The COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdowns that came changed people's lives forever, and not for the better. The pandemic essentially stole over a year of our lives, all for virtually nothing. It changed how we shop for groceries, made people recluse hermit crabs, and pushed people out of the office entirely.
The work from home idea has now become pretty much permanent, as most every company has stuck with it in the three years since we shut everything down. But new studies from Cumulus Media show that 94 percent of those pre-COVID commuting office goers are now back to working outside the home.
Economist Hank Lewis though says there are some flaws with that, and for starters, the real number is not even close to that.
"If I were being generous, I would say around 80 percent...some people will think about the traffic, that is people working from home taking advantage of flexibility they would not have otherwise being in the office," he says. "Maybe three days out of five for people...full time, not as much."
In the study as well, 62 percent of marketer agencies have resumes in-person meetings, and 63 percent are attending in-person conferences again.
That, according to Lewis, helps skew this study quite a bit.
"There are a lot of people who work outside the office who will go in for a few hours for a meeting...or an event for a few hours. But, that is not the same as being back in the office...and how it is being framed does not suggest people being back in the office full time," he says.
As mentioned above, this working from home, or minute time in office, has become more prevalent since the COVID era.
But, will we go back to those good old days of pre-COVID, when offices mattered? Do not count on it.
"I do not ever see it going back for a long list of reasons," he says.
Lewis, who is a professor at Lone Star College, sees the new trends firsthand starting with students.
"I have noticed...a lot of students, especially those who work, they prefer hybrid or online, that way they can work more and earn more money just to live," he says.
But this is also a more universally accepted, and desired thing, among the full-time workforce.
"A lot of managers have accepted this compromise because it is better than losing talent," he says. "Workers are going to demand that more....and businesses will give in on some of this."
Yes, it is exactly as you think too. This is the new normal for us for the foreseeable future. All thanks to good old COVID.