With three kids the morning drill
is always a juggle.
Does everyone have their lunch bags? I'm not sure you should zip up you're going to be hot.
But working from home means Ikwo Ndiomu
has one less ball in the air and she doesn't miss it at all
Working moms constantly feel guilty about how they're juggling things
that guilt is no longer there so I'm guilt-free.
That's a big deal.
Ndiomu is a director of project management at Lighthouse Labs, a tech education company
as a senior level employee based in Montreal she's used to getting the job done
and now used to making it work with the rest of her life.
You know I could pick them up from school give them dinner
and then if there were still some things that I needed to wrap up I could still wrap those up right
and work into like 7 p.m., 8 p.m., 9 p.m., if i needed to take some hours off during the day.
The pandemic has proven working remotely works and with every wave
the great return to the office seems to have reached the point of no return.
In poll after poll, the majority of people say they don't want to go back to the office full time
And many are willing to walk away from a job that demands it
I think that the desire for autonomy is universal because it gives you a sense of control over your life
and that reduces the uncertainty of our lives and the pandemic has made the impact of uncertainty
so salient that the desire for autonomy, I think has been really awakened
even in people that didn't really have it front and centre
All right we're here in person
Tiziana Casciaro is a professor of organizational behavior at the University of Toronto
She says employers have to manage with a new pandemic perspective
They face a big challenge because the pandemic has given their employees
a taste of what it means to have more autonomy and so leaders have to be very thoughtful
about what it means to tell their employees 'no more.'
'Now we tell you again where you're going to work and how you're going to work and when
you're going to work.' versus allowing them some leeway some flexibility to decide for themselves .
At Choice Properties nearly 200 people worked at this location before the pandemic but most
won't be coming back full time.
How do you envision the office to look like?
Once we move to hoteling, people won't be leaving their personal belongings at the desk
Ana Radic is in charge of operations and leasing for Choice Properties she says people will be able to book a
desk on the days they come in and lockers will be provided for personal items
So we'll have every workstation outfitted with a docking station, two screens, keyboard
so sort of uniform equipment so that anyone can plug in and work.
Radic says she herself likes coming in every day, but says that's not the case for most employees
including new potential hires
What are you hearing in terms of what people want?
They want flexibility they absolutely do but they also want to be able to come to the office
Being together it gives you opportunities that are much more difficult to to create in a virtual environment
that sort of spontaneous collaboration that mentorship that takes place
between senior and junior employees
Mentorship is important to Angelica Muere and Anton Gravets
who like all choice employees coming in are vaccinated and undergo regular rapid tests
It's like the bare bones version of that
For them, the office is more than just a place to work.
I think I learned half of what I learned just listening to other people talk on the phone
You just pick up a lot of cues the language that they use
I am still in the beginning of my career and I just don't want to miss an opportunity
to learn from people more experience than me
Muere commutes one hour each way but says that time can be a mental health break
when you're constantly working from home every single day of the week there is no real clock out time
there's no real clock in time it all kind of blends and if you're lucky enough to have your own office on a
different floor in your home then you know i can see how that can be a lot easier to navigate and
separate work life and home life, but you know for the most part I think my generation is working in
small spaces and that's a real challenge for us
Ndiomu says she's glad her company will remain largely remote because she can't see herself losing the balance
she struck now
before the pandemic not a lot of organizations offered remote work
or autonomy around your work even if you had to go to the office but being able to do that now
has helped me realize what value I add to my children's lives by being available
And for many there's no going back because in many ways the future of work is already here
Ioanna Roumeliotis. CBC News. Toronto