How COVID-19 Reshaped Work in America

Remote work increased because of COVID-19. Direct sales companies were impacted by this work from home movement. I remember being in on a Direct Selling Association online meeting early on in COVID-19 and one of the California CEOs pointed out how nice it was to save those commute hours for other things. Personally, I went home two years ago. Now I prefer to work from home. In this article we cover a research report by Pew on how the US prefers to work remotely.

Remote Work Preferred

A recent report by Pew Research identified how work in America has changed because of work changes during COVID-19. In 2022, 59% of workers say that their job can be done working from remotely. At the height of COVID-19 in October 2020, 71% said that they worked from home most or all the time. Prior to COVID-19, only 23% said that they worked from remotely.

If you look at the population that work remotely in 2022, then most (61%) do so because they chose to work remotely. Of those that worked remotely in October of 2020, only 36% chose the option to work remotely, the rest worked remotely because their workplace remained closed. What this tells us in 2022 is that people who are working remotely do so by choice rather than because the office is closed.

Remote workers say they gained a better work/life balance (64%). Direct selling companies have promoted to their field a better work/life balance for years. The new work remotely movement can provide that same benefit to their employees.

Great Resignation

One aspect that is not talked about much is the great resignation as a result of Covid-19. Parents struggled to keep up with the pressures of sending children home to be schooled. The work/life balance was severely disrupted. People tried to keep kids on track in online school while trying to work from home. The great resignation continued in 2021. Many people cited low pay, lack of advancement opportunities and feeling disrespected.

This seems like a contradiction. Some came home from work to never want to return to the traditional office. Others found work from home to be unworkable. Juggling home/work has been a tension that direct sellers have dealt with for a long time. Direct selling appears to be in a good place to help workers to learn how to juggle home and work.

Direct Selling and Covid-19

In general direct selling did well during 2020. Showing a 13.9% increase. Some companies continued to do well in 2021 such as Medifast. Others have slowed down in 2021/2022. Why did so many direct selling companies do well in 2020?

The main contributing factor to the success seemed to be the ability of the direct selling company to switch to online trainings and meetings. Zoom revenue and usage increased for all kinds of companies and industries during COVID-19. Zoom saw 10 million daily meetings in December of 2019 and by June 2020 they were at 300 million daily users. If you like to think about big numbers, Zoom showed an increase of 2900%. We talked about the power of zoom meetings with Matt Layton of Legalshield. He had startling statistics on the effectiveness of those that used zoom meetings.

In conclusion Covid-19 factors have contributed to work and direct selling in the US. More people seem to be seeking for a better balance between work and home. Direct selling companies can take advantage of remote work for their employees and design trainings for their distributors that help them balance direct selling and home worlds. We have been at the forefront of combining work and home. We should take advantage of the going home trend.