Remote work is finally ending as the pandemic era fades

John Turley-Ewart is a contributing columnist for The Globe and Mail, a regulatory compliance consultant and a Canadian banking historian.

Urgency and innovation made remote work a reality for about 40 per cent of Canadian office workers when COVID-19 hit in March, 2020. Today, four years after lockdowns in Canada ended, fully remote and hybrid work models continue to disappear.

Last week The Globe and Mail highlighted a report from recruiting firm Robert Half Canada that found that just 3 per cent of jobs on third-party job posting websites are fully remote. Postings for hybrid roles – remote for one or two days a week – are down to 13 from 27 per cent at the end of 2025.

What changed?

We learned during the pandemic that 90 per cent of remote workers felt they were as productive as the office-bound. Many research studies supported this view. Employers reduced real estate costs and remote workers said they had improved work-life-balance. It seemed the future of work had emerged from the pandemic.

Yet businesses don’t succeed on productivity alone, just as people get more from work than a paycheque.

Job postings for hybrid, remote roles in Canada plummet

Microsoft Teams, Cisco’s Webex and Zoom became the novel and essential tools of work during the pandemic. “You’re on mute” was a running joke on video calls. Still, working from home became old hat for those given the chance to experience it. Some executives bought in as well, sheepishly calling in to meetings from their summer homes and winter escapes.

Fully remote work dispensed with tiresome, costly commutes, and blended work and life, making both a little easier to manage. For some it offered cheaper housing options in distant suburbs and regions of the country versus urban centres. Fully remote work became a lifestyle some thought would never end.

When restrictions began to lift in late 2021 and 2022 many employers said it was time that it end, prompting what was at the time called the Great Resignation. People retired or sought jobs at other companies still offering remote options.

The return to office would not be easy. CEOs pitched the office to employees as something more than a destination at the end of an annoying morning commute.

In the summer of 2022, RBC CEO Dave McKay reflected the sentiments of many business leaders when he noted in a memo to staff that technology isn’t a substitute for the “energy, spontaneity, big ideas or true sense of belonging” when staff work together in an office.

Mandates to return to the workplace were adopted and enforced by large corporations, such as banks and insurance companies, governments and technology firms, including Amazon, Google and Microsoft.

Remote work, not AI, contributing most to challenging youth job market, study shows

Behind the mandates were hard business objectives that included building flexible business models that evolve with market demands, remain resilient over time and sustain strong governance and security frameworks.

Such objectives are best executed in person by explicitly teaching know-how while apprenticing junior and mid-level employees through observational learning.

Face-to-face also beats screen-to-screen when entrenching institutional standards and memory, encouraging spontaneous problem solving and facilitating social cohesion that positively affects employee retention while making it less likely that departments become echo chambers.

As the lockdowns continued and remote work became the norm, the value of in-person work became evident to many. The pandemic increased social isolation, stunted on-the-job learning, especially for junior staff, and broke networks people relied on to find new roles further up the corporate ladder.

In depth: In downtown Toronto, the office is back

Business leaders tried to address the fallout by organizing social events via video conference and sharing stories about coping with the pandemic and its anxieties. It was laudable, but a poor substitute.

Old truths about work learned long ago by social psychologist Marie Jahoda were reinforced. The daily office grind offered time structure for mental focus, social contact with people outside one’s family, the experience of collective purpose, social identity and enforced activity that avoids idleness.

Before the pandemic fully remote work was the preserve of a small number of Canadian workers with specialized roles that allowed them to operate as individual contributors to the businesses they worked for.

We are returning to those prepandemic norms. What the Robert Half report bears witness to is the withering influence of the pandemic on how Canadians work.

The future of work wasn’t remote work. It was just a solution to a crisis.