How will the coronavirus change how we work? That’s one of the big questions the Bay Area Council posed to CEOs and other top level executives and their responses offer an interesting perspective on the future of work in Silicon Valley and beyond.
The council surveyed 123 company heads, big and small and 18% say they plan on keeping their employees out of the office.
“Not only that, we had almost 90% saying that they’re going to institute some type of partial work from home, so that could be a couple days a week or some other models,” said Rufus Jeffris from the Bay Area Council.
What’s more is that 77% say they’ll offer more flexible shifts to avoid having workers together all at once and allow more space in work areas.
There are a few benefits, the most obvious will be fewer commuters on public transit and freeways -- but there could be lasting negative effects too.
“They work at home, they don’t come here to support us, we can’t make money, it’s going to be bad,” said Tammy Zhang from Yumi Chinese Food.
Businesses like Yumi Chinese have been struggling since the coronavirus shut down. They are no longer catering business lunches and foot traffic is gone.
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The companies they’ve been relying on don’t think their fortunes will change quickly, either.
When asked, what is your best guess as to when revenue will return to pre-COVID-19 levels? About 11% believe they’ll bounce back in a month or less – 18% say it will take six months.
But most say it will take a year or longer.
