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This white paper examines the impact of changing work arrangements due to COVID-19 for workers in the Region of Waterloo. Work arrangements involve where people work, how many hours they work and their schedules. This paper focuses on the challenges and opportunities of where people work, emphasizing an equity lens and the complex significance of the shift to work-from-home for workers and the Region more broadly.

First, the paper examines the consequences of differential access to flexible work arrangements, where hourly-paid workers are least likely to have access to work from home, leading to higher rates of job loss during the pandemic as well as higher health risks for workers deemed essential. We emphasize the importance of seeing the worker within the discussion of essential work and the gender-based inequalities of the pandemic. Second, for jobs that do switch to a work from home model, there are three considerations for workers a) assessing the costs and benefits of working from home; b) considering work/life balance when we are ‘living at work’; c) understanding the impact of caring responsibilities defaulting to women.