Consider This from NPR - What Is The Future Of Remote Work?

Episode Date: September 4, 2023

It's been over three years since the pandemic started and changed the way millions of Americans work. The possibilities of remote work gave a new kind of freedom to many workers. But as more and more companies demand employees return to the office, is the work from home era coming to an end?Host Scott Detrow speaks with Anne Helen Petersen, culture writer and the author of Out of Office, about the future of remote work.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This message comes from Indiana University. Indiana University performs breakthrough research every year, making discoveries that improve human health, combat climate change, and move society forward. More at iu.edu forward. In the spring of 2022, Roxana Garcia EsEspejo was hired as a Microsoft trainer, helping customers with Excel and other applications. It had been a lifelong dream for me. I'm working for Microsoft. I mean, like, how cool is this, right?

For Garcia-Espejo, who became a caregiver for her aging parents in the pandemic, the job's flexibility was another huge positive. As she told NPR's Andrea Hsu, My work-life balance was completely changed. She only had to be in the office 20% of the time. She began exercising. Her blood pressure dropped. She adapted well to being remote, loving the lively discussions of the online chat. As if it were the all-day chatter of all the teams that I was a part of. But all of that was short-lived. This spring, Garcia Espejo's entire team was cut as part of

the mass layoffs that hit Microsoft and the rest of the tech industry. She's been searching for another remote position with no luck. There aren't as many as there were a year ago. And with her unemployment soon running out, she's starting to consider in-person jobs. I guess I don't look at it anymore as I'm holding out. I look at it as I'm in control of where I want my ship to sail. This is all part of a larger trend we've been seeing. This fall, employers all across the country are rolling out stricter requirements for in-person work. The financial firm BlackRock has asked people to

come in four days a week, up from three. Amazon says some remote workers will need to move close to a hub to keep their jobs. Even Zoom employees are now required to go back to the office. And it's not just the private sector. The federal government also wants their workers back on site. Earlier this year, the House of Representatives passed a bill called the Show Up Act. It is clear extended telework is not working for the American people. Our constituents have been calling our office and wondering why the IRS, the Social Security Administration, the VA aren't answering their phones. It's abundantly clear that something must change. The Biden administration weighed in too, telling agency leaders to ramp in-person work up again. And like so many bosses across the country, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg urged his staff to come back on site. I do believe we need

to be around each other in person more than we are now to ensure this department's long-term success. Consider this. Some workers may have dreamed that the freedom to work anywhere, anytime, as long as the Wi-Fi was stable, had finally arrived. But with more and more companies demanding, cajoling, pleading for employees to return to the office, was the work-from-home era a pandemic-only phenomenon? From NPR, I'm Scott Detrow. It's Monday, September 4th. It's Consider This from NPR. Download the WISE app today or visit WISE.com. T's and C's apply. It's Consider This from NPR.

Back in the spring of 2020, as stay-at-home became the global mantra, a lot of companies encouraged employees who were able to work at home to do just that. As the pandemic went on, many people got used to the setup. Their routines had changed. So even as the virus faded and much of the rest of life went back to what it had been before, many white-collar workers kept working from home. There was a lot of talk about whether this would become the new permanent norm. We started to hear a lot of bold predictions about the future of work, how the pandemic had blown up the concept of the office forever. I think that anyone who thought that the future was wholly remote

and that there would no longer be offices, that like the shift would be, you know, so full scale. That was really, I think, ignoring a lot of the realities about how managers work and how leaders in the office, like the scenarios that they like. And then also just that like some people really like leaving their homes. Anne Peterson is the host of the podcast Work Appropriate and co-wrote the book Out of Office about the promise and the problems of remote work. I asked her a big picture how she would describe the current state of things. Well, I think we're in a moment of flex. And I say that that's a great word to describe both the fact that like things are continuing to change, right? But then also that what most employees and employers want is flexibility, both in the times that they're in the office and how often they're in the office. They want much more control over the when and

how they work. That doesn't necessarily mean that they never want to go into an office. And I think that's where some of the conversation really falls apart is when people are like, oh, can you believe that these employers want people back in the office? Usually what they want, what these employers want, they do not want nine to five, five days a week. Those employers were pushing for that three years ago. That conversation already happened. It's more that there are employers who have offices that they're paying for who also have figured out that there are some things that they really do need people in the office to flexible amounts of time, usually two days a week, three days a week. And there's also, unlike before the pandemic, there's a lot of leeway fire their employees are people who've moved away and don't have that capacity at all. Right.

And so that's a it's a different conversation than you live in the city and we would like to have you come in twice a week. What do you think in this moment of flex, as you put it, what do you think the biggest positives of this moment are and negatives of this moment are for the broader workplace culture? Well, flexibility is fantastic. There is no reason why, especially for people who do jobs that are mostly in their brains, right? Our brains can't work from 8 to 5, 8 to 6. They need breaks from that sort of work. And so being able to say, oh, I go pick up my kid from school at two and then I come home and then I go back to work for a couple of hours. Like that's fantastic. It also makes it much easier to keep people who are caregivers in the workplace because that flexibility is absolutely necessary given the state of

child care in our country right now. The negative, and this has been the negative since the beginning of the pandemic, is that when you can do work anywhere and at any time, you can do work anywhere and at any time. And I think a lot of people have struggled and continue to struggle with trying to figure out guardrails against the influx of work into all parts of their lives. I want to talk about research for a moment because there is research that shows that people are more productive in the office. And there's also research that shows that people are more productive at home. Is that the best lens to think about this? What is a better way to think about this and try and assess what's going on? I think that people have to figure out for themselves the place where they

do the best work. And sometimes that means you need to leave your house so that you can do the best work. And sometimes that means I really do my best work when I can have control over my environment. And so working with managers to try to create consistency, to create scenarios where people can do that work that also matches with, you know, what does the work require? Does the work say we need to be in the office for like this brainstorming session, but you don't need to be in the office when you're answering emails? Just being smarter about like listening to your employees and also not being scared all the time that they're like screwing around. People want to get their work done. And if you try to create policies that are always assuming that everyone is trying to like work three jobs and not work your job, it's just going to feel like surveillance heavy and like you don't trust your employees.

And that's a really toxic corporate culture. There's a theme to almost all of your answers in this conversation. And it comes down to everybody is different. Different setups work for different people. This is not a binary oversimplified issue. Given that, how do you start having a conversation about this that's productive? Yeah, I would say the first thing to understand is that a lot of the reason why executives, leaders, managers want people back in the office is because the way that they know how to do their jobs is through in-person contact, right? Through walking around.

And it's a lot harder to learn the skill of managing in a remote or flexible culture. And it takes time. I think what a smart company would do would be to understand that and to understand why the other employees are so against the need to come in as much as maybe the managers and executives want them to. And then to zoom out and look at the work itself and think, okay, what does demand presence and what doesn't? And how can we have a collaborative conversation with all the employees? That's Anne Peterson, the co-author of Out of Office and writer of the Culture Study newsletter,

and also host of the podcast, Work Appropriate. Anne, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you. This has been a pleasure. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Scott Detrow. This message comes from Indiana University. Indiana University drives discovery, innovation, and creative endeavors to solve some of society's greatest challenges. Groundbreaking investments in neuroscience, climate change, Alzheimer's research, and cybersecurity mean IU sets new standards to move the world forward,

unlocking cures and solutions that lead to a better future for all. More at iu.edu forward. Support for NPR and the following message come from Jarl and Pamela Moan, thanking the people who make public radio great every day and also those who listen.