Remote Reality Check: Workers from 200 companies speak up about remote work
Companies are unprepared for the future of remote work.
Between May 21 and June 1, 2020 Out Of Office surveyed 380 U.S. workers about working from home and where they’re struggling.
Let’s meet our contestants
More than 200 companies are represented in the study, including the ones below, with no more than 3 employees from each firm.
The survey group is geographically concentrated in the areas where Out Of Office is most active, including San Francisco Bay Area (38% of respondents) and Portland, Oregon (16% of respondents).
Demographically, workers in their 30s are overrepresented and workers over 50 are underrepresented (relative to the general U.S. labor force). Just over 30% of respondents are working parents.
Slightly more than 1 in 3 responses were from people in management roles (executives or people managers). 48% identified as “individual contributors,” and 15% are freelancers/contractors.
Finally, our group was split evenly between introverts and extroverts. But (spoiler alert) for those of you who think all introverts prefer working alone from home, think again.
Ok, now on to the results!
WFH pain points 💥
We wanted to understand the different perspectives of managers and employees, so we asked each group a slightly different question about their work-from-home struggles. We asked employees to tell us the worst part about working remotely, and we asked managers about the worst part about having a remote team.
While the options weren’t apples to apples between managers and employees, it’s worth noting that managers are 4x more likely to say video calls are their #1 problem — it seems some of us are feeling “Zoom fatigue” more than others.
Another noteworthy result is that managers are more concerned with employee mental health (18%) than with collaboration (16%) or team culture (14%).
If you take away anything from this report, I hope it’s this: working from home doesn’t work. At least not all day, every day. For as much as people complain about nonstop video calls and WFH monotony, we expected those factors to combine for way more than just 17% of responses. But by far the biggest struggles employees face are the lack of human interaction and having no separation between home and work (72% combined).
This was also one of the few questions where extroverts and introverts showed statistically significant differences. Extroverts, perhaps unsurprisingly, are struggling more with the social debt (48%) than lack of separation (31%). Introverts, on other hand, say separation is their #1 problem (39%). But, now here comes the surprise — nearly a third of introverts (27%) still want work to be social!
It’s clear that we’re all wired with what David Brooks calls “the urge to merge” in his book The Social Animal. Right now we’re sick of our caves — we’re itching for a change of scenery — but most companies won’t be bringing employees back to the office any time soon. If only there was a way to find clean “third places” near home…where you can safely interact and collaborate in small groups…hmm, someone should start a company that does this 😉
Only the lonely 🕴️
One of the biggest misconceptions about remote work is that people thrive alone, with room to focus, away from the distractions of the office. In our experience, remote workers thrive because they have greater autonomy and flexibility, not more alone time.
There are people who genuinely prefer working solo — it’s just not a very big group, with only 9% of respondents reporting that they love working from home and don’t want another place to go.
Show me the money 💰
Despite nearly everyone being forced to work remotely, expense reimbursements for home office equipment are still very rare. 67% of companies provide no subsidy whatsoever. Of those that do provide benefits, 16% have an informal policy of “expensing as needed.” The balance was split between a one-time allowance (10%) and recurring monthly allowance (7%).
One-time allowances vary widely, with some companies providing as little as an external keyboard and others providing ergonomic setups including sit-stand desks and external monitors. These lump sum subsidies ranged between $30 and $1,000 with an average of $374. Monthly allowances also varied quite a bit. On the low end, some companies reimburse employees for internet or phone service. On the high end, employees are reimbursed for coworking space memberships or even coffee expenses — whatever makes employees feel productive and healthy. Monthly allowances ranged between $30 and $400 with an average of $94.
The future of office time ⏳
2020 has shown us just how unpredictable the world can be, but where do people think they’ll be spending their workweek in the future?
For some context, consider that pre-COVID, fewer than 5% of U.S. workers worked remotely for a majority of the week (2018 American Community Survey).
In the next 3 months, a whopping 68% of people expect to spend most of their week out of office. That might not be too surprising, considering most major cities are still in some form of lockdown, so we also asked where people think they’ll be working a year from now. If expectation becomes reality, 44% of us will be “majority remote” in 2021 — a nearly 10x increase in the remote workforce.
The end of remote 💀
For the last 20 years, managers have viewed employees as either “remote” or “in office.” One clear outcome of the current crisis is the end of this binary distinction. Similarly, where is a company’s “headquarters” if it has 5 small offices scattered across as many cities?
Going forward, we predict nearly all knowledge workers will be hybrid remote, and many will work for headquarters-less companies. You won’t have a permanent desk, but you won’t be confined to working from home every day. Employers will need to establish more formalized policies for out-of-office time, so employees can build a lifestyle around work. And finally, starting in the most competitive industries like technology, there will be an arms race among recruiters using remote benefits to lure top talent.
So, in a way, this is the end of remote. Just like “mobile phones” simply became “phones” over the last decade — if everyone is remote, why do we need a special term for it?
