SALT LAKE CITY — You quit your old job to take a new work-from-home gig only to find it’s not what you had hoped for. A Utah economist said he’s not surprised some workers have regrets, adding telework just doesn’t work for some people.

As reported by Fox News, a new study showed that 72% of employees who have resigned during the ongoing Great Resignation have regrets.

The Great Experiment

Mark Knold, the chief economist with the Department of Workforce Services, joined Dave & Dujanovic to discuss the pros and cons of working from home.

Knold pointed out that the telework– or remote work –business infrastructure was in place before the pandemic struck. But the business world wasn’t ready to allow all employees to work from home.

Then COVID-19 swept across the globe, and with it, the Great Experiment began.

“The business community is largely agreeing that it does work, but we’re also discovering as individual workers, whether it’s the right kind of work format for us,” Knold said.

Dave noted that for him, remote work was a good option in small doses, for example:

“If I had a little sniffle, something that I would typically show up to work with and just, contaminate everybody, then I realized, ‘Oh, I could just stay home and still do my job’… It was the large doses that felt like a burden,” he said.

When the office is home

Knold added that teleworking has erased the boundary that had existed between work and home life.

Before the pandemic, if you forgot to do something at work, you may have had to wait until the next day to return to the office. 

“But when you’re at home, it’s still it’s just right over in the other room, right there with your computer, and you can go take care of it,” Knold said.

Citing a survey of job quitters’ remorse, Debbie asked, “Are we seeing the same sense of regret here in the state of Utah?”

Knold said it is not surprising that a majority of workers regret quitting their jobs.

“It sounds really good on paper being able to not have to commute,” he said. ” . . . [But] there are those who look at it [remote work] and say, ‘You know, this really wasn’t for me’ or others that looked at it and say, ‘I really enjoyed this. This is the kind of environment I want.'”

Related reading: Utah sits in the middle for rates of people quitting during the pandemic

Dave & Dujanovic can be heard weekdays from 9 a.m. to noon. on KSL NewsRadio. Users can find the show on the KSL NewsRadio website and app, as well as Apple Podcasts and Google Play.