The ‘Always On, Always In’ Era Is Over
The live-to-work ethic has flipped. Now people want work-life balance and that’s transforming not just workplaces but towns and cities.
Photographer: Moment RF/Getty Images
Of all the working assumptions people have made about work and the workplace since the Covid 19 pandemic, one stands out: That things would “go back” to how they were before. Industries have indeed bounded back — but not the workers. They are done with being always on and always in.
Some of this comes down to what my colleague Matt Boyle describes as “the chaotic nature” of the return to office and some of it down to the scale and pace of change. As the authors of a World Economic Forum paper published in May 2023 noted: “While work has always evolved, its recent transformation has taken place at an unprecedented speed and affected the workforce to an unprecedented extent.”