Flexibility gives way to workday "dead zone"

It's common for employees' productivity to ebb and flow over the course of a workday. These days, when their energy wanes, workers are shifting gears to take care of personal chores during standard business hours. 

"It's kind of a holdover from the height of the pandemic era. You think about the flexibility many of us enjoyed when we were working in fully remote environments — you'd step away maybe to get started on dinner, or you'd get in your workout, maybe pick up your kids," Wall Street Journal reporter Callum Borchers told CBS News.

Remote and hybrid work models give workers flexibility that full-time, in-office work doesn't allow. Workers are clinging to the freedom and added control they gained over their schedules at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. In some cases, though, their workdays now extend past dinnertime.