WORK-FROM-HOME: A NORM IN THE NEAR FUTURE DUE TO PANDEMIC

It is no shock that the world has been turned upside down by the pandemic. Everything that we knew as normal life is gone and it doesn’t seem like we are going back to any kind of “regular” life anytime soon.

Google announced that most of its employees will be working remotely until at least summer 2021, according to a CBS News article. It is the first company to extent its Working-From-Home model that far into the future. Initially, the company had set WFH until January 2021.

There are many smaller companies, however, that have yet to figure out how long these restrictions will last and are just rolling with the punches that the pandemic and the government throws at them. And, although it might seem like a total hassle, for a lot of millennials it is a blessing in disguise.

WFH has opened up a lot of possibilities on how we can redefine productivity outside of the nine-to-five paradigm that millennials have tried to change pre-pandemic times to no avail. They have pushed for more flexible workplaces that provide a work-life balance and the pandemic is making way for that very same idea that couldn’t be realized before.

According to real estate company CBRE, millennials will make up 75 percent of the workforce by 2025. The pandemic, along with millennials, could bring some hefty changes to the model workforce that was in place before COVID-19. Some of these changes include making remote work a permanent option which will make office spaces work as central headquarters for both remote and in-office employees. With these changes, offices are more likely to shift into becoming more open in layout (instead of closed off, cubicle offices).

Millennials in the workplace value purpose more than anything else. This in itself changes the dynamic of a workplace and it is coming sooner than expected thanks to the pandemic.