Working Remotely May Change Corporate America And Benefit Both Employers, Employees

Since the COVID-19 pandemic erupted, more and more employees have been working from home, an ongoing trend that is likely to change the future of work dramatically and make commuting obsolete.

For example, the Wall Street Journal reported that after tech companies in the high-priced San Francisco Bay Area allowed their employees to work from home, many have relocated to cheaper digs elsewhere, while still earning big paychecks.

Alphabet Inc. (GOOG), Google’s parent, recently said it didn't expect any of its workforce to return to the office until summer 2021 at the earliest. Facebook (FB) said it expects to have an increasingly remote workforce over the next decade. Some tech workers have even decided to permanently work from home.

“Remote work is not business as usual. It represents a totally new way of thinking and operating and can be a difficult adjustment for employees and employers to make,” said Donna Kimmel, chief people officer at Citrix Systems (CTXS). “But business must go on, even in times of crisis. … Companies that give their people the right tools can help them make the transition, empower them to … perform at their best, and emerge stronger when conditions improve.”

Job van der Voort, CEO of Remote.com, a technology startup that helps companies hire people from around the world, said remote work is here to stay.

In an interview with International Business Times, he said while many companies will no doubt return to their physical offices, more businesses are giving employees work-from-home options while others are going entirely remote.

“We conducted a survey recently and found that 42% of organizations are planning to offer more work flexibility, 23% plan to go fully remote, and 17% are already completely remote,” he said.

Van der Voort declared that virtually all corporate jobs can be done remotely and some companies, such as GitLab, a software firm (and van der Voort’s former company) are now fully remote.

“While there are times when teams may need to meet in person, the days of paying for office space 365 days of the year when only seven-to-ten of those days truly must be in-person are over,” he said, “Even [internet of things] hardware jobs are being tackled remotely when just five years ago it would have been hard to imagine such a feat.”

Still, van der Voort conceded having a physical office is still the “preferred method of work” for many companies and will continue alongside remote work.

“As companies choose not to return [to physical offices], this might result in a surge of empty office buildings, which can be repurposed for housing or commercial purposes if they fail to secure new leases,” van der Voort suggested. “There can also be a reimagination around what offices could look like in a remote-first world. This could mean hyper short-term leases for company retreats, board meetings, etc.,” leading one to wonder what will happen to the downtown and business districts of large cities if corporations abandon them.

Van der Voort noted the housing market has seen a surge in prices and record low inventory as people who have settled into remote work want more space and access to outdoor recreation.

“Combined with record low mortgage rates in the U.S, renting apartments or studios for commuting purposes no longer makes sense in the remote work era,” he said. “This was reflected in our survey, which found that 64% of organizations had an employee who asked to relocate to a different state and 58% [of companies had an employee who] asked to relocate internationally.”

Van der Voort conceded shelter-in-place orders forced service industries in business districts to shut down. Still, he said, many businesses likely will return to their offices eventually and help revitalize these areas so the concept of a “business district” will not become meaningless and obsolete.

“This is an opportunity to reimagine what downtown-business districts look and feel like,” he said. “Perhaps micro-business districts will pop up around [these] existing hubs.”

Van der Voort sees a plethora of advantages to remote working for both employers and employees.

“Our survey found that [remote work] organizations saw higher quality of talent, improved staff retention, and a reduction in office costs,” he said. “Employees also benefit from better time flexibility, increased productivity, no commutes and less meetings.”

Van der Voort also suggested that remote work could help more minorities from poor backgrounds to enter the workforce.

“We are at a moment where businesses can individually and cumulatively change the economic opportunity for people that have long been shut out of the most lucrative and competitive jobs,” he said. “The beauty of remote work is of course the ability to just hire great people from anywhere, meaning it's much easier to give minorities and low-income workers opportunities that were previously reserved for people that are in the ‘right place, in the right time’ -- which of course benefits those born in wealthier places. Remote work allows companies to bring jobs to regions and neighborhoods that otherwise would have made these careers impossible to find or secure.”