Will remote working go away with the end of the pandemic?
An unprecedented situation always changes the environment in which it takes place. The permanence of this change, however, is a totally different story. The rather forced and sudden move of a wide range of work activities of various companies to an online remote-working format may foreshadow such a change. Then again it may be an emergency measure that will never exceed the level of a mere compulsory trend, at least to a large extent.
This potential expansion to and transformation of the way we work, that many workers have become accustomed to during periods of social distancing, is clearly a complex matter. The increased adaptability of this new remote working model does not seem, at least not yet, to be disputed.
With more companies moving to work from home environments during the pandemic, it is clear that employees are waiting for more convenient and flexible options when relative “normality” is reestablished. Nearly 1 in 4 workers say they expect to work remotely more often, an even more common opinion among Gen-Z higher-income workers.
Given the special conditions required for remote work to be operational and, more importantly, effective, it is interesting to see how many companies were actually prepared for this rather unpredictable scenario.
In particular, just over half of employees in the United Kingdom and the United States report that the company they work for is equipped to properly operate with a fully remote workforce, while only a quarter say their company is really well-equipped. In fact, only 23% state that their company is not well equipped, while the remaining 27% say they either do not know or are somewhat in the middle of full equipment and lack thereof. Rising digitalization and the rapid spread of technology are the main factors that allow this level of preparation by companies for the events of the pandemic, as a few years ago the difficulty of moving online would have been much more pronounced.
In Greece, while 40% of employees say they have only worked from home infrequently and on particular occasions, 54% believe that their company offered them the technical means necessary to achieve the transition to the new model. Less positive but not quite negative seems to be the impression of employees on psychological and social support on the part of companies with 36% believing that it has been partially supported and 33% adequately supported.
Globally, one of the most important indicators of whether a company is ready for broader telecommuting is its size. Companies with 250–2,000 employees are the best equipped (67%), while companies with more than 2,000 employees find it more difficult (29% say they are equipped). This reflects the structure and margin of the flexibility of a company, as well as its resources. The type of companies mentioned are well-known big companies and sometimes this means slower adoption of new technologies and dependence on more traditional infrastructure.
As expected, office-based industries were generally the most prepared for the situation that came. Think of areas such as Marketing/advertising / PR and IT / Tech, which are also the ones with the highest rates of readiness and equipment (92% and 76% respectively). On the other hand, industries that require the physical presence of employees such as retail (22%) and medical care (32%) are clearly lagging behind. Greece seems to generally follow the same rule, since 78% of the insurance industry is positively predisposed to remote working, while at the other end of the industry this percentage falls to 40%.
Of course, we cannot ignore the fact that when it comes to working from home practices, it is now common to include online collaboration tools such as Slack and Microsoft Teams in the conversation almost automatically. So far, data shows that 59% of international workers see these tools as essential for productive work from home. However, communication through e-mail does not stop playing a huge role. In fact, it is considered more necessary than any other tool of cooperation in sectors such as marketing, advertising, and Public Relations.
Even so, online communication and collaboration tools are especially useful for maintaining productivity, especially at younger ages. Maximum efficiency is shown when a combination of them is used. For this reason, there is certainly a demand and interest for further development and improvement of such technologies in the future, given that they have never again been so important. Greek employees mainly use e-mail (89%) and telephone (85%), but Microsoft Teams is their most widely used web-based collaborative tool.
If working from home is to be taken seriously as a future established prospect in the daily life of the modern employer and employee, it is worth researching in more detail the issue of its positive and negative consequences.
According to the numbers so far, the main advantage of teleworking worldwide is considered to be the increased flexibility of the working schedule (according to 58% of respondents), followed by the additional free time due to lack of travel to and from work. It is noteworthy that in Greece less lost time is by far the number one perceived benefit of remote working, with a preference of 79% of the respondents. Due to the life-focused Greek mentality, it may not come as a surprise the fact that the next two recognized advantages are the increased contact with roommates/family and the better balance of personal and professional life.
Although people seem to appreciate the benefits of working from home, more than 4 out of 10 people in the world claim that lifting restrictions will make them prefer to work from home less than they did before the lockdown even began. The results here, however, vary greatly from country to country, and the main hypothesis is that the problem is not with remote working per se, but with the fact that it was established without an endpoint in sight, which may have caused increased negative emotions and uncertainty.
At the top of the negative points of remote work in Greece, we see 59% of people worrying about the lack of clear boundaries between work and rest and 57% wanting a change of scenery.
Things in our country tend to show that 67% face the possibility of the future adoption of work from home as a work benefit or form of work as positive or very positive, with the percentage being higher in younger age groups and lower in older ones.
With the regular reduction of prohibitive measures, businesses will gradually be given the opportunity to return to their offices and workplaces. This possibility, however, is to be addressed differently by different bodies, organizations, and companies. It is also rather admirable — and perhaps we should take a moment to appreciate at least a few characteristics of the times in which we live — that entire banks of 70,000 employees continued to operate successfully remotely, and even consider the alternative of remote work as perhaps not as an alternative but as the main solution.
Undoubtedly, the advantages can be many, in addition to the (very timely) safety and health of each and every single one of us. Teleworking may be key to the efficiency and competitiveness of companies and employees, creating schedules specifically tailored to different types of work and attracting and retaining talented human assets that would otherwise not be accessible.
We may not know for sure for quite a long time, but perhaps the global and local workplaces have already experienced their “new big thing” in the form of remote working. The model is, however, far from perfect. That is why, in the time when the transition to what we still dare to call “normal” takes place, training will not stop. The development of new applications, technologies, and general improvements will not stop. In anything, they will increase.
The end of the strictest part of the restrictive measures may have come, but for remote working, the end may not be as close as some think. Whether it goes away, gets established in the mainstream, or stays in a small and selective part of specific work environments, one thing matters: the next time we inevitably encounter working from home, hope it’s by choice, not by necessity.
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