Is working from home the way of the future?

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WLNE) — Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced this week that the company’s employees can work from home indefinitely. Is this the way of the future?

Dr. Aimee Phelps, a professor at URI’s Schmidt Labor Research Center says the pandemic is in many ways accelerating an existing trend toward remote work.

“I do think this is a gamechanger though, because a lot of companies who never would’ve tried this have tried it now,” she said. “And maybe are deciding it’s a better way for some of their jobs, for some of their employees, to continue indefinitely.”

But Phelps notes 64 percent of Rhode Island’s industries are healthcare, retail, manufacturing, hospitality, and construction.

“They would be hard-pressed to put in any form of remote work for the majority of their workforce,” she said. “So I think from that perspective we’re not going to see as huge a swing.”

Yet Phelps says the even those not working remotely might see more staggered shifts, or work spaces with more social distancing and safety protections. The cubicle could even make a comeback.

“The best companies are more focused on worker health and safety than they are on day-to-day making the most money humanly possible,” she said.

But whether or not you’re working remotely, Lisa Griffith of Griffith Productivity Solutions says the principles are largely the same.

“They are about setting up a schedule,” she said. “They’re about setting up a routine. They’re about being able to focus on things in short chunks of time.”