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Five years after the initial outbreak of COVID-19, the effects of lockdowns and work-from-home policies continue to be tallied, with some surprising results.
While the pandemic was devastating for most people, the health care system and the economy, it appears to have left a positive legacy for a vast majority of Canadian workers.
According to a recent survey by Robert Half Canada, 76 per cent of Canadian professionals say they are now more satisfied in their careers, owing to more flexible workplace policies brought on by the pandemic. And when asked how their workplace priorities have shifted in the wake of the pandemic, respondents ranked ‘maintaining work-life balance’ as the one that has increased the most.. What’s more, 65 per cent of the 835 professionals surveyed earlier this month say they will now only consider positions that offer flexible work options.
“Flexibility wasn’t an extremely common topic of discussion and now it’s certainly at the forefront for employers and employees,” says Koula Vasilopoulos, the senior managing director for Robert Half Canada, based in Calgary. “The other thing that we’ve learned though the survey is that while employees really appreciate that flexibility and that balance, they also feel the workplace culture and employee engagement is suffering.”
According to the survey, 70 per cent of workers say they are more productive in a remote setting, but 54 per cent value in-office time and in-person collaboration with colleagues more than they did prior to the pandemic.
But it’s not all good news for workers. More than a third (37 per cent) of respondents said workplace culture and engagement have deteriorated because of remote work and 22 per cent said their relationships with colleagues have also suffered.
“Individuals still recognize that the office is a place to gather, collaborate, strategize and create innovation together,” Ms. Vasilopoulos says. “Being physically together, there’s a very strong power to that.”
Still, the rise of remote and hybrid work may not be having as dramatic an effect on employee loneliness, isolation, stress and engagement as initially thought. A recent Conference Board of Canada study found equal proportions of each across remote, hybrid and in-person worker populations, suggesting location may not be a significant factor.
“If you want to understand loneliness and isolation in the workplace, you need to go beyond remote, hybrid and in-person,” says Diogo Borba, a senior research analyst on the human capital team at the Conference Board of Canada. “What we found was there are a lot of other things that organizations do that account for people feeling better at work.”
According to the study, factors such as onboarding processes, the degree to which employees felt their leaders were open and accessible, scheduling flexibility and social gatherings with colleagues had a more significant role in determining employee wellbeing than work location.
“Coming out of the pandemic, the concerns were primarily related to social connection. HR professionals were concerned about people feeling disconnected at work,” Mr. Borba says. “We confirmed that remote workers socialize and interact [with colleagues] less frequently, but that doesn’t mean they’re more likely to feel lonely or isolated at work, which suggests there are other factors that compensate for that.”
Five years after the pandemic lockdowns, Mr. Borba says most people who continue to work remotely have found ways to compensate for the reduction in face-to-face colleague interactions.
”Maybe they’re fulfilling those needs from other sources, like family, friends and neighbours,” he says.
Though many Canadians have enjoyed a better and more balanced relationship with work since the pandemic, those benefits were also not spread evenly across the workforce.
“One thing that we always have to be mindful of is that this is a narrow group of workers who get to enjoy those benefits,” says Tammy Schirle, a professor of economics at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ont. ”You cannot work in the service sector for the most part – like in retail, accommodations, food, any of that – and hope to gain any of these benefits.”
According to Ms. Schirle, the group that most benefitted from the transition to more flexible work are those in industries such as finance and insurance, where hybrid and remote work have demonstrated the most staying power, specifically among young parents.
“One of the biggest groups that seems to be taking these work-from-home options are parents in their early 30s … and it’s not just moms,” she says. “Post-2022 and 2023, it’s been both moms and dads who are using these provisions, so maybe there’s a shift in how people manage primary caregiving responsibilities.”
The pandemic itself was incredibly stressful, difficult and damaging for most Canadians, but five years later some of those challenges have resulted in a more positive relationship with work across large portions of the workforce.
“Transitions through the labour market are difficult; whether it’s because of the pandemic or because of a trade war, it’s challenging, and you have to sympathize with the people who had to deal with that,” Ms. Schirle says. “After that transition, once people have found new jobs, and possibly better jobs, and people are finding [flexible work] arrangements they seem to enjoy, you have to conclude that people are better off.”