Working from home is likely ‘here to stay’
Working from home will likely be part of the new normal for many employees when the state reopens, according to a group of local business leaders.
“I think it’s here to stay,” Rekha Chiruvolu, director of diversity and inclusion at the law firm Nixon Peabody in Boston, said Thursday during a Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce webinar.
“I think this has shown a lot of organizations that it is doable, that we don’t necessarily need that face time component all the time,” Chiruvolu said. “There are different ways to connect, alternative ways. Technology has enabled that.”
In a recent study, 54 percent of Americans said they wanted to continue working from home after the coronavirus pandemic ends. And a separate, nearly 2-year Stanford University study found that could benefit both workers and employers.
The Stanford study found that telecommuters worked a full shift or more each day and said they found it less distracting and easier to concentrate at home.
Attrition decreased by 50% among the work-fromhome employees, the study found, and they took shorter breaks, had fewer sick days and took less time off.
Their company also saved nearly $2,000 per employee on rent by reducing the amount of office space it used.
One cautionary finding was that more than half of the telecommuters said they would not want to work from home 100 percent of the time because they felt too much isolation.
Mary Kelly, vice president of corporate outreach and human resources at ABCorp in Boston, said her company has focused on supporting employees’ physical and mental health, whether they’ve been working at home or at the office.
“You’re seeing a lot more emphasis on mental health,” Chiruvolu said. “There’s a lot of anxiety.”
Overall, though, allowing workers to continue to work from home is going to be positive in many ways, said Elana Feldman, an assistant professor of management at the Manning School of Business at
UMass Lowell.
“It offers a flexibility that helps many employees,” Feldman said. “For example, it helps save time if they’re not commuting.”
“The downside,” she said, “is virtual connection is not the same as face-toface connection, which research tells us is always going to be richer. People work better when they have good relationships with their co-workers. It also makes them happier. So businesses are going to have to figure out how their employees can connect in a meaningful way.”