Is remote work here to stay or will we return to the office for work?
As the United States is reaching higher and higher levels of vaccinations, many people all over the nation are wondering - what will the return back to work look like? Here at Bar None Games, we talk to hundreds of managers on a monthly basis. Many people are still in process of figuring out what the "new normal" looks, and we've heard a lot of ideas thrown around.
We surveyed 130 people on what their companies' plans are for the future of their offices and below are the results we found.
Majority of offices will maintain remote or hybrid work even with mass roll-out of vaccines
Based on our survey of 130 employers from around the country, a whopping 73% of companies are planning to either support hybrid (working in person 2-3 days/week and working from home 2-3 days/week) or fully remote work. Most managers that we talked to said that most of their employees appreciated the flexibility of hybrid or remote work, whether to take care of a child, save time from a long commute, or just to take advantage of not being chained to an office and and work from a different city. As companies imagine what the post-COVID world looks like, most managers agreed that requiring employees to spend a full five-day week back in the office did not feel necessary.
Adjusting to hybrid work schedules means office space will also be hybrid
For some hybrid companies, they are downsizing their office real estate footprint and realizing massive cost savings in doing so. As a result, the typical office desk set up is also adjusting. Instead of having permanently assigned desks, some companies are choosing to implement hot desks, where employees can reserve a desk when they want to work from the office. Depending on how many spaces you want to make reservable, you can either set up your own system via a shared calendar or using Calendly, or there are also a number of software tools that make it easy to set up and manage such as Officely or OfficeSpace.
Most employees prefer the flexibility
After 14+ months of work from home, a lot of people are used to a new normal of working from a space of their own choice. Re-adjusting back to returning back to the office may pose another big challenge for companies who are keeping a close pulse check on the mental health of their employees. According to a PEW Research survey of over 5,000 U.S. working adults, 54% of people want to continue to work from home even after the COVID-19 outbreak ends. Another survey conducted by FlexJobs showed that 58% of people would look for a new job if they could not continue to work remote in their current role.
Mental health is a large reason why many companies are choosing to have people return back to work
One of the largest concerns over the last year has been the mental health of employees. More employees than ever before are reporting burnout at work. The simple act of having a day broken up by a commute helps a lot of people mentally transition from "work time" to "relax time". Additionally, some offices are implementing regular office happy hours or weekly breakfasts to provide more fun settings for people coming back to the office.
About Bar None Games
Regardless of whether you are hybrid or fully remote, or even if your team is fully back in office but you have a distributed company with teams in many different cities, Bar None Games provides a fun and engaging way to keep people connected when they are not physically present. We host live-hosted, 100% virtual fun and engaging game competitions, including virtual trivia and virtual mini games, for team building activities, new employee on boarding, holiday celebrations, and more. Inquire today to see what we can do to help you maintain your employee morale and give your employees something fun to look forward to!
