When Joe Brady took over late last year as CEO of the Americas at flexible workspace company The Instant Group, new technology was already accelerating change in the office world. In March, that transformation accelerated further when the COVID-19 crisis suddenly upended the nation, forcing millions to work from home.

No one knows how this disruption will end, but catastrophes can remake how we work and live, and the Chicago-based Brady is certain conditions won’t simply revert to the pre-coronavirus status quo.

“Post 9/11, the built environment around airports forever changed, and clearly we’re smack dab in the middle of another crisis where no one has complete answers,” he said.

But necessity led almost overnight to entirely new ways of running businesses, and companies should start learning from the upheaval, he said.

“The most complete remote working experiment ever is in full tilt.”

Many questioned whether the nation’s residences had enough internet bandwidth to handle the unprecedented traffic. But so far, complaints have been few, Brady said.

“It’s all held up quite nicely, and we now know many more people can work from home.”

Brady said most will likely return to their workplaces, as the need for personal contact has not gone away. If anything, the isolation many now suffer will lead to an appreciation for office settings.

“Our country will experience a tremendous amount of gratitude for simple human interaction,” he said.

But experts say a vaccine for the coronavirus could take more than one year to develop and deploy. That means the need for some measure of social distancing will continue, especially if further outbreaks occur in the months ahead.

“Communal meeting spaces that help people work collaboratively are essential, but it feels like this virus isn’t simply going to just go away, making it OK for people to immediately start showing up and working in open settings,” Brady said.