What The The Future Of Work Holds

The long-term impact of the pandemic is unknown. While it is impossible to fully predict what society will look like, there have been numerous predictions and research conducted about the future of the workplace.

For starters, the world’s largest work from home experiment has led more professionals to desire flexibility in the future. In fact, research from Slack found that 72% of workers want a mixture of in-person and remote working arrangements.

CFOs have also reevaluated the need for real estate as it has not yielded much value in recent months. CBRE estimated that there was 4 billion square feet of vacant office space across the 54 largest markets in the U.S. over the past year.

However, the lack of human connection from new remote working positions has taken a mental toll on many workers and issues of depression, anxiety and isolation have hindered work quality.

All of these revelations somewhat contradict each other. The only true clear answer is that there is no clear answer. But even ambiguity requires flexibility, so companies will need to stay on their toes in order to accommodate the best work environment for their employees.

Receiving feedback from employees will be essential in the post-pandemic workplace. There is no one-size-fits-all approach, so understanding what each employee needs will help businesses support their workers while optimizing their productivity.