About Dunwoody reporter. (Sandy Springs, GA) 20??-current | View Entire Issue (March 2, 2021)
DUN 16 | Commentary Facebook.com/TheReporterNewspapers ■ twitter.com/Reporter_News Reporter Newspapers Our mission is to provide our readers with fresh and engaging information about life in their communities. Published by Springs Publishing P. O. BOX 9001 Atlanta, GA 31106 Phone: 404-917-2200 Brookhaven Reporter | Buckhead Reporter Dunwoody Reporter | Sandy Springs Reporter www.ReporterNewspapers.net Atlanta Intown www.AtlantaIntownPaper.com Atlanta Senior Life wwwAtlantaSeniorLife.com CONTACT US Publisher Emeritus Steve Levene Publisher Keith Pepper keith@springspublishing.com Editorial Managing Editor John Ruch johnruch@reporternewspapers.net Intown Editor: Collin Kelley Editor-at-Large Joe Earle Staff Writers Bob Pepalis, Sammie Purcell Contributors Eric Davidson, Kevin C. 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Any opinions expressed in print or online do not necessarily represent the views of Reporter Newspapers or Springs Publishing. Commentary / Less traffic, more green space: Lessons from a pandemic year What a year! Everything got turned on its ear, to be sure, but the creativity that has come out of life in a pandemic has been inspiring. Livable Buckhead has embodied that creativity since March 2020, stepping up to support employer partners as they scrambled to set up telework programs, moving our in-person walk challenge events to a virtual format, and making count less other adjustments throughout the year to match the needs of the moment. Two of our major program areas - green space and alternative commute options - became more relevant to life in Buckhead than they had ever been. How much time have you spent outdoors during the past year? I can honestly say that I enjoyed more hours outside in 2020 than in any previous year of my adult life, and anecdotal evidence indi cates that is true for many of us. In Buckhead, we saw noticeable increases in the number of people on PATH400, even on a section of the trail that wasn’t quite complete. In a pandem ic, there's nothing more inviting than a beauti ful new trail at your back door. Across the city, public parks and trails have been more than just venues for outdoor exer cise or relaxation. They have become our places to safely meet friends, to maintain some sense of a normal social life, and to reconnect to na ture. They’ve been especially important in At lanta’s more commercial areas where public parks are the only readily accessible option for getting outdoors. The city is poised to build on the newfound enthusiasm for parks through its ActivateATL master planning effort, and I hope that the people who have gained new appreci ation for parks and trails will continue to sup port them in the future. Just as parks and trails were our lifelines to sanity during the pandemic, effective teleworking strategies were the key to keeping business running in a work-from-home world. I’ve been part of a region-wide effort to encourage tele working for almost 20 years, and even I was surprised by some of the benefits and challenges of working from home full-time for an extended period. The Livable Buckhead staff has learned a lot from our pan demic work experiences and from the ways our employer part ners have adapted to remote work. The companies that invest ed years ago in technological and human resources to support a distributed workforce continued operations with very little disruption. Others stumbled a bit at the outset, but have since found their footing and are now looking ahead to what comes next. That’s where we all need to shift our attention at this point. Employers need to plan their return to the office in a way that locks in the benefits of telework while minimizing its draw backs. Workers have saved thousands of dollars, not to mention hundreds of hours, by teleworking during the past year. They’ve also remained productive despite multi-tasking as full-time em ployees and part-time virtual school instructors. In fact, one re cent report from the online survey company Typeform showed that 81% of workers report being at least as productive at home as they were in the office. On the flip side, employers have struggled with effectively onboarding new employees and maintaining company culture, while employees have had difficulty staying energized amid days filled with Zoom meetings. So how can we maximize the positives and minimize the negatives? Be strategic. After a year of working remotely, it is apparent which portions of a job can be done from home and which are better accomplished in person. Like wise, some employees may have demonstrat ed they are better suited for work in the office while others have thrived from home. Employ ers should use that data to structure a program that meets everyone’s needs. We surveyed Buckhead residents and com muters to find out how often they would like to telework after the pandemic. Over half of the respondents said they want to telework be tween one and four days each week, and 22% want to be remote full-time. In the “new nor mal,” companies would be smart to structure their workplaces for in-person communica tion and culture-building complemented by regular teleworking. One last bit of advice: use the “broken habit” of driving alone as an opportunity to create new commute patterns. The pan demic has made it easy to see the traffic impact of having a sig nificant reduction in the number of cars on local roads. We should all aim to keep as much of that reduction in place as pos sible, while recognizing that a return to “normal” requires op tions beyond teleworking. Livable Buckhead is working with employers on flexible workplace strategies that integrate multi ple options - telework, transit, carpooling - and incentives to re duce the number of people who drive alone to work. Wouldn’t it be great if one of the lasting impacts of the pan demic - in addition to better hand hygiene - was far fewer cars on the roads? Let’s make it happen. Denise Starling is executive director of Livable Buckhead, a nonprofit organization focused on sustainability efforts, including parks and trails, alternative commuting, long-range planning efforts and community events. STAY SAFE BUT STAY CONNECTED. ■< >■ @REportEr_Neus Instagram and Tuittsr m nn fffli i R
