By | Sondra Wolfer | www.themuse.com
When I’m stressed during work, I sit on the floor and do some belly breathing or throw on some music for a kitchen dance party where the VIPs are just me and my dog, Joy. I work from home for a technology marketing agency, so I can use these stress-relieving strategies as needed without distracting anyone.
Until recently, the idea of working from home was firmly in “must be nice” territory for most employees—the stuff of wistful conversations during post-work happy hours. The Pew Research Center found that before the COVID-19 pandemic, only 20% of people whose work could be done remotely were working from home most or all of the time.
Since then, the workplace has undergone a seismic shift. Global lockdowns forced all but essential workers to adopt remote work almost overnight. People scrambled to set up home offices and adjust to back-to-back virtual meetings and online collaboration.
As of February 2022, nearly 60% of U.S. workers with jobs that can be done remotely are working from home all or most of the time, according to Pew. And in a Muse user survey conducted that same month, 80.8% of the 4,681 respondents said they’d like to work from home full or part time going forward (with users under 25 being the most likely to say they’d prefer full-time in-office work).
