Number of the Day
The Work-From-Bed Revolution, by the Numbers
For many American remote workers, the ‘home office’ consists of a mattress and pillows
8.8%: That’s how many people reported working 24 to 40+ hours a week from bed since the pandemic began, according to a survey of more than 1,000 Americans by Tuck Sleep, a research firm that studies sleep and sleep products. Working from bed is getting popular even among folks who don’t do it quite that much. While more than half the people surveyed said they never worked from bed before the pandemic, only 28% could say the same thing now. (The survey chose respondents who had previously worked from home sometime in the last year, so these statistics don’t account for the many Americans working jobs that simply can’t be done from home.)
The survey also showed that people who work from bed don’t feel especially productive or comfortable. So why do they do it? (Other than that this year has just made it hard to get out of bed?) It could be for the same reason that online furniture retailer Wayfair posted record sales over the last several months: Most people didn’t enter the pandemic with properly furnished home office setups. The bed may not be the most ergonomic workstation, but for many people, it’s the most comfortable piece of furniture they own.
While Tuck Sleep has concerns about “sleep hygiene,” or people developing unhealthy sleep habits by working out of bed, maybe there’s a real opportunity here for a struggling mattress startup like Casper to own the work-from-bed category.
Remote work might kill the trillion-dollar office economy, but could it save the ailing mattress industry?
