Hybrid work, there is no going back

With the latest wave of return-to-office delays from Covid-19, some companies are considering a new possibility: Offices may be closed for nearly two years. Hybrid work.

Pat Gelsinger, chief executive officer of Intel Corp., predicts hybrid and remote work will remain the norm for months and years to come. “There is no going back.”

Return dates have been postponed repeatedly. Some big companies have postponed September returns, others were delayed until at least January and companies like Lyft Inc. said it would call employees back to its San Francisco headquarters in February, about 23 months after the ride.

Perceptions

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Perceptions of remote work have shifted as the pandemic has gone on. When professional-services giant PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP surveyed employers across the U.S. in June 2020, 73% of respondents said they deemed remote work successful. By January 2021, when PwC released updated data, that figure rose to 83%. Now, more workers also say they want to stay at home full time. In new data released by PwC on Thursday, 41% of workers said they wished to remain fully remote, up from 29% in the January survey.

The prospect of two years out of the office still concerns many employers, though, if only because it is harder to get a sense for how employees are feeling now. Conning, a Hartford, Conn.-based institutional asset-management firm, recently told U.S. employees that they won’t be required back in offices, even on a hybrid schedule, until January at the earliest.

Many workers are still eager to see offices repopulated, said Ms. Cowger, the CEO of the law firm Schwabe, which employs about 400 people across the Pacific Northwest. Her firm delayed its mandatory office return until at least November, though Ms. Cowger said she eventually wants employees back in offices, some of the time, to help local cities recover economically and to ensure colleagues learn from each other.

“We can’t keep our office closed indefinitely,” she said. “We just can’t.”

How Office Culture Changed in the Pandemic:

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A year and a half into the pandemic, many workers have yet to return to offices. But plenty others have been coming in since the early days of Covid-19—and they have much to say about what to expect.

Some workers returned because their job descriptions required it, others because their bosses feared company culture would erode if they didn’t. Some never left. Many say they have learned to live with constant uncertainty as they navigate shifting safety protocols, sudden quarantines and occasional outbreaks. Despite the fits and starts, they say their experience is evidence that offices can function amid Covid-19 risks. In some cases, they say pandemic office life has brought them and their colleagues closer.

The Michigan Manufacturing Technology Center’s 50-member staff in Plymouth, Mich., has been back at their desks full time since May 2020. Bringing people back was an urgent priority, says Jamie Headley, director of business development: “Some didn’t do well with the isolation or had awful internet and weren’t ever fully present on Zoom.” Though some workers were wary of returning so soon, “once people got back and saw what we were doing, it calmed down pretty quickly.”

Ahead of their return, the center upgraded its heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system and added a robot that moves around the office with a UV light to sanitize the space. “It’s like a Roomba,” Ms. Headley says. Other staff have nicknamed it “Fido” and “Rover.” The center also required masks in common areas, daily desk sanitizing by employees and temperature checks each day as employees arrived.

Some workers say there have been unexpected benefits to pandemic office life. At Branson, Fowlkes & Co., a Houston wealth-management company whose office has been open throughout the pandemic, its nine employees started eating lunch in the office to minimize exposure at restaurants or take-out joints. During the midday break, they watched the Showtime series “Billions” together. “The collaboration and chemistry is much better,” says President Jay Branson