When the pandemic hit, what started as a temporary solution to reduce the spread of covid became the new normal: working from home. Three years later, does working from home really work? Before the pandemic, most work was done from office buildings, with employees waking up every day for their job at 9 and clocking out when the clock struck 5. Now, employees roll out of bed into their home office, blurring the line between work life and home life. With a lack of a structured routine, employees and employers are suffering the consequences. Cases of burnout, quiet quitting, and two-timing are on the rise and the workplace is shifting in a different direction. A stark disconnect in work philosophy between CEOs and younger employees is highlighting the differences in generations. Some CEOs are pushing for employees to work in person again, sticking to what they know. However, their employees do not share the same sentiment. With some employees vowing to quit if they are forced back into the office, they argue that they are more productive when working from home and research shows they are. But with no bosses looking over their shoulder, what does this mean for the dynamic between labor vs. Management? Can a proper office structure – a “one size fits all” model ever work again? With so many employees working from home, what does this mean for business districts that have built communities and infrastructure around the office building? Will downtowns suffer the same fate of desertion as the office building? Some communities might, but others are likely to bounce back.

No matter what facet of this issue you focus on, they all lead to the same question – what does the future of the workplace look like?