Hybrid working is great for pet caregiving but not so good for productivity

I'm not sure about other countries but in the UK hybrid working has become somewhat of the norm. Hybrid working means working from home and working from the office. It's a shared working environment as opposed to the default situation in the past of always working from the office.

Flexible hours have pretty well killed off the 9-to-5 working style. It's no longer the way to make a living for the vast majority of office staff in the UK.

Hybrid working allows people to tailor their working hours to fit much better around their nonworking activities. These include cat and dog caregiving.

Improved cat caregiving. Less anxiety.

I can imagine the joy of millions of cats and dogs perhaps particularly cats because they are perceived as being independent and mistakenly believed to accept being alone. I am afraid not.

Now they can have their human companion around far more often. There's been no study on it but I suspect that domestic cat anxiety brought on by separation anxiety has diminished tremendously since Covid-19 and the commencement of hybrid working. 

Also, looking at it from the human perspective, cat caregivers will be more relaxed and less anxious about their companion animals because they can be around far more often. There must be a lot of people who are unhappy about leaving their cats alone all day. That problem is now resolved for office workers.

Survey supports hybrid working

A study of more than 2,000 Britons who used to work in an office five days a week before the pandemic but who now split their working hours between office and home said that they had far more freedom to tailor their schedules and start their workday either later or earlier to suit themselves.

Most (43%) said that they begin their day at 8 AM or before which is earlier than when attending the office. Ten percent chose to logon at work after 9:30 PM. Extraordinary. I have just realised that that is in the evening rather than the morning. They prefer to do nightshift by the look of it.

Although companion dogs and cats are benefited tremendously, I would argue through hybrid working, I think you will find a consensus among managers and business owners that productivity has diminished as a result. 

There are problems with it such as not being able to interact on a direct, person-to-person basis and far more freely with work colleagues in order to exchange ideas. I think this is one way employees are more productive.

In Britain 44% of the workforce now spend at least some of their working week at home according to the Office for National Statistics. The method has become very popular and jobseekers are now demanding hybrid working from their future employers and as employers are having difficulty hiring staff they give way to this demand.

Employee demands

Seventy-one percent of hybrid workers say that they would not take a new role involving a long commute. That's another point about hybrid working; it's avoids commuting costs and time. This puts money in the pockets of employees and can make working more efficient.

But this article is about the benefits to companion animals which for people like me is very welcome. 

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Image: MikeB