The Economist (July 10)
“Remote work has a target on its back.” Many CEOs “are intent on making working from home a relic of the pandemic…. With bosses clamping down on the practice, the pandemic-era days of mutual agreement on the desirability of remote work seem to be over.” Around the globe, “plans for remote working by employers fall short of what workers want.”
Tags: Agreement, CEOs, Clamping down, Desirability, Employers, Home, Pandemic, Remote work, Target, Workers
Market Watch (March 27)
Remote work was one of the “few positives” to emerge from the pandemic. Its various benefits have proven “particularly important for working women.” The U.S. birthrate has now slipped to just 1.6., well below the replacement rate of 2.1 births per woman. Remote work “could be a simple and cost-effective way to help women achieve a work-life balance and increase fertility rates for those who want to have children…. U.S. employers should take note, and be more willing to continue remote and hybrid work.”
Tags: Benefits, Birthrate, Children, Cost-effective, Employers, Fertility rates, Pandemic, Positives, Remote work, Replacement rate, Simple, U.S., Work-life balance, Working women
New York Times (August 28)
“Each pandemic fall has brought with it employers’ hopes of a broad-scale return to the office.” Delta scrapped last year’s plans, “but this time, business leaders are adamant that they won’t change course.” Over a third of the workforce is adamant about staying remote, “It’s either the end of the era of flexibility around where work takes place — or the beginning of outright rebellion.”
Tags: Adamant, Business leaders, Delta, Employers, Fall, Flexibility, Office, Outright, Pandemic, Plans, Remote, Return, Workforce
Atlanta Journal-Constitution (September 30)
“An array of recent Georgia job postings include a new qualification: You’ll need to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19. The prerequisite is spreading. And more employers soon may be forced to take similar steps” when a new rule requires that “employers with more than 100 workers ensure their staffers are either fully vaccinated or tested weekly.”
Tags: COVID-19, Employers, Georgia, Job postings, Prerequisite, Qualification, Rule, Vaccinated, Workers
Chicago Tribune (September 24)
“Many employers pushed Labor Day return to office plans back as the delta variant fueled a resurgence in COVID-19 cases—another setback for businesses catering to the Loop’s formerly bustling office crowd. While businesses like coffee and shoe repair shops are optimistic their customers will eventually return, they may be downtown less often and may need time to rebuild old habits.”
Tags: COVID-19, Customers, Delta variant, Downtown, Employers, Labor Day, Loop, Office, Old habits, Resurgence, Return, Setback, Shops
Boston Globe (September 20)
“Back-to-office plans are playing out much differently than anyone expected. Anticipation for a momentous post-Labor Day return has come and gone, but now a growing number of employers are repopulating their offices gradually and on a voluntary basis, rather than pinning all their hopes—and anxieties—onto one date.”
Tags: Anticipation, Employers, Labor Day, Office, Plans, Repopulating, Return
Philadelphia Inquirer (August 24)
“This is a new phase of vaccinations’ Get tough. Restaurants, cruise lines, colleges, and a growing number of employers—hospitals, municipal governments, Amtrak, Citigroup—are telling workers and customers to prove they’ve been vaccinated or go elsewhere. And all that was before Monday’s full authorization of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.”
Tags: Amtrak, Authorization, Citigroup, Colleges, Cruise lines, Customers, Employers, Hospitals, Pfizer-BioNTech, Phase, Restaurants, Vaccinations, Workers
Seattle Times (August 4)
“In a sign of growing momentum for vaccine mandates, Microsoft has reversed course and will now require employees to be fully vaccinated to enter the company’s U.S. offices and other worksites.” The revised policy “follows similar moves last week by other employers including tech rivals Google and Facebook, along with Disney and Walmart.”
Tags: Disney, Employees, Employers, Facebook, Google, Mandates, Microsoft, Momentum, Offices, Policy, U.S., Vaccine, Walmart, Worksites
Boston Globe (April 27)
“A grand experiment is about to take place in office buildings across Greater Boston, as many businesses begin reopening their offices to employees with newfound expectations around working from home.” The results are unknown, “but a significant majority of office employers are poised to move away from mandating the five-day, in-person workweek.”
Tags: Boston, Employees, Employers, Expectations, Five-day, Grand experiment, In-person, Office buildings, Reopening, Working from home, Workweek
Boston Globe (September 18)
“With major Boston-area employers extending work-from-home policies until 2021 or beyond and events and concerts and eating inside at restaurants and other fun activities either canceled, postponed, or greatly scaled back, the question has to be asked: Will we ever wear real clothes again?”
Tags: Boston, Canceled, Concerts, Employers, Events, Fun, Postponed, Restaurants, Scaled back, Work-from-home
