CLEVELAND, Ohio – Working from home isn’t a new thing. It’s just never been done to the extent we’re doing it now.
Even corporate cultures steeped in traditional office conventions have learned to navigate Zoom, Microsoft Teams and other forms of remote communication that have kept their operations running, if not thriving, during the coronavirus pandemic.
And that’s likely to carry over post-crisis, when employees are given the all-clear sign to return to the office, both as a matter of employee preference and in some cases, business bottom line.
Interviews with a variety of Greater Cleveland companies suggest the workday of the future for a growing number of employees will be home-based or a hybrid, with days spent in the office and at remote locations.
For the 2020 Top Workplaces list, cleveland.com and the Plain Dealer have compiled a record 175 Northeast Ohio employers, based on employee surveys. And we’ve focused on their responses and adaptations to the coronavirus pandemic.
“We anticipate more people will work remotely on a full-time basis,” said David Jacobs, president and chief operating officer of the Oswald Companies, an insurance provider that had 300 employees working in downtown Cleveland before the pandemic, but now accommodate about 30.
The mindset is similar at Mayfield-based insurance giant Progressive Corp.
“We’re learning a lot from this experience and while we haven’t made any long term decisions, if it had to guess, we’ll be more flexible with where and how work gets done in the future,” reads a Progressive statement attributed to Lori Neiderst, the company’s chief human resource officer.
What’s best for employees?
One thing that will dictate whether changes become permanent is the ability of employees to remain happy and productive. Can someone accustomed to an office environment get as much done at home? The pandemic has forced that question in extraordinary circumstances. Some workers have had to balance their jobs with home schooling children or keeping tabs on elderly parents
“I think the biggest challenge has been the demands at home,” Jacobs said. “We’ve tried to be as flexible as possible. As long as the works being done you don’t have to put in a traditional eight hours.”
And that flexibility is likely to continue, after the crisis subsides.
Jacobs said that in a survey, 85 percent of Oswald companies said they want a combination of working at home and the office, “and that’s the path we will be heading down most likely.”
Tom Royer, president and chief executive officer of behavioral health services provider Beech Brook, believes continuing to allow employees to work from home could be an advantage in recruiting employees who care about work-life balance.
“It could be a strategic advantage for the organization,” he said. “ . . . to save that commute time, to have one less day maybe where they have to pay for daycare for their kids.”
Not a virtual world entirely
That’s not to say a physical office where employees come together each day doesn’t have its benefits.
BoxCast, a provider of live streaming services that thrives off the need for remote communication, ironically appreciates the value of a central gathering place. That’s why it fixed up two floors in a building along the Superior Viaduct in the Flats, with exposed brick walls, hardwood floors and high ceilings.
Even though BoxCast is comfortable with employees working from a coffee shop or an airport, most of its more than forty employees come into the office, said Chief Operating Officer Sam Brenner. At least they did.
“The office environment when it’s really grooving is a special place,” said Brenner.
Now Brenner and the rest of the management team at BoxCast wonder what role the office will play going forward and whether more space will be needed given the growth the company has been experiencing, in part because of pandemic-related demands.
At the boutique law firm Frantz Ward, located in the BP Building on Public Square in downtown Cleveland, attorneys and staff are contemplating the same office-home equation, but some legal work will always be better done in person, said managing partner Chris Keim.
The deposition of a key client, for instance, should be conducted face to face, he said, and strategizing for a trial is best when lawyers are gathered around a table.
And then there’s the benefit of knowing that you can simply walk down a hallway to ask somebody a question.
“The unplanned collaboration when you’re here, that’s missing right now,” he said
Susan Bischel, chief operating officer the Jewish Family Service Association, another behavioral health services provider, doesn’t think her staff is as effective working from home given the kind of crisis-oriented work they do.
“I personally have found it kind of cumbersome when not everybody is around the table to problem solve,” she said.
Bischel guessed that maybe 5 to 10 percent of her employees may end up working from home permanently, “but I think most people would say they are more productive here.”
The ability to satisfy clients is a factor
You can be sure that changes in the work environment will only stick if they provide an equal or better experience for customers. Progressive claims it hasn’t missed a beat.
“Other than the occasional dog barking or child laughing in the background, our customers have received the same great service they’ve come to expect from us,” Neiderst said.
Jacobs said he has always been a big believer in relating to customers face to face, but now that he’s experienced customer service from a remote perspective he believes that can work, too. For one thing, clients who have time demands of their own may prefer it.
“Our clients have gotten very, very comfortable with virtual meetings,” Jacobs said.
At Beech Brook, Royer has learned that delivering therapy remotely has benefits, especially when there’s a need to respond quickly to a crisis, but his organization works with a lot of young people in poverty who may not have the capacity for video conferencing.
It’s also not clear whether relaxed rules that allow for tele-therapy during the pandemic will continue post pandemic.
“I think it’s adequate for some people,” he said. “I don’t think its optimal for many of our clients.”
The cost is a factor
If companies find they can be as productive with a greater percentage of their workforce working at home it could mean greater reliance on remote workers as a means to save costs on office space.
Oswald Companies leases space in several buildings across three states, including four floors in downtown Cleveland, but all that room may not be necessary in the future.
When those leases come up, Oswald will have to re-evaluate how much space the company needs, Jacobs said.
And when employees return to work, there may not be room for all of them at the same time. It could mean a return to hoteling, a trend developed several years whereby employees don’t have designated stations and simply find a spot to work – though with coronavirus concerns those may have to be more spread out than in the past.
At Frantz Ward, on a hiring spree that hasn’t let up during the pandemic, accommodating the larger workforce may not mean renting more floor space but considering more work-at-home alternatives, Keim said.
Time will tell what works best
For many it’s too early to tell how their work environments will change when they are not forced to work from home and have the choice whether to meet in person or virtually on Zoom and other platforms.
But thanks to the pandemic, companies are no longer wedded to one way of doing things.
Keim said Frantz Ward made the move to Microsoft Teams technology before the pandemic hit, but he’s pretty sure the lawyers and staff would not have taken to it with any enthusiasm had it not become a matter of necessity
“It’s like a foreign language,” he said. “ . . . I really think because of the way we were forced to use it people now understand it and are getting very good at it.”
He likened the process of to being sued. It’s painful, but ideally you come out more efficient and with better perspective.
For some, like Bischel at the Jewish Family Service Association, the pandemic has meant learning something new about the organization.
“I certainly know that we can survive and be capable of maintaining in alternative settings,” she said.
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June 28, 2020 at 05:00PM
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Companies learn that more employees can work from home permanently: Top Workplaces 2020 - cleveland.com
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