Emma Goldberg and Michael Barbaro discuss difficulties with hybrid work and employee and employer responses

 Jan. 28, 2024

Emma Goldberg is a business reporter for the New York Times covering workplace culture. In this episode of The Daily, she talks with host Michael Barbaro about the mix of remote and in-office work following the Covid-19 pandemic and how the switch has not been easy for many businesses and their employees, creating new challenges and forcing employers and employees alike to work through them together.

Goldberg starts by noting how the Covid-19 pandemic era of working from home showed in studies that people were becoming more productive, living healthier lifestyles, and actually had less stress. She attributes this to all of the time spent traveling or waiting for things in the office can now be spent at home doing little chores such as laundry, caring for a pet, working out, or preparing meals. She also noted the importance of working at home for parents with younger children as being home for bedtime or being able to go and easily pick up their child from school has made workers more productive and less stressed. 

Goldberg also noted that the time that people would have spent commuting is time put back into their work when they are working from home. I know that for many people, myself included, as soon as I leave the house I get myself into the work or school mindset. I am already thinking about what I need to get done and brainstorming ideas or making a plan for how to do things, but the problem is that I cannot actually do anything because I am driving. Working from home eliminates the drive while maintaining the time spent getting oneself ready for work, with the added benefit of just being at home which allows them to make any notes or do some extra work before starting their actual day.

Goldberg found that it is not all beneficial working from home, and that there are actually several disadvantages as well. She notes that employees do not make the same connections with coworkers or managers or bosses while working from home versus actually going to the office. This is a problem because coworkers can help create new ideas for the employee and can help to work through problems in their work. This also creates the issue of employer feedback being less meaningful, which was found in a study of engineers that revealed that the people working remotely got fewer lines of edits on their code from managers. This is because people tend to feel more comfortable giving feedback to someone that they have a strong in-person relationship with that can only be built in the office.

This podcast episode provided real news value to me by showing how working from home versus going to the office affected employees, while commenting on the compromise many companies are making with their workers to keep them in the office for a few days and letting them work at home for others after workers told employers they would strike if they were forced to come completely back to the office.

I found her approach of poring through study data and survey answers to find the opinions of workers and employers alike on the matter of working at home versus in the office to be the best possible way outside of conducting the interviews personally.

I think the challenge she experienced was dealing with the switch from in-office work to remote work and then back to working at the office herself. She notes at the beginning of the podcast that they have small sound-proof rooms at the office that she often finds herself in because she can do many of the things she was able to do at home, namely answer the phone on speaker without having to worry about disrupting or hearing the conversations of her coworkers. I feel as though this gave me some insight as to what to expect on the front of working in office versus at home but obviously every company is different.