Expert: Working from home could be the new normal in the near future

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - The COVID-19 pandemic has forced most of the country to work from home – something many have never done before.

Dylan Cassidy’s job usually requires a lot of face-to-face interaction but the new era of social distancing means a lot of video calls from his kitchen table. 

“It’s posed its challenges. I don’t know how long this is going to last,” Cassidy said.  

Nicholas Bloom, an economics professor at Stanford University, has studied the benefits of working from home and says this is the new normal, even on the other side of this pandemic. 

“I think there’s going to be a huge increase in working from home, actually, so that is one of the few silver linings in this horrible crisis because there’s been resistance over the years,” Bloom told FOX 13.  

Bloom offered his best tips: Set a routine and have a dedicated space where you can stay motivated. That means laying down ground rules with your spouse, kids or, in Dylan’s case, roommates.

“It’s a lot of compromising. Luckily my roommates and I have very different schedules,” Cassidy said. 

Professor Bloom says the best tip to overcome isolation in the home office is to try and recreate informal communication, a.k.a. water cooler moments.  

“Try and have some social interaction. So, as a manager, try and connect with your employees for five to ten minutes a day,” Bloom said.  

For Dylan’s work team, that means a video conference happy hour at the end of the day. 

“We’ve been having virtual happy hours. We’ve been trying to have a lot of video chats between us to make up for the lack of in-person communication,” he said.