Why The Future Of Work Is Hybrid

Authored by Samantha Flom via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Many aspects of everyday life were transformed during the COVID-19 pandemic and the government’s response to it.

(Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock)

Lockdowns quickly created a remote working environment that hasn’t fully reversed.

Despite some employers’ efforts to cajole their employees back into the office, a majority (52 percent) of U.S. workers still say they prefer working remotely at least some of the time, according to an April survey from Morning Consult.

And while attitudes are still changing in the evolving post-COVID era, many workers and businesses are beginning to realize that the future of the workforce may not be fully in-person or remote, but somewhere in between.

Allie Clough of Columbus, Ohio, has worked remotely for most of her full-time career.

Having earned her graduate degree at the height of the pandemic, Clough only worked briefly in an office environment before shifting into her current role as a freelance writer. And although she hasn’t started a family yet, she said she believes the flexibility of working from home will be invaluable to her when she does.

“As a woman in my 20s, one of the biggest benefits that I see to remote work is the fact that it seems like it’ll be much friendlier to family life,” she told The Epoch Times.

Clough recently made the move from Washington to Columbus to be closer to her partner. While she works remotely full-time, he works a hybrid schedule—a combination that she said has strengthened their relationship.

“I don’t think we would have been able to really date at all if we didn’t both work remote to some degree,” she said. “It has really afforded us the ability to not have to miss a beat with our jobs while still being able to be near one another. And when the workday is over, we can be together.”

Before the pandemic, Clough said she found the idea of juggling motherhood and a career to be “intimidating.” But now, with the rise of remote work, she no longer fears that she will have to give one up for the sake of the other.

“It makes me much more bullish on the idea of starting a family and having children when I see that the women that I work with, even if they take time off when their kids are little, there is a lot more flexibility for them to roll back into the workplace and even be in management or leadership roles,” she said.

That’s a benefit that Katie Bridge of College Station, Texas, has also realized in the wake of the pandemic.

Bridge was a stay-at-home mother of two before COVID-19 transformed the workforce and the world. Now a communications strategist at Lockheed Martin, she works from home four days a week, 10 hours a day.

Katie Bridge visits the Messina Hof Winery with her family in Bryan, Texas, on Aug. 12, 2023. (Courtesy of Timothy Bridge)

“I love it,” she said of her working conditions. “The kids know that I don’t work Fridays, so that’s the day that they get to plan what they want to do with me.”

Bridge, a U.S. Army veteran, put her career on hold for six years so she could raise her children at a time when working from home wasn’t as common.

Before, she noted, remote options were typically only available for call center representatives—a job that typically requires a quiet work setting.

“As someone with two babies, there’s no such thing as a quiet place for eight hours a day,” she said.

But amid the global shift toward remote work during and after the pandemic, Bridge found the courage to reenter the workforce through a job that began as a hybrid role but has since evolved into a fully remote position.

“One of the things that was on my resume was my time as a stay-at-home mom. Because there is no job that requires as much as a stay-at-home mom,” she said.

“The amount of logistical hula hooping you do as a parent is leaps and bounds beyond what I’ve ever experienced, either in the Army or here at Lockheed.”

Varying Perspectives

Remote work’s family-friendly reputation could be the reason women are still pursuing such opportunities at higher rates than men.

An Indeed Job Search survey conducted between July 2021 and December 2023 found that women were nearly 25 percent more likely than men to cite a desire for remote work as a motivation for their job search.

That finding tracks with the results of a 2021 LinkedIn study, which found that women were 26 percent more likely than men to seek out remote jobs.

And to Ryan Niddel, CEO of wellness company MIT45, that all makes perfect sense.

“I believe that men still have something inside of them that is that hunter-gatherer protector somewhere inside,” he said. “And I believe that women still have a sense of, you know, creating family and nesting.”

Staff at work in the Boatsetter office, a boat-renting tech company in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Aug. 7, 2019. Women are 26 percent more likely than men to seek out remote jobs, according to a 2021 study. (Gianrigo Marletta/AFP via Getty Images)

From that perspective, Niddel said it only stands to reason that women would feel more productive in a home environment. But in his case, he said he is more productive in an office setting—about 20 percent more productive, to be exact.

“I just quantified it using a series of time management platforms on my computer to see where my focus and attention was going,” he said.

While working from home proved “a distraction” for Niddel, at the office, he was able to focus on the tasks at hand. Meanwhile, he found that keeping his work and personal lives separate allowed for stronger relationships and productivity in both spheres.

Describing the pursuit of work-life balance as “a fool’s errand,” the executive said his goal is not to strike a balance between the two but rather to be fully attentive to each at the appropriate times.

“It’s to be 100 percent committed to where I’m at in the time and place that I’m there. And that requires an inherent lack of balance,” he said.

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