DEB PHILLIPS AND LORI SOKOL, PHD, are thrilled to welcome you to the inaugural issue of Work2Live Magazine. The reason for creating this publication is clear: This is not our parents’ work-place anymore. Now EVERYONE wants a job that provides an equitable salary, comprehensive health and wellness benefits, meaningful work, a supportive workplace, and time for relaxing, recharging, self-care, and spending more time with family and friends.

​

During the COVID pandemic, essential workers from all industries, job classifications, income and educational levels, including police, fire, health-care, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) researchers, manufacturing, energy, military service members, grocery and retail workers, transportation and delivery workers, and the national guard continued to work in traditional ways to keep our economy and businesses running, while many workers in other industries, including education, were able to pivot to remote work. According to a report by Owl Labs, 44% of companies do not allow remote work of any kind, and 59% of respondents said they would be more likely to choose an employer who offered some remote work compared to those who didn’t.

​

As the world is learning to live and work with COVID, workers are pushing back on the traditional employer/employee contract in favor of more equitable work environments and benefits for all members of the workforce to feel valued, appreciated, supported, and respected. In fact, remote working, or working from the comfort of your own home, is no longer considered just a perk that a handful of companies are providing to those in office jobs. Workers are pushing organizations to not only consider but to implement alternatives to in-office work and flexibility and autonomy to manage work and personal responsibilities.

​

In this “new normal”, we are witnessing the transformation from traditional work environments to non-traditional ways of working. According to a survey conducted by Upwork of 1500 hiring managers it is predicted that 36.2 million workers, or 22% of Americans, will be working remotely by the year 2025, an 87% increase from pre-pandemic levels. This trend has resulted in an entirely new glossary of terms to describe nontraditional work options, from the ‘Shecession’ to ‘Quiet Quitting’ to the ‘Great Resignation’.  For companies that under-stand the importance of the new normal, like Nike, which recently closed its global offices for ‘Well-being Week’ to encourage employee mental health, they are already witnessing benefits of increasing employee longevity, commitment and productivity. But for those companies like Tesla, which have refused to incorporate long-term workplace flexibility by requiring employees to return to the office, an uptick in employee resignations have since followed, instead choosing jobs with more flexible workplace policies.

​

This has also led to the compilation and publication of new lists featuring the best countries and US cities for remote work. Regardless of age or generation, workers (from Baby-boomers to Generation X, to Generation Z and Millennials) are redefining what ‘success’ looks like by re-evaluating their jobs and career paths.

​

Work2Live magazine’s mission is to there-fore provide the latest news, trends, analysis and resources on all of these evolving issues, with a look at the past, what brought us here, and what the future may hold. As founders, we bring decades of expertise in this field. Lori Sokol, PhD., is an organizational psychologist and coach, former founder/ publisher of WorkLife Matters magazine, co-author of Flex Primer for the New Future of Work (2011), and the current Executive Director of the award-winning global news organization, Women’s eNews. Deborahlyn (Deb) Phillips has over 40 years of experience in the work/life field, providing direct services to working families and developing programs for organizations, is the founder of Inclusion Equity and WorkLife Consulting LLC, former president of WFD Consulting, and former owner of Sharing & Caring Family Child Care. 

​

Additionally, our Editorial Board and Advisors consist of some of the most reputable and long-serving experts in the field, including Ellen Galinsky, Ted Childs, Fran Rodgers, Christine Carmody, Nick Fletcher, Lesli Marasco, Phyllis Stewart Pires, James Donadio, Julie Nuter, and Sara Kashima. Our inaugural issue is reaching tens of thousands of readers throughout the world including members of the Work2Live strategic collaboration partner organizations - the Work and Family Research Network, World@ Work, The Families and Work Institute, the Boston College Workforce Roundtable, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, the College and University Work-Life-Family Association (CUWFA), and other professionals in the non-profit and for-profit worlds. And most importantly, we are interested in including employee and service worker voices to provide input on what “working to live” means to them as we advance through this important trans-formational change together.

​

We welcome you to the pages of Work2Live Magazine, and the new world of work. Throughout the magazine readers are invited to join in the conversation.