VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:

Remote work. Lots of us are doing it, or wish we were doing it, or are already tired of doing it. The one thing I know for sure is that we're all talking about it. The work from home debate. The decline of remote work. The days of working from home are fading for more employees, now being called back to the office. But is it really a debate? A decline? A thing of the past? Or is it the wave of the future? Let's dig into it.

It's worth acknowledging that most of the conversation around remote work centers on knowledge workers, the modern sit-at-a-desk, work-on-a-computer kind of worker. A lot of people, especially people of color and lower-income workers, don't have the option to work from home. But there are still a lot of people who are working from home right now. According to the 2022 census, the number of people primarily working from home tripled between 2019 and 2021, from 5.7%, roughly 9 million people, to 17.9%, roughly 27.6 million people, because of, well, you know. The mysterious virus that would ultimately change life as we know it.

Now, almost three years later, many companies are rolling back their pandemic-era work-from-home policies. As of January 2023, Disney is requiring workers to return to the office four days a week. Starbucks announced that most employees would be required to work in office at least three days a week. Apple, Google, J.P. Morgan, Salesforce, and dozens of others are also asking people to come in at least part-time. The reasons vary. Apple says they're trying to restore in-person collaborations. You really think we should join forces on this one? J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon says working from home doesn't work for, quote, spontaneous stuff. Let's think this through.

But lots of companies are also keeping remote work policies in place. So what's the right path forward? Experts agree that the key to successful remote work policies is to rethink not only where employees are working, but how and why, too. In their book, Anne Helen Peterson and Charlie Warzel say the key to successful work-from-home arrangements is an increase in flexibility overall, not just in work location. For example, a lot of the time, companies see time saved during commutes as more working time for their employees. But Peterson and Warzel urge that companies should see productivity and efficiency as a means to an actual end, not just a means to more work. That end can be better work quality, but also better quality of life for employees, which can in turn improve our world. Or as they put it, better work is, in fact, oftentimes less work over fewer hours, which makes people happier, more creative, more invested in the work they do and the people they do it for.

Companies also have to reckon with the necessity of physical office spaces. Forcing workers to come into the office just to justify an expensive corporate lease doesn't really seem like the best reason. But for businesses, those leases, often made in five- to ten-year increments, are a real bottom-line consideration. Physical offices, especially ones sitting empty, also contribute to sustainability concerns. Consider this reporting from Inc. According to the U.S. Green Building Council, office buildings are responsible for 41 percent of the world's average energy use, by far the biggest consumer. Electricity consumption is the worst marker, with office buildings in the U.S. accountable for a whopping 73 percent of the country's usage.

But before we can talk about solutions, let's talk a little about the history of remote work. And spoiler alert, it didn't start with the pandemic. In fact, remote work dates back to a time before personal computers, the 1970s. In the 1970s, there was a growing movement to consider working from home as telecommunications abilities increased, and new pressures of the modern world made commuting more difficult. The New York Times says the word gridlock started in New York in the early 1970s. In the 80s, they described city gridlock like a snake biting its own tail. Sound familiar? At the same time, the 70s saw an energy crisis. It was announced today that gasless Sundays will go into effect as of next month. Prompting headlines like this in the Washington Post in 1979. The author calls commuting to work five days a week a major source of mental and physical stress. Which, same.

At the same time, personal computers became more feasible for the average worker. Here's how the Post described this radical idea. Through computer terminals, persons working at home can gain access to the latest computer facilities, as well as to vast quantities of stored data. Such terminals are available in portable form and can be readily used in homes if they are connected to a telephone. For the first time, it became possible for many knowledge workers to be able to carry out all their work responsibilities from home. This became even easier as the internet and laptops were invented. And by the 1990s, we were off to the races. But it all comes down to computers communicating. In fact, that's already happening on something called the internet that anyone in the world with a computer and a modem to connect it to a telephone line can subscribe to.

But even then, the media was constantly questioning whether it would last. The LA Times ran this piece on December 28, 2000, writing, Telecommuting, the hot trend of the 1990s that promised to give relief to commuters and working parents, has lost its luster in the workplace. So we're not being all that original by constantly questioning if remote work is working or even popular. Like we did in 2008, in 2010, in 2016, and in 2017. Which, yes, brings us back to the pandemic.

All of a sudden, in March 2020, most of the world's knowledge workers were forced into remote work. Pew Research Center studied the impact of this shift in December 2020. The numbers are about what you'd expect. That out of workers who say their job responsibility can be done from home, only 20% worked from home before the pandemic, but 71% were still currently working from home as of December 2020. And that 54% of those workers would want to work from home after the pandemic. Even during a calamitous world event, Pew found that the transition was relatively easy for most employed adults who can do their jobs from home.

But again, even this is a privileged data set. As I mentioned earlier, not everyone has the ability to work from home. As Pew puts it, fully 62% of workers with a bachelor's degree or more education say their work can be done from home. This compares with only 23% of those without a four-year college degree. There's a similar split among upper and lower income workers.

So that leaves the question of what we do now as a society, as employers, and as workers. As Peterson and Warzel say in their book, flexibility is key. Not just forcing workers back into a pre-pandemic arrangement because that's how things have always been done. Transitioning workers to full-time remote employees can have enormously beneficial effects. For one, enabling companies to hire employees from anywhere in the country increases diversity on teams, not just based on race, but rural versus urban, socioeconomic status, and more. More diverse teams with more perspectives are good for business. A move toward remote working could also ameliorate some of the environmental impacts of running enormous energy-inefficient office buildings. Let's go back to that stat from the U.S. Green Building Council that office buildings in the U.S. account for 73% of the country's total usage. Closing office buildings altogether will reduce energy consumption and improve our environmental future. And it's not just electricity. If businesses can save millions of dollars on physical office space, it could mean more profit, higher salaries, better employee retention, and ultimately better work product. Studies have also shown that working remotely can increase a worker's happiness by up to 20%. Sounds like somebody's got a case of the Moon Days. And happy workers are also often more efficient.

Of course, there's downsides to working remote. It can mean less face time for junior employees with their bosses, fewer happenstance meetings in the break room, and a difficulty in cultivating corporate culture. But the fact of the matter is, no matter the pros or cons, or how many headlines we see like this, remote work is here to stay. So it's up to both employers and employees to figure out how to make it work best for them. And in an ideal world, work arrangements improve business outcomes, health, happiness, overall productivity, and efficiency for everyone. So, do you like working from home? Or would you go back to the office? Let us know in the comments. We'll see you next time.