Author: Dr. Nicole Olynk Widmar, Associate Head and Professor, Purdue University Department of Agricultural Economics
By now it’s clear that ‘old normal’ ala 2019 is not returning. We are attempting to cultivate ‘new normal’ ala 2021 instead but with varying degrees of kicking, screaming and mourning of the loss of the old days. We as humans are not overly fond of change, and it’s been a roller coaster of not-in-your-control change now for pushing 20 months, leaving emotional and psychological tolls high. While we don’t love change either here in Consumer Corner, we’ve attempted to find the silver lining in skills we developed or new ways of doing things we have come to enjoy. Basically, we are attempting growth from our experiences, even if we would not have chosen these experiences if we had the option.
Back in March, we visited with Drs. Downey and Boehlje about their pandemic-era adaptations they are keeping (by choice!) going forward and even tossed out some of our own.
And because we are in favor of practicing what we preach around here, we even shared our professional adaptations in the Center for Food and Agricultural Business and the classroom and asked for feedback from our stakeholders to use as we continue to refine processes.
We also asked you to weigh in on pandemic-induced adaptations that you will versus won’t be keeping going forward. Here’s what we heard from the n=25 of you who partook in our survey (we’ve summarized the data collected as of the end of June 2021, but real-time results will continue to be updated and available via the link).
What are some adaptations from your work and home life you love and hope to keep post-pandemic? On the flip side, what are some adaptations you have come to loathe and cannot wait to be rid of?
Well, when it comes to the personal lifestyle things we asked about, it seems we collectively love online shopping, and almost all of us are fond of online grocery shopping with curbside pickup or delivery. Always being at home resonates with some of us, although certainly not all. And, for the most part, we collectively strongly dislike our lack of personal travel … although, not everyone agrees (probably those same people who agreed that they DO always like to be at home!).
Working from home is becoming hotly debated in some circles … who is being called back in, what companies can, should or will adopt a remote lifestyle indefinitely, etc.? The list goes on and on, but a majority of our small sampling of respondents indicated that working from home is strongly liked.
Switching gears to the professional or work-related changes, we find consistency in the sense that we like working from home; however, we do not like only seeing colleagues online. Some of us — but definitely not all of us — like the lack of ‘water cooler chats’, and a staggering number of us strongly like online meetings (apparently wanna be members of team Zoom-slob, I mean Zoom-chic, forever!). Interestingly, we’re split on the lack of work-related travel … notably, as a group, we missed personal travel but are much less nostalgic for work-type travel. Taken together, we like online meetings, we LOVE working from home while simultaneously being discontent with only seeing our colleagues online, and some of us are not thrilled at the blurring of work and home life. It seems it’s going to be a complicated transition back to the real world, at least professionally.
It’s likely that our Consumer Corner respondents will be having these debates themselves as this area seems ripe for research (note to self!) in terms of tradeoffs of time, efforts and overall employee satisfaction. Do work from home preferences vary with whether or not you’re managing caretaking responsibilities alongside professional ones? Vary regionally? Vary according to stage of career or stage of life? All interesting empirical questions to be answered … stay tuned.
ConsumerCorner.2021.Letter.26
