It’s been 4 months since businesses across the country were forced to close their doors. Parts of the country have been able to mitigate the effects of the virus, but as we continue to endure the COVID-19 pandemic with the looming uncertainty of a finish line, people are starting to wonder when exactly this chapter will come to a close. Some states that relaxed social distancing guidelines earlier, like Arizona, Florida and Texas, have seen a significant rise in the number of daily cases after successfully curbing the virus in March and April. These spikes could be detrimental to the measures taken nationwide and result in retreating the phased reopenings already implemented. With no vaccine in the near future and growing fear of a second wave, is there a foreseeable, relative normalcy to be achieved? We look to business executives for their thoughts.
Two separate surveys of senior executives conducted by CNBC and McKinsey & Co. showed that businesses are expecting to begin coming back to work soon. As some businesses have already started the process of phasing their workforce back, the consensus from leadership seems to be that a majority of their employees will be back in the building in early September.
Here’s what the CNBC study found:
- 74% of tech executives expect more than 50% of their workforce to be back by September
- 54% of financial executives believe that the majority of their workforce would be back by September
- 34% of financial executives believe that at least 75% of their employees would be back in September
- 75% of the workforce for financial executives are currently working remotely
Is this optimistic? With experts estimating that a vaccine won’t be available until mid-2021, is returning to work in September a reward that merits risking another wave of COVID? In the same tech survey, only 10% of respondents had seen a decline in productivity with a remote workforce and 48% had actually seen a productivity increase–so what’s the rush?
The McKinsey study corroborates this sentiment as their survey of 100 executive personnel found that, on average, 80% of their workforce would be back in September. Initially, in-person work would be voluntary as businesses refine their safety implementations, but eventually the ordinance would be mandated barring extenuating circumstances. The consensus seems to be that the labor force will be back for Labor Day. But how will the employees react to going back so soon?
A study of the workforce published in June by Bain & Co. found that only 24% of participants across a variety of industries would be comfortable returning to work given the opportunity to do so ‘tomorrow’. That withstanding, the data clearly shows that as more time passes (and with no significant changes in safety measures) people in the workforce are more open to taking risks to come back to work. In fact, in the most recent survey conducted in early June, 80% of participants would return to the office if mandated by their employer and standard safety measures were being implemented. However, this could be more reflective of a person’s fear of losing their job in a tough employment market rather than their actual comfortability in coming back to the office. Currently the unemployment rate is hovering around 11% nationwide, but is sure to fluctuate as government stimulus begins to dry up and more businesses make cuts as they look to restart operations during a recession.
So, as we near the end of July and the COVID-19 situation continues to develop, employees will want to begin to become comfortable with the idea of returning to in-person work in the coming months.