Today, however, there’s an increasing interest in re-establishing the separation of “work” and “home” environments (for both the employee’s protection of their personal privacy and their employer’s interest in a projecting a professional image to the market). Today, many companies have determined that telework is here to stay – and with it, are raising their expectations for what professional interactions with customers, partners, and colleagues should look like.Ī key part of this conversation has turned into a discussion about “what is in your videoconference background?” When everyone was new to working at home, there was a novelty to seeing kids and cats walking through meetings, or seeing piles of clothes in the background of a coworker’s space. Nobody knew how long it would last, and seeing coworkers “making it work” in quickly-assembled home offices was an exciting new frontier. In spring of 2020, a large portion of the professional workforce quickly shifted to work-from-home setups.