Future Timeline

Remember when the idea of working from home every day (or any) made management clutch its pearls? It was an issue of technology, the policies, the logistics, or the company culture… or a dozen other excuses. Then the pandemic hit.
As it turns out, your company’s rules about working from home weren’t about what was practical or necessary to get the job done. They were more about the outdated management philosophies — neuroses? — of your boss.
Our coronavirus-induced experiment in long-term work from home has proven largely a success. Office employees and knowledge workers can do most office work from home or almost anywhere there’s an internet connection. That’s why the moves by some companies to get everyone back to the office seem so nonsensical.
The expectations of work-life balance have been forever changed. According to Gallup, most Americans working from home want to keep doing so “as much as possible” after the pandemic ends.
People are happier, more efficient, saving money, they’re less stressed, and they have more time for family, and for themselves. They can work out, cook healthier meals, read a book, focus on a hobby. They have an overall better quality of life.

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UBS Group will allow most staff to mix remote working with time spent in the office, Switzerland’s biggest bank revealed today.

“We are committed to offering our employees the flexibility for hybrid working where role, tasks and location allow,” UBS said. “Hybrid work options will be introduced on a country-by-country basis, with timing dependent on the local pandemic situation.”

The Financial Times said the policy could allow up to two thirds of UBS staff adopt the hybrid working model.

By contrast, the chief executive of U.S. bank Morgan Stanley has said he expects most of the company’s workers at its Manhattan headquarters to return to the office by September.

JPMorgan Chase & Co and Goldman Sachs, meanwhile, have begun bringing employees back to their U.S. offices and American Express will allow most employees to work from home for up to two days a week.