The Great Remote Work Rethink Of 2024

1A

NPR

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4.4 • 4.3K Ratings

🗓️ 19 November 2024

⏱️ 37 minutes

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Summary

For many people, how you work now might seem unusual to your 2019 self, with hours spent in online meetings. Or maybe it's back to exactly how 2019 was, in an office cubicle. Or maybe, you never had the ability to work remotely during the pandemic.

At companies across the country with employees who still work remotely some or most of the time, executives are slowly falling in line and sending the same message to their workforces: return to the office — sometimes for a few more days per week, sometimes for all five.

Data for office occupancy across major U.S. cities shows that on average, about 50 percent of office seats are occupied. More workers are heading in during the middle of the week, and some cities in the South have more employees working in person compared to the Northeast, Silicon Valley, and Washington D.C.

We take a look at the state of remote work.

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0:25.7	Music or older to purchase. House work.
0:27.1	For many people, how you work now might seem unusual to your 2019 self.
0:32.2	More days from home, hours on Zoom meetings that look more like celebrity squares than actually meetings. Or maybe you're
0:40.5	back to how you worked in 2019, sitting at an office desk five days a week. Or maybe you were deemed
0:46.2	essential, and you never could work at a computer to do your job, which meant finding other ways
0:51.3	to make work possible during the worst of the pandemic.
0:59.9	How are most employees working these days and what's causing companies to change their work policies now after years of remote or hybrid work for many workers in the U.S.?
1:03.6	We get into that after the break.
1:05.8	I'm Jen White. You're listening to the 1A podcast where we get to the heart of the story.
1:10.2	Stay with us. We've got a lot to get into.
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1:27.4	Download the Wise app today or visit wise.com, tease and sees apply.
1:32.4	Arguments happen.
1:33.8	And our body's automatic response to conflict doesn't always help.
1:37.3	We may start to feel anxious or angry, making it even more difficult for us to see eye to eye.
1:42.4	Over time, that becomes contempt.
1:45.8	And contempt is a very destructive interpersonal process.
	...

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