For more than a year now, millions of people have been forced out of their offices by the pandemic to work from home. But is that a situation that's here to stay? Or a temporary blip – an "aberration," as Goldman Sachs boss David Solomon has put it?
This episode of The Agenda with Stephen Cole considers the future of work, and asks what are the real benefits and potential pitfalls of a post-pandemic return to the office?
Kate Lister, president of Global Workplace Analytics has been pressing for increased home-working for many years. She explains how working from home can save employees three of their most precious commodities – their time, their money and even their sanity.
Changes to our working lives may have been forced on us by an unexpected virus – but Heejung Chung from the University of Kent's school of social policy, sociology and social research says there could be real benefits to the new working normal, especially in bridging the gender pay and opportunities gap.
The big concern about working from though is the toll it can take on our mental health. Yasuhiro Kotera, academic lead in counsellng, psychotherapy and psychology at the University of Derby discusses how employees and employers will have to work together to ensure the transition out of pandemic working practices is good for everyone.
And what about that halfway house between the office and our homes – the flexible co-working space? Mathieu Proust, the general manager for the UK, Ireland and emerging markets at WeWork, discusses this 'third way' of working.