The flexible hybrid workplace

Almost a year ago, I knew that a paradigm shift would take place at the workplace just by reading news on how China coped with the coronavirus disruption. Remote working is nothing new in my line of work. Plenty of us have been doing it for years for at least a few days a week. How much of the workforce changed in the past 10 months and what would now become permanent? The pandemic forced everyone to rethink how we work and where we work from. I got to monitor some trends from the Wired Gear crew who brought conversations of the CES (formerly an abbreviation for consumer electronics show), an annual trade show which went virtual this year. One conversation was titled “The Virtual Workforce: The Shifting Paradigm of What It Means to Go to the Office” with Brett Taylor, president and chief operating officer at Salesforce, and Stewart Butterfield, chief executive and co-founder of Slack.

Taylor shared the big question among chief executives on the habits developed in this pandemic and what they would retain. “I think about flexible work. I think about employees who would take advantage of the fact that we’ve all learned how to effectively work from home. To maybe have a more flexible work environment for themselves.”