Work from ‘everywhere ...

By Tony DoBrowolski

PITTSFIELD — Work from home. Work from work. Today, for some Pittsfield companies, the catchphrase is “work from everywhere ... and anywhere.”

The pandemic changed where people do their jobs. People who run Berkshires workplaces say the flexibility ushered in during a public health crisis is here to stay.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, everything changed for employees like Shenna Brady, vice president of e-commerce at Greylock Federal Credit Union. At the time, her job required her to be in the office every day.

But Brady began working remotely, as Greylock, like all Berkshire businesses, reached for ways to continue operating as a deadly disease — for which there was no vaccine — stalked the globe. The credit union immediately allowed employees to work from home.

Today, Brady still works from home in Pittsfield. “I have to say for me it’s easier, because I feel that I can manage better. I have more time,” she said.

More time. That’s just one of the benefits Berkshire employers and their employees say they get from the new hybrid work models that emerged. Some employees like Brady work completely from home. Others work at home and in the office. Many of the still on-the-job employees hold positions that can’t be done remotely.

Studies have shown that employees enjoy the new hybrid work style.

According to the Cisco Global Hybrid Work Study 2022, 65.6 percent of the respondents believe a flexible work schedule is more important; 70.5 percent believes their manager trusts them to work remotely; 77.5 percent say remote and hybrid working has improved their own well-being; 61.4 percent believe the hybrid work environment has improved their quality of work; and 60.4 percent believe hybrid work has increased their productivity. Hybrid work was backed by all generations of employees from Gen Z (ages 18-to-24) to baby boomers (55-69). The double-blind survey received responses from 28,025 full-time employees across 27 markets around the world from every continent except Antarctica

In the Berkshires and beyond, these new hybrid work styles have changed the way work is delivered, said John Bissell, the president and CEO of Greylock Federal Credit Union.

“The pandemic in general has changed everything,” Bissell said. “It doesn’t matter who you are, where you work or where you live, it has changed American culture and global culture for sure. Even if we had chosen (at Greylock) to remain in the same in-person business model, it would have changed our culture. We’re all different now than we were two years ago.”

Models Vary

Hybrid work models in the Berkshires vary from company to company. For employers’ questions. example, EDM, an engineering and architectural firm in Pittsfield, requires most of its younger employees to work from the office four days a week for mentorship purposes. Senior staff are allowed to work from home two to three days a week. “We developed what we call a ‘work from everywhere’ policy,” said EDM CEO Jeromy Richardson.

At Berkshire Bank, most non-customer-facing employees worked primarily from home until April, when the bank felt it was safe to bring them back to the office. At Community Health Programs, about half of the organization’s 260 employees still work a hybrid schedule — logging hours both at home and at a job site.

Then there’s Zogics in Lenox, which sells eco-friendly products for the personal health and fitness industry. This company adopted an almost totally remote work model. Of Zogics’ 26 employees, only the four who work in the firm’s warehouse in Lee are required to be in the office every day.

“We went remote in April 2020 and we did that without missing a beat,” Zogics CEO Paul LeBlanc said. “Our staff literally unplugged their computers, brought them home and our customers never knew the difference.

“When it came time to assess if and when there would be a return to the office, we did a series of surveys and discussions with the staff and said, ‘How are things working with your work-fromhome situation? What do you want to do going forward?’” LeBlanc said. “And pretty much unanimously the decision was to maintain the remote work. So we became a ‘work from anywhere’ company. By the metrics that we track, it’s all positive.”

‘HIGH-LEVEL TOPIC’

Are new hybrid work policies delivering? No local agencies have studied the question in depth, although 1Berkshire,

HYBRID, Page 11

Two people who embrace remote work

Ashlii Minor, director of nutrition at Community Health Programs, works remotely Monday and Friday and goes into the office Tuesday through Thursday.

“I love it,” Minor said. “I feel like I get the best of both worlds. I get to be home and do more of what I would call clinical administrative work on Mondays and Fridays. It’s uninterrupted, it’s extremely focused and I can get a lot done. It starts my week off more relaxed, and it ends on that note as well.” Minor said she does more community-based work when she’s in the office.

“That’s packing food bags, distributing food, working at the mobile food bank, working with food insecurity programs, interacting with co-workers,” she said. “I feel like I really get to be very happy in my job because of it. Mind you, I enjoyed my job before, but this has just brought it to a higher level.”

Nanette Reid, who works in operations and order management at Zogics, enjoys working remotely because she doesn’t have to commute from her home in Adams to Lenox every day, saving her travel time.

“I feel that being at home I’m more productive than being in the office,” Reid said. “There’s no distractions. A lot of times when you’re in the office there’s a lot of water cooler talk. You can get pulled into a meeting more frequently than you can working from home.”