What Will “A Day at the Office” Look Like After COVID-19?

As a student currently attending Zoom business school, I have not had to adjust my working life to a world in which leaving one’s house for non-essential reasons is frowned upon. I haven’t had to shift all of my in-person meetings to virtual ones, nor have I had to create a work-from-home setup that allows me to maintain some semblance of productivity.

Watching friends make these transitions, however, makes me wonder what the long-term impact of having to adjust our working lives to the COVID-19 pandemic will be. Assuming a portion of previously scheduled meetings have temporarily shifted to discussions over email, will managers realize that maybe all of those meetings aren’t mission critical? Will other managers and clients perhaps re-evaluate how much they actually need each of the reports and documents they’re receiving each day, and whether it’s worth the time to generate those reports at all?

More broadly, how many companies will re-think norms around who works from home, and how often? For many industries, there are undoubtedly benefits to being in the same physical space as one’s colleagues, both from a collaboration and efficiency perspective. But will the experience of enforced working-from-home force managers to reevaluate the trade-off between having all employees come to the office every day, versus, say, inviting everyone to choose one day a week to work from home so that they replace their morning commute with a workout or breakfast with the kids? As people are forced to become more tech-savvy as they continue working remotely, will the cost involved in that trade-off ultimately be lower?