Inside Job: Kristen Nava ’01, MSFP ’02 is seeing stars

Home Sweet Office?

INTERVIEW BY KRISTEN WALSH

Working from home is now business as usual for some 62% of employed Americans, according to Gallup Inc. About two-thirds of those polled say they want to continue that arrangement when COVID-19 restrictions are lifted. Here, Bentley faculty member Susan Vroman and Alan Hubbard ’83, MBA ’92 of the nonprofit National Telecommuting Institute discuss the impact of these unplanned at-home work arrangements — now and in the future. COVID-19 caused a quick pivot to Susan Vroman: Building off that, the How does this differ from a planned remote work for many employees. What was the impact of this shift? ultimate plus is that so many companies that didn’t think it was possible to have employees work remotely have now found flexible work arrangement? SV: Number one, of course, would be the Alan Hubbard: The internet made it so a there is a possibility for this to be success- planning: the ability to make sure a remote good percentage of us could continue to do ful. A minus is that the lack of pre-planning workplace is viable from an infrastructure our jobs from home. For some people it isn’t painting a true picture of what remote and management perspective. Another meant schedule flexibility. Another plus is work would truly look like. But the upside major difference is that during “normal that it eliminated the commute, which for will hopefully outweigh that. times,” you would have the option to pull some meant saving hours of their time each day. back. If an employee wasn’t performing well remotely or with a flexible work arrangement, you could pull them back into the