It has been more than two years since the COVID-19 pandemic closed down offices and forced employees to work remotely, but companies are slowly beginning to ask workers to come back into the workplace.
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Twitter announced that employees can go into the office whenever they want or work from home permanently.
Meanwhile, Google has shifted to a hybrid model, asking its employees to come into the office at least three times a week.
KCBS Radio's Keith Menconi spoke with Stanford University Professor of Economics Nicholas Bloom, who has been conducting a survey since the start of the pandemic on the work from home model and how employees are reacting to going back into the office.
"Working from home has been an amazing success throughout the pandemic. Only half of Americans can work from home, but for those of us that can, it has been wildly popular," Bloom told KCBS Radio's "Bay Current" on Thursday. "It looks like it will stick but not full time. What people will get is to work from home two or three days a week, and go into the workplace for the other half."
There is a spectrum of workplace models that Bay Area companies will be experimenting with in the next month, as coronavirus infections decrease and employees feel safer returning to the office.
But Bloom noted that there is a big difference in how small and large companies should curate workplace models.
"If you're a small company, it's worth knowing that around a quarter of people never want to work from home, with a quarter of a people loving it, and the remaining half of us wanting hybrid," Bloom said. "For small companies, they can choose in-person or remote, and their five or ten employees will really like that. But for big companies, it makes more sense to take something in the middle, so the Google plan is sensible."
The CEO of Goldman Sachs, David Solomon, has asked the company's over 40,000 employees to return to work full time. Solomon's decision has faced major backlash from employees, with many declaring that they will resign if they are forced to go back into the office five days a week.
"I think Goldman Sachs is making a big mistake. The bankers I've talked to are not planning to go back full time, and some of them have said they will quit if they are forced to go back," Bloom said. "The CEO has announced this is their plan, but it’s not clear if they are actually going to make it. I think they will find it so costly because people will quit, and they will probably change their minds later this year."
Bloom noted that while employees are more connected when going to work in person, there is a huge amount of time saved when working from home.
"We save a huge amount of time by avoiding the commute, we save about 60 minutes a day from that," Bloom added. "The other benefit is it's quieter at home. The reason that hybrid is so popular, is that it’s the best of both worlds."
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