In the fall of 2020, Oregon Business approached a variety of business leaders with one big question: What is the future of work? The results, published in the January 2021 Power Book, reflect a swirl of uncertainty. Most Americans did not have access to the COVID-19 vaccine, and case counts (along with rates of hospitalization and death) were still high. Some offices remained remote-only; others had reopened. Essential businesses that hadn’t been able to shut down — like factories and hospitals — adapted to constantly shifting COVID protocols, as did businesses like restaurants that had shut down and reopened with new safety measures in place. As we made plans for this issue, it hit us: The future is now. We reached out to the people we spoke to in 2021 — or the institutions that had employed them, as several of our interview subjects had moved on to new roles — and asked how things were going. THE FUTURE IS NOW. BY CHRISTEN McCURDY How Oregon workplaces work in 2025 PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY JASON E. KAPLAN
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