The blurring of work and home lives might not be just a temporary side effect of the pandemic. Though children will (hopefully) go back to school in the fall, many white-collar workers will be strongly encouraged to work from home at least some of the time over the next year or so. While working remotely confers some mental-health and other benefits, the “job” as we know it might never be the same. Conferences, in-person meetings, and even handshakes might be deemed not worth the risk of infection. What might emerge is a future in which results-oriented introverts prevail while those who thrive on face-to-face interactions and office politics fumble. In the post-pandemic workplace, nerds may get their revenge.
Companies have been reluctant to allow employees to work from home because of inertia and entrenched norms, says Julia Pollak, a labor economist at ZipRecruiter. But the pandemic has forced nearly two-thirds of Americans to work remotely, making it clear just how much work can get done from home, even despite the presence of children. When people get certain perks from their jobs, they tend to value those perks more than they used to, according to research by Monica Kirkpatrick Johnson, a sociologist at Washington State University. Workers might resist being yanked back into offices after they’ve enjoyed the luxury of never changing out of their pajamas.