises, The Data Shows

The data now confirms it: the work-from-anywhere/work-from-home model works, and has passed its most crucial test ever, bringing organizations through the Covid crisis and now a key productivity strategy for the workplace of the 2020s. In a recent report out of Accenture, 83% of 9,326 workers surveyed say they prefer a hybrid model — in which they can work remotely at least 25% of the time.

Tellingly, organizations that enable a resilient workforce to be more productive and healthier anywhere are also reaping financial benefits, the study shows. A majority of high-revenue-growth companies, 63%, have already enabled productivity anywhere workforce models, where employees have the option of working remotely or on-site. While the vast majority (69%) of negative or no-growth companies are still focused on where people are going to physically work, favoring all on-site or remote rather than enabling hybrid.

Full-time work from anywhere can be a good thing, but is not optimal for those who are in the earlier stages of their career. Younger people need to be out in the world, forging bonds, gaining mentors, and learning how things work — not sitting alone in front of a screen all day. This is validated by the Accenture survey, which finds a hybrid model that works for all generations may be a challenge: three in four Gen Zers (74%) want more opportunities to collaborate with colleagues face-to-face, a higher percentage than Gen Xers (66%) and Baby Boomers (68%).

Those executives leading their organizations through the work-from-home mandates report that organizational support is key. "The pandemic has fundamentally changed how businesses operate and emphasized the importance of workplace flexibility,” says Edward Wagoner, digital CIO of JLL Technologies. "Through our own evolving workplace processes, we realize the success of short and long-term working strategies hinges on employee safety and comfort, data-driven workplace insights, and adaptability to fluid circumstances like government mandates and requirements.”

The events of the past year did finally put one misconception to rest — that enabling employees to work remotely means loss in productivity. If anything, the past year, showed the opposite to be true. The Accenture survey finds that 40% of individuals feel they can be productive and healthy anywhere — either fully remote or onsite or a combination of the two — as the hybrid workplace emerges.

"The number one thing many HR leaders, myself included, discovered over the past year is that employees are far more adaptable than we anticipated,” says Donna Venable, executive vice president of human resources for Ricoh North America. "Our biggest concern for remote work pre-pandemic was a loss in productivity. However, despite all odds, and competing priorities – from personal health crises, caring for family and dealing with initial technology challenges of remote work – productivity did not waver.”

"This means that we will not go back to a world where employees are ‘allowed’ to work from home, but rather, they are encouraged to be flexible,” says Venable. At the same time, she adds, "I don’t see companies abandoning office space. While there may be some cost savings from a real estate perspective by re-imagining how we use our office space, a far more valuable opportunity is in maintaining a healthy and positive employee culture.”

Hybrid working models "will be critical in the coming months and years ahead as organizations adopt operational flexibility with remote work and evolving employee preferences,” Wagoner says. "No longer will the office serve as the only place where work gets done; the pandemic proved that work can often happen from anywhere. Instead, in today’s world, the office is where people come together to collaborate, innovate, create, and build culture, with face-to-face interactions being a valuable part of the equation.”

https://dot.la/remote-work-los-angeles-2653074601.html

LA's Head of IT Wants City Workers to Continue Working Remotely — Maybe Permanently

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cjonline.com/amp/5200234001

Some employers establish 'new normal' by changing hybrid, remote-work policies as staff return to the office

The rise of remote work

Angie Pastorek, an assistant professor at the University of Kansas, who has researched such topics as organizational socialization and remote work, said working remotely was prevalent in some fields prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"It's always been common in certain professions like sales," Pastorek said, "and certainly, global organizations were well-practiced in working virtually."

But the pandemic took it to a new level, exposing some employees to remote work for the first time.

Nicki Flanagan, director of human resources for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas, said the pandemic changed the company's work landscape "dramatically."

"It pushed us out of our comfort zone," Flanagan said. "Blue Cross was not known as a remote worker before COVID hit."

Prior to the pandemic, she said, the health-insurance agency had about 180 of its roughly 1,600 employees working hybrid or remote. Now, close to 500 Blue Cross employees are doing so — a number that was even higher during peak months of the pandemic.

Jeffrey Hall, a professor of communication studies at the University of Kansas and author of the book "Relating Through Technology," said it was surprising for some businesses to learn workers' productivity didn't decrease in 2020.

"There was a presumption that people who worked remotely were somehow less productive," Hall said. "If the pandemic gave an enormous sample of people under pretty stressful circumstances and in a very short period of time (they) had to learn how to do it, you'd think that all of the factors were present for productivity to plummet — and it didn't."

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2021/05/19/work-home-covid-many-people-want-keep-working-remotely/5150568001/

'The DNA of work has changed': Many Americans want to keep working from home after the COVID-19 crisis passes

But a plurality of employees recently surveyed are effectively saying that if they want a change of scenery, they’ll pick up their laptops and amble from the living room to the den.

Forty percent of Americans prefer to work from home full-time, compared with 35% who seek a home-office hybrid and 25% who want to go back to the office full-time, according to a Harris Poll survey of 2,063 adults May 14-16. The results were provided exclusively to USA TODAY.

 

https://www.wired.com/story/the-case-for-letting-people-work-from-home-forever/

The Case for Letting People Work From Home Forever