COVID's Biggest Victim? The Traditional Workplace

<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>COVID's Biggest Victim? The Traditional Workplace</strong></p> <p><strong>Craig Peterson:</strong> Work from home is a huge deal, especially for a couple of segments of our society. And I want to talk a little bit about that now, as employees are returning to work, should they be returning to the office?</p> <p>There is a great article here this last week in Forbes magazine by Dana Brownley. And it was one of their editors' picks, and Forbes picked it, I think, for excellent reason. And that is so many of us have been working from home. And for many of us, it's been a godsend.</p> <p>I've worked from home now for over 20 years. And for me, it's been a godsend because my priority was helping to raise our eight children. And it's hard to do that, and it's hard to homeschool them if you are not at home. So that's what I had done. And I was very privileged to be able to do that.</p> <p>[00:00:54] And our kids have all turned out amazing. Many people are caregivers, and it isn't necessarily just kids. But right now, I'm looking at a survey that was conducted. It's called the Prudential May 2021 pulse of the American worker survey. And they're showing the 2000 respondents that 38% identified themselves as caregivers, with nearly 40% of those providing care.</p> <p>[00:01:25] For school-age children, when you are starting to look at benefits packages, many families need to be able to have some form of childcare. And what has snuck in because of the lockdown is that many of us can work from home. So many of us have been more productive at home. And then, on top of it, all we can take.</p> <p>[00:01:52] Of our family. So let's look at the stats. We told you about school-age children. That's about 40%, 32% are taking care of young children. And this is 40% of all workers. Okay. People 30% are caring for someone with a disability, some health issue. And 23% are taking care of older adults.</p> <p>[00:02:20] That's 40% of the workforce. That is a lot of people. A lot of people, 38% is t