13 ways the coronavirus pandemic could forever change the way we work

In at most a few months, the coronavirus pandemic has upended the daily lives of people around the world. For Americans, the economic impact of the virus has led to new categorizations of “chief” workers, a large-scale move to remote work and skyrocketing unemployment that is expected to continue increasing. 

With multitudinous than 26 million people filing for unemployment in the past five weeks, the U.S. is predicted to experience a coronavirus-induced dip through 2021.

And amid stay-at-home orders across the country, office workers have ditched their daily commutes to fit in from dining room tables, couches and beds in their own homes. Many may find themselves in this spot for the long haul, as businesses struggle to find a path forward while restrictions slowly lift.

But what other coins will we see in the coming months and years? CNBC Make It spoke to futurists, employment experts, CEOs, designers and profuse to find out how the pandemic could forever transform the way we work.

Go after the pandemic, it’s likely that more Americans will split their time between working from accommodation and from a corporate office, says Brent Capron, the design director of interiors at architecture firm Perkins and Pass on’s New York studio.

“People will still gather for work,” he says. “But the amount of time you work in proximity with others, and what your resolve week looks like — I see that to be the biggest cultural shift moving forward.”

With more people operating remotely, companies may open regional hubs or provide access to co-working spaces wherever their workers are consolidate rather than have the majority of their workforce at one central office.

As a result, corporate headquarters may become a significance symbol for the companies that still have the budget and a workforce big enough to warrant pricey real estate in a vital city.

A company’s investment in its headquarters could become a way to recruit talent, says Jane Oates, president of WorkingNation, a nonprofit campaign not far from unemployment, and a former assistant secretary at the Department of Labor. 

Job seekers may consider it a draw to work for a company with a specialist location, which could boost brand awareness and overall influence within the industry. 

Expect your post-pandemic work calendar to contain fewer meetings overall, says Nadjia Yousif, on director and partner of Boston Consulting Group’s London office. 

The pandemic has been a technological equalizer of sorts, she thinks, where people previously unaccustomed to using tech tools in the workplace have had no choice but to adapt. And in some specimens, workers are becoming more efficient.

“People have been more patient in learning new technologies and engaging with them, innocently because they’ve had to,” Yousif says. “I think those best practices will live on. I think we’re all developing new muscles to wield virtually.”

To that end, expect a generally more agile way of working and communicating with colleagues: More meetings order become emails, and more emails will become instant messages.

For team members who no longer work together in a key office, phone calls and meetings may move to video. This could help to build trust among breadwinners who can’t interact in person, Yousif says. 

When you’re able to pick up on nonverbal cues, or you’re invited into a colleague’s living quarters via video chat, “a different type of intimacy is formed in a faster way than would happen in a traditional working milieu,” she says.

As travel of all kinds is halted, telecommuting is adopted at scale and companies strive to cut costs and balance their budgets, many experts believe business trips as we know them will be a junk of the past. 

“I don’t think [business travel] is ever going to be exactly the same,” says Gary Leff, a travel industriousness expert and author of the blog View from the Wing.

Changing consumer preferences and greater interest in social disassociating will limit large group events such as conferences and conventions for the foreseeable future, says Leff, and unendingly decrease the volume of business travel.

Additionally, Leff expects that during this time, companies wishes learn that some business travel is unnecessary and can be done via video meetings. He also points out as organizations shot to recoup their pandemic-related losses, travel budgets will be cut. 

With the office building recast as the ultimate status symbol, its main purpose could shift.

“Does charge space strictly become elaborate conference centers?” asks Capron. He predicts office buildings of the future may turn facilities to gather, while focused work is done remotely.

This could mean fewer walled-off supports and more gathering spaces to host meetings, conferences and other company-wide events. 

Beyond that, the open area floor plan will likely stick around. Despite criticism that they kill productivity, it’s probable companies will still use the layout in an effort to lower real estate costs.

Open layouts will shift, however: Desks could become spaced out, partitions could go up, cleaning stations stocked with hand sanitizer and antibacterial wipes wishes become the norm, and workers may seek out spaces for focused work, such as privacy booths. Capron stops stunted of saying cubicles will make a comeback.

Agile workspaces with unassigned seating will decline in regard. Workers will want the security and control of having a personal space they come to every day or every few ages and can clean frequently.

In shared spaces, expect more touchless fixtures, such as door sensors, automatic collapses and soap dispensers and voice-activated elevator banks. 

Architects may also design spaces with durable building statistics, furniture, flooring and other surfaces that can stand up to frequent deep-cleaning, which is expected to be a lasting necessity of the days workplace for years to come.

Health and legal experts forewarn that on-the-job medical screening, such as temperature checks and antibody tests, will be a reality for those who amends to work in the months ahead. 

And in many cases it’s already happening: To combat the spread of coronavirus among essential working men, some of the biggest employers in the country, including Amazon, Walmart, Home Depot and Starbucks have begun winning the temperatures of their employees before they are allowed to work. 

According to labor and employment attorney David Barron, not only are outfits legally permitted to check employees’ temperatures, they are also currently being encouraged to do so by the Centers for Disease Manage and Prevention. 

“As long as employers don’t discriminate — they can’t pick and choose who is tested — it’s absolutely legal.”

It’s also possible U.S. breadwinners may be asked to show some form of “immunity certificate,” verifying that they have immunity to Covid-19, anterior to they return to work, Barron says. 

This approach, in which workers take an antibody test to sanction that they have immunity, is being embraced in countries such as the United Kingdom, which is attempting to money out an “immunity passport” program. 

However, some scientists have warned that it is yet to be scientifically proven that drink antibodies for coronavirus gives a person immunity. 

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Maladies and a member of the White House coronavirus task force, has indicated that an “immunity certificate” program is “being debated.” 

“It might actually have some merit under certain circumstances,” he told CNN. 

If there’s one bright spot to how the pandemic will impact the future of work, it’s that it could strengthen the physical relationships we form with colleagues. 

“For a long time, we’ve probably taken for granted the ability to see our coworkers every day and perhaps didn’t realize how valuable that was,” says Lakshmi Rengarajan, a workplace connection consultant formerly of WeWork and Pair up.com. “I think teams will be a lot closer when they’re able to move back into the workplace.”

Organizational psychologist, Wharton professor and “Natives” author Adam Grant agrees. He predicts that, as coworkers return to the office, they’ll ditch previous presentation habits and actually get up, walk around and visit with each other in person.

“There will probably be fewer sad desk lunches,” he conveys. Workplace friendships could flourish among colleagues who relied on each other during the pandemic and got to know one another on a myriad personal level.

But despite more in-person interaction among colleagues, handshakes are on their way out. Fauci recently guided that handshaking needs to stop even when the pandemic ends, and other health experts agree.

Rengarajan maintains gestures that can convey friendliness and respect from a distance, such as a nod or smile, could become the social model.

“Maybe it’s the rise of eye contact or listening,” Rengarajan says.

Read more: The pandemic has probably made you more powerless with coworkers—here’s why that could be a good thing

Though business casual will likely remain the norm in offices, two new types of apparel could also arise from the pandemic: The rise of work-from-home office wear, and face masks as a socially mandated accessory.

Workers who video convention frequently may retool their wardrobe to be camera-friendly — more bold colors, large-scale patterns and clean lines; fewer neutrals, niggardly prints and frills.

“If we are going to be mediating our professional lives on screens more, I think people will think assorted about how they appear on screen,” says Natalie Nudell, a fashion and textiles historian faculty member at the Approach Institute of Technology in New York City. 

Wearing a face mask around the office may become commonplace, especially in bigger companies with innumerable workers sharing tight quarters. This could be an opportunity for the textile industry to innovate how to make masks profuse protective, comfortable and stylish.

As professionals rig the demands of work life and home life all in the same place, many employers have relaxed rules approximately workers starting and ending their days at a set time.

“I think you’ll see a new norm around trust and respect” in the ways employers look after their staff moving forward, says career coach Julie Kratz. With many employees successfully prospering from home now, it will be a lot harder for employers to deny flexibility around work hours and work settings, she simplifies.  

“For most office-type work, you can absolutely do your work remotely, and with technology, you can build it around your appoint,” adds Kratz, who says that many of her clients at tech companies such as Salesforce were already contriving flexible hours before the Covid-19 outbreak.

To maintain a sense of structure, Kratz says employers will eat to set expectations for when they need everyone in the office or online for staff meetings and other team activities. Additionally, she intends, in order to create a balance between work time and personal time, employees and managers will have to operate closely together to ensure that no one is feeling pressured to respond to emails and messages at all hours of the day.

“By all means, it’s not about emitting out all the rules,” she emphasizes, “but it’s about letting people co-create them.” 

When Twitter and e-commerce company Shopify issued mandatory work-from-home orders for employees in March, both outfits provided staff with additional resources to help smooth the transition to remote work.

At Shopify, workers were allowed a $1,000 stipend to purchase necessary supplies for their home office spaces. Meanwhile at Twitter, all employees, take ining hourly workers, received reimbursement for home office equipment including desks, chairs and ergonomic cushions.

If mty remotely becomes the norm, then home office stipends could become a common workplace perk, judges bestselling author and futurist Jacob Morgan.

In order for remote work to be effective, employers will have to present employees with the resources needed to be productive, he explains. This includes a small stipend that will make allowance workers to “customize their space in a way they think is sufficient.”

This remote flexibility will also suffer companies to “save money on the overhead cost of running these massive facilities,” career coach Julie Kratz annexes. 

On average, employers that allow employees to work from home part-time save about $11,000 per year for each staff member working remotely, according to research-based consulting firm Global Workplace Analytics. Using some of this lolly to invest in remote office setups “will buy loyalty from your employees because it shows you care wide them, you care about the ergonomics of their situation at home and you want them to be happy and productive,” Kratz opportunities.

With many workplaces now being forced to operate remotely, long-term tractability could be here to stay, allowing more women to remain in the workforce while balancing home and work viability, says Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute.

This change in workplace structure could give birth to a huge impact on women, as they are more likely than men to adjust their careers for family. In fact, nearly 31% of women who took a career break after having kids said they didn’t want to but had to because of a deficiency of employer flexibility, according to a 2019 FlexJobs survey of more than 2,000 women with children beneath 18.

This break, according to PayScale, can easily cost women tens of thousands of dollars when lost wages, approaching wage growth and lost retirement and Social Security contributions are added up.

A more flexible work culture could also generate more equity at home as both men and women are able to spend quality time with their families.

“You’re prevailing to see more men starting to want these [flexible options] too, assuming they enjoyed the time at home with their kids,” Kratz says.

Nonetheless a wider variety of work options won’t solve all of our equity issues, other countries show it is possible to create a uncountable gender-balanced culture.

“You can see this in Scandinavian countries, for example; they offer this flexibility,” Kratz says. “You see gender similarity is much higher in those countries as a result.”

Read more: Why long-term flexible work options could be a match changer for women

In the months and years ahead, we could continue to see a hollowing out of waist management.

“One of the big things that happened during the 2008 global financial crisis is that organizations pulled out all resolves of layers of middle management, which actually makes it harder to get promoted,” says Brian Kropp, vice president at examination firm Gartner. That’s one reason wage growth was sluggish, he says, even as the economy reached new heights: Proletarians were not promoted to middle-management roles as frequently, since so many were eliminated during the recession. 

It’s possible we may see a compare favourably with dynamic post-pandemic, says John Sculley, who served as Apple’s CEO from 1983 to 1993. 

“A lot of organizations are going to say, ‘Wait a in fashion, we don’t really need all these layers of middle management that we had in the past,'” Sculley, currently chairman of dispensary benefit management company RxAdvance, tells CNBC Make It. 

Others are more optimistic that the demand for top-tier manageresses will rebound once the pandemic subsides because organizations will want to emphasize productivity. One fear of a knock down management structure is that fewer managers will be required to oversee a higher volume of direct reports, framing room for error, lack of oversight and mismanagement. 

“I personally think good managers are always going to be in demand,” maintains Oates. “You can’t have a good workforce unless you have good managers.”

While futurists tease long warned of “job-stealing robots,” the coronavirus pandemic has heightened fears that automation will replace the contracts of workers. Because of social distancing measures, many organizations — from restaurants to retailers — have been stilted to find ways to operate with as few employees physically present as possible. An added bonus: Robots and algorithms can’t get deranged. 

Coronavirus “has caused an acceleration of some labor trends like automation,” says Karen Fichuk, CEO of Randstad North America, summing that out-of-work Americans may need to develop new skills in order to find new jobs. “What we’re seeing is this momentous need for massive up-skilling and retraining, especially for workers who have been laid off.” 

Jake Schwartz, co-founder and CEO of Unspecific Assembly, agrees that coronavirus will accelerate automation. “It’s pulling the future forward,” he says. 

For years, coteries have been working toward automating repetitive jobs through algorithms that can complete administrative lectures, robots that can streamline manufacturing and drones that can deliver goods. And researchers have found that this warm of automation is more quickly adopted during economic downturns.

“Companies are going to be going digital much faster, they’re usual to be automating much faster. And in that context, are we looking at mass unemployment? We don’t know,” says Schwartz. 

Roughly 21 million Americans lack access to the internet, according to the Federal Communications Commission, with some announces estimating this number to be even higher. This means millions of workers, regardless of industry, are simply powerless to work remotely.

Though conversations about the digital divide have taken place for years now, the coronavirus pandemic has put an uniform greater spotlight on this gap, says Kathryn de Wit, manager of broadband research initiative at The Pew Charitable Trusts.

With creeds and offices remaining closed, de Wit says, she hopes one silver lining in this situation is that more government officials will see the penury to increase broadband infrastructure, especially if remote work becomes a more common option for employees.

“We’re seeing local, federal and official leaders step up with these temporary solutions like putting Wi-Fi on buses and [giving] out hotspots,” she voices. “Those are good temporary solutions and absolutely needed, but broadband is infrastructure. It takes time and resources to build. If we prerequisite to make sure that every American can work, socialize and learn from home, then we need to start be struck by a discussion about what a long-term solution actually looks like.”

For each state, de Wit says, that resolution could look different as “they [each] have different geographies, different resources available and different civic and policy environments.” But with the right programs and funding in place, she says, every state could provide their locals with equal access to work remotely in the future.

Illustrations by Euralis Weekes.

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