The recent pandemic has raised a lot of barriers for various jobs. Teachers hosting online lectures, retail workers losing their jobs, and office employees attending corporate meetings virtually are all a few examples of the changes we made years prior.
As the world returns to a sense of normalcy, we have begun to close these barriers, but employees, specifically in the tech industry, are finding the work-from-home model they stuck with the past 2 years beneficial to both their time and mental health.
Ram Vedula, a software engineer at John Deere, presents his reasons for working from the comfort of his bed. “You are more focused on your work with less distractions and there is no end time so if you are in the middle of things you can finish them and go”, he said.
Google was in fact the pioneer of prioritizing employee satisfaction back in the middle of the 2010s by encouraging open and stress free workspaces. At the time, people saw it as promotional material to get newer engineers into their business, but the trends they developed are still seen today.
Hundreds of companies in Silicon Valley and other high valued cities followed suit with Google by opening up professional kitchens within their buildings, designing open-floored offices to promote intellectual discussions, and constructing colorful environments, all to remove the bog-standard, gray cubicle.
Although employees reveled at the benefits they gained, those paled in comparison to the perks that came with working from home.
The typical workday for most office employees, especially in large cities, was spent on commuting and corporate meetings. Being able to work from home allows employees to start their days earlier while being more efficient in collaborative efforts by only meeting for necessary events.
Salar Cheema, an aspiring computer science major, shows his hopes for the future of this industry. “It would be amazing to see companies prioritize employee satisfaction by the time I approach the job market. I’d be able to prioritize my work-life balance and focus on doing my job not how/where I do it,” he said.
The software development industry is not the only business that has been reconsidering their management style. As the economy thrives, careers across the world are moving towards a more productive and employee oriented workspace.
