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Six ways your office will be different in 2021, assuming you ever go back to it
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Six ways your office will be different in 2021, assuming you ever go back to it

Jena McGregor
The Washington Post, 2020
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During the coronavirus pandemic lock downs, the white-collar class swapped corner offices and global travel for home workspaces and meetings on Zoom. The vaccines’ broad success – depending on how variants of the virus develop – means people may return to their offices. But hybrid work is emerging, remote work isn’t going to disappear, and both appeal to some employers and employees. Jena McGregor reports in The Washington Post on a few ways that work and the workplace may be different going forward.

Summary

Remote work is going national; that will affect recruiting and salaries.

No one really believes everyone is going back to the office nine-to-five, even as the coronavirus pandemic wanes. Remote work is here to stay.

As pandemic stay-at-home orders set in, some workers moved away from expensive cities like San Francisco to work at home in cheaper locales. A few employers threatened to lower the wages of those who moved to match their income to their new, lower-cost residences.

But if people can work from anywhere, employers can recruit from anywhere, too. In the end, if workers move to cheaper places, they apparently won’t suffer pay cuts but will gain only smaller raises in the future. However, salaries and benefits will not drop for people whose skills remain in high demand, no matter where they live.

Artificial intelligence is changing video conferencing.

The coronavirus pandemic introduced virtually an entire workforce to video conferencing, and by 2020’s end, people seemed more or less used...

About the Author

Washington Post reporter Jena McGregor writes about corporate management and governance, workplace trends, and the personalities who run Washington and business.

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