Work From Home Changes More than Work

One of the biggest changes from COVID was the escalation of working from home (WFH). This was thrust upon companies, both large and small. Mostly this happened in jobs that could have made this transition anyway, but COVID forced the issue. The real bulwark to WFH wasn’t lack of technology, but lack of desire by management for a distributed workforce.

Now that we’ve all made the transition, what’s going to change going forward and how will that change the world?

First, working from home isn’t going anywhere. Large institutions have pushed back and even threatened to bring the workforce back in but to almost no effect. Workers have decided to work from home or quit. A few large companies cannot roll that change back. There will be industries that operate on-site and controlled by a few large firms (like Wall Street) that might make the office return, but those will be the exception. And they will pay a hidden price for it as employees quit for WFH.

Your Home Becomes Your Only Focus

“You stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.” — Morpheus

Because your home is now your workplace and where you spend all your time, your neighborhood becomes the central focus of your life. Let that sink in. It’s going to have a profound and dramatic impact on the way communities are organized.

We’re still seeing the migration of people from closed COVID-restricted areas to more open areas which just accelerated an existing exodus from higher-cost areas to lower-cost housing. Even now, we’re seeing a second wave move from higher-cost metro areas to lower-cost rural areas. Once the dust begins to settle, this mass migration will have a profound impact on American society. Perhaps a great return to more of a neo-agrarian way of life.

I’ve worked from home for nine years — before and during the pandemic. Before the pandemic, I would watch people drop their kids off at school and head out of the subdivision. I turned around and walked home. Now, people dropped their kids off at school and walked home, too. As things began to loosen up, people kept walking. They built a dog park by the community center. Every day, that park gets dozens of regulars. People are getting to know their neighbors. It’s a sweet and very old-fashioned feeling.

Now, parents can attend their school district meetings (suspiciously held during workdays) and parents have gotten a lot of media attention for disrupting meetings and even running for school boards and elected offices. More parents than ever before are opting out of the system entirely and home-schooling their kids. The cost savings of daycare before and after school, plus the time given back from no longer commuting represent a real pay raise.

Living Your Best Lifestyle

“That rug really tied the room together.”
— Lebowski

If people really can live anywhere, where will they choose to live? What if your kids are really into ice hockey? Ice time is a fight here in the South. It’s so difficult that teams practice in the middle of the night. There might only be one or two rinks in a large metro area.

Why not build a subdivision around an ice rink, instead of a community pool? There are homes built connected to an airport runway with hangers next to the house. The difference is wealth. People with airplane-level wealth have geographic freedom already. Why not build a community that can be built around a popular sport, like football or baseball or motorsports, but for high achievers? Why can’t you have a racing track instead of a golf course?

What if you’re 25 with an online job? You can live in the mountains. Or the beach. Or on a lake. People will take time to think about where they want to live, but the trend is starting now. People are moving to Florida, Colorado, and Texas. Part of the move is not due to cost, but amenities.

Going Back to Church

“Asgard is people, not a place.”
— Thor

Can I live somewhere based solely on my belief system? Religion is one of the strongest sources of community. People rarely move across the country for their faith, but they might in the future. It happens today, but it’s a much smaller group and those people are more faithful.

For example, Mormons who move to Utah. There are religious Jewish and Islamic parts of large cities, but this is also driven by ethnic identity. People will move near their church community because that is a simpler choice. Many people drive across town to church but live close to work.

What if they can live near their church friends? How will this impact faith in the United States?

Home Schooling

“So, you’ve actually never been to a real school before? Shut Up! Shut Up!”
— Regina

During the pandemic, a lot of people became upset with the school system and the way it was run. Because people now live and work near their children’s schools, there will be a much higher level of engagement with public schools. Parents commuting to work left the schooling to the school.

Now they are running for school board. Unions beware. Parents are upset and getting upset-er.

Recently, school policy became a deciding factor in Illinois’ Governor election. The backlash was immediate and swift. Politicians should take note that parents are involved.

The second large impact comes from people taking their kids out of public school entirely. COVID and being forced to stay at home showed that some parents can homeschool their children. I’m not offering an opinion on if they really can or even if they should, but that the trend appears to be strongly trending upward. There are a lot of funded, mostly unprofitable, companies in the education technology space all vying for school district deals. Before long, there will be high-tech, well-funded startups focused on the home-schooling space. If there aren’t already.

School district selection drives home buying. People pay extra to get into higher-rated school districts. That might increase as people can choose to live near a better school and at the same time, parents can choose to opt-out of the school system entirely. Both choices may happen at the same time creating an overlapping effect.

However, the trend will be towards more involvement in education and that will impact policy on a local and national level.

United, again?

“I have been, and always shall be, your friend.”
— Spock

One of the big takeaways after COVID is that you really need social engagement. We are social animals. We need to be around other people. Being locked in your house for two years has been a miserable experience for so many people. Every category of mental health problem has worsened considerably. Suicide, addiction, depression, and anxiety rates have all increased. Birth rates dropped significantly.

Even though we’re better connected through video and mobile technology, there’s really no substitute for face-to-face contact. There’s going to be a push to meeting in physical space and many places I’ve been recently been to have been crowded. People want to get out, see friends, and go places.

What’s Next for Us?

“We’re not in Kansas anymore.”
— Dorothy

The rise of working from home might be start of a neo-agrarian trend in developed nations.

Whatever the effects of WFH on work will be mostly economic, the effects of WFH on the social fabric will be significant and long term. There has not been a change in work this significant since the early part of the industrial revolution and we’ll see it play out over the coming decades.