Zooming In Sweatpants: Workers Reevaluate The Remote Lifestyle

Beyond the devastating global health impacts, on top of the sweeping economic trauma, the coronavirus will also go down in history for ushering in a number of unprecedented lifestyle changes, many of which have been well-received and are likely to stick — at least to some degree — even after the COVID threat has gone.

Nowhere has the daily disruption been more pronounced than in the rapid and explosive growth in the number of people working from home.  In just a matter of weeks in mid-March, tens of millions of American employees simply stopped going into work or the office.  Where once maybe 10 percent of the workforce did some form of “WFH” on a Friday or ahead of a long weekend, suddenly the entire country, it seemed, was working or studying remotely, chatting on Zoom and trying to get their heads around the “new normal” of a home-based existence.

Putting the not-unsubstantial social and mental implications of this lifestyle shift aside for a moment, the impact of mass-WFH has changed everything from how we shop, eat and dress to our thoughts about commuting, as well as how we envision workspaces — be that in the home, the ‘burbs or some other type of building. And it’s not going back, although vaccines will likely change the dynamics. PYMNTS’ own data show that roughly 35 percent of consumers said a vaccine is an important factor in making them feel comfortable enough to return to work (in person).

Re-entry into the physical world, toward a hybrid model, will be a step-by-step process, and at least some of the heavy lifting — in terms of workplace safety, with a nod toward sanitizing regimes, and making sure air and water quality are addressed — is largely behind us. As companies re-examine their workspaces, they are taking into account the needs of working parents (and childcare needs, especially in urban areas) and whether staggered workplace teams and alternating days are effective, and where co-working spaces have a place. In other cases, establishing satellite offices may gain traction.

“It's very possible that companies will start having teams come in on certain days and not other days,” Sanjay Rishi, America’s CEO of corporate solutions at JLL, told Karen Webster: “It’s a matter of finding the right balance between human interaction, eyeball-to-eyeball, reading your body language.”

Underpinning these changes is the reality that the pandemic, now approaching its 10th month and arguably more lethal than ever, has lasted a lot longer than most people expected and repeatedly pushed back plans for when things might — at least somewhat — return to the way they used to be.

Office Shifters

If they do return to something resembling the pre-pandemic world, that will be driven by what PYMNTS calls “office shifters.” Over months of research and surveys of more than 18,000 U.S. consumers, PYMNTS identified four distinctly new shopper personas emerging from the pandemic fog. All four of the post-COVID personas are fascinating in their own ways, but the “office shifter” is unique.

Terms like “hard-working,” “adventurous” and “unafraid” can all describe this new consumer. They emphatically embrace “digital everything” like the most COVID-fearing of consumers, yet pine for a return to professional life and all of its trappings — from business travel to dining out to almost acting as if coronavirus never happened. And they have unique payment traits.

“Office shifters plan to use digital shopping options more than other consumers after the pandemic has passed,” The Great Reopening: Shifting Preferences noted. And they’re “the most likely to say they will keep shopping online, using mobile order-ahead, ordering food from online aggregators and ordering food from restaurants once daily life returns to normal. Our research shows 75.7 percent of this group who are now using mobile order-ahead more often plan to continue doing so.” Office shifters who currently work remotely more often than they did before are the most likely to want to leave their homes, with 40 percent saying they are ‘very’ or ‘extremely interested’ in doing so.

Commuter Life

It would be hard to overstate the impact that the WFH commute — or, more specifically, non-commute — has had on multiple industries and the economy.  From auto insurance to auto sales to mass transit and even gasoline prices, tire sales and car repairs, fewer miles being driven to the office simply changes a lot of what used to be.

With the exception of underutilized and heavily-indebted public transportation agencies, many other areas of business within this space have shown an incredible knack for adaptation.  Automakers and car dealers, for example, have made huge shifts to accommodate demand for online sales, as well as a spate of new customers who either fled to the burbs or decided public transit wasn’t the best idea and needed to drive themselves.

With research showing that 80 percent of commuters think that once restrictions are lifted, they will pick up where they left off in terms of getting to and from work, the same study from telecom equipment giant Ericsson also showed that only 25 percent of commuters were looking forward to getting back into the daily grind.

If you have to go, getting to work on time, refreshed and productive has proven to be the secret sauce for commuter happiness, which typically means having access to high-speed (4G or 5G) data connectivity as well as connected vehicles, safety features and devices that can accommodate this.

According to PYMNTS’  How We Will Pay commuter survey of more than 9,500 consumers, done in collaboration with Visa, while 90 percent of consumers now own a smartphone, only 30 percent own a so-called connected car.  It’s a statistic that reflects the comparatively large growth potential of the automotive tech sub-sector.

Cabin Fever Vs. Flew The Coop

While studies have shown a large majority of people are digging their WFH digs, there is a substantial subset of these remote workers who also miss their former routine, and relatively fixed work shift, and are looking forward to getting it back.

For other people, the shift to remote employment saw a surge in destination officing, as the Work From Here trend tempted consumers to take their laptops to more exotic locations that offered the requisite Wi-Fi connection to pull it off. For example, Expedia is urging employees to take their work-from-home gig on the road and turn it into a work from here adventure that combines business and pleasure.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has forced an unprecedented shift in how and where many workers complete their daily ‘9-5,’” said Nisreene Atassi, senior director of communications at Expedia, who added that the “Work from Here” campaign is aimed at work-from-anywhere professionals who can get their jobs done as long as they have a laptop and a good Wi-Fi connection.

At the same time, the idea of the “home-office” is also being reimagined by both commercial landlords and multi-family apartment builders, who are revamping floor plans to include a single bedroom plus a den on the belief that WFH is here to stay.