Why Remote Work Is Here to Stay

For the past decade and a half, my father has worked as a software engineer at JP Morgan Chase. So for the better part of the last decade and a half, he would take an hour-long train ride to work every weekday from our suburbian Connecticut home to his office headquartered in Manhattan, NYC. But once the COVID-19 pandemic hit, he and millions of other white-collar workers made the sharp transition to remote work. It was a rocky road at first — ironically enough, “tech-savvy” isn’t exactly something I would label my father as. Nonetheless, as the pandemic’s weeks turned into months and months into years, he’s learned to adapt. Now, he’s part of the “three in ten” remote workers who are “extremely likely to seek another job if their company eliminates remote work.” The social contract between white-collar employees and their employers has been permanently rewritten to include greater flexibility over when and where they work as a result of the psychological and financial freedom the pandemic gifted them.

Historically, white-collar workers have worked on-site in offices; however, the pandemic has completely reversed this trend as most workers experienced remote work for the first time. Although working remotely does have its drawbacks such as high rates of burnout, its appeal is that it gave employees the freedom to choose when and where to work. According to Martha Maznevski, a professor of organizational behavior at Ivey Business School, white-collar professionals “[made] a choice during the pandemic between ‘good and better’” because of “ennui and desire for growth.” The flexibility of remote work was not an illusion of choice. It allowed many workers to achieve a sustainable work-life balance and second-guess the role that works previously played in their lives. But this psychological shift alone could not have prompted a significant change, as job security was a priority for many at the start of the pandemic. It had to be coupled with the financial flexibility that increased for many remote workers during the course of the pandemic.

For the past few decades, income and wealth inequality has been steadily on the rise in the U.S. and the pandemic was no exception. The nature of remote work lends itself to white-collar workers who, on average, experience greater monetary compensation and job security compared to their blue-collar counterparts. According to research by the JPMorgan Chase Institute, although low-income families made a “much larger increase in relative terms,” their savings weren’t permanent because they went into the pandemic with the “thinnest financial buffers”. Higher-income families (defined as those earning more than $68,896), on the other hand, had a median balance that was “roughly 40 percent higher in September than two years earlier.” During the pandemic, white-collar workers were allowed to increase their savings and disposable income as a result of stimulus checks, a stock market boom, as well as fewer consumer choices that highlighted the true distinction between “wants” and “needs” in America’s capitalist economy. This financial leverage finally allowed them to act on their psychological impulses to shift their relationship with work, resulting in a massive demographic shift across the country.

With millions of Americans suddenly working remotely, many took the unprecedented opportunity to move in a new direction — literally. After commutes were cut out of the equation, it appears that many workers are moving forward and not moving back. According to a 20,000 person survey conducted by UpWork, a freelancing platform, “54.7% of people are moving over two hours away or more from their current location, which is beyond daily or even weekly commuting distances for most.” This is in line with the growing notion of achieving work-life balance by mentally but also physically separating the two. People aren’t simply moving out of metropolitan areas into surrounding suburbs, but that’s not to say that such metropolitan areas aren’t experiencing emigration: “Among those currently living in a major city, 20.6% say they are planning to move.” This translocation of human capital will have astronomical implications for corporate America moving forward. If they aren’t willing to offer remote work, another company with a competitive salary certainly will.

In the past few months, many tech, media, and finance companies (which traditionally employ white-collar workers), have abandoned their plans to return to the office. Instead, as the pandemic fades, they’re planning for a hybrid of remote and on-site work. According to Nick Bloom, an economics professor at Stanford University, “​​The number of person-days in the office is never going back to pre-pandemic average, ever.” Despite widespread burnout, his research states that self-reported productivity has steadily risen over the past two years, suggesting that remote workers are adapting. He’s also found that the most popular hybrid model has been a Tuesday-Thursday office week. For workers, its appeal doesn’t stem from a “four-day weekend.” Instead, it’s the flexibility to travel on Monday and Friday while continuing to work. Now, ordinary weekends are being treated as longer holidays, and the five-day workweek is slowly dissolving into a three-day office week within a longer workweek.

Some argue that moving forward, companies will simply offer more compensation for employees to return to the office. Many CEOs are willing to pay for this premium because they believe that the human connection with bosses, colleagues, and clients simply doesn’t exist in a virtual setting and is vital to maintaining the “corporate culture” of accountability. Although they are correct in their assertion that remote work can’t replicate human interaction, what they fail to recognize is that financial compensation is not worth disrupting work-life balance for many. According to a survey conducted by Blind, an anonymous professional network, 64% of professionals would prefer the option to work from home over a $30K compensation increase. Although the significance of $30,000 varies considerably by profession, there appears to be a general consensus among the white-collar workers that Blind attracts. As previously mentioned, many remote workers have already invested in housing hours away from their offices. Millennials and Gen Zers are also placing an increasing emphasis on corporate sustainability and increasing greenhouse emissions through office commutes is antithetical to this idea. But workers shouldn’t be the only advocates of remote work.

When done right, remote work can also be a huge boon to businesses, not just their employees. The cost associated with on-site business operations such as office space, equipment, and travel reimbursement is drastically reduced for remote/hybrid companies. In fact, the Global Workplace Analytics Telework Savings Calculator finds that a company can save on average $11,000 annually per remote worker who telecommutes just 50% of the time. With this extra capital, companies can also afford to attract quality workers. By removing the geographical barriers to job openings, employers can select from a more diverse and talented pool of applicants. And when the whole hiring process can be conducted virtually, this also allows smaller employers to “mitigate skills gaps, like multi-language fluency, that may be present in their immediate area.” (CMS Wire) As the pandemic has shown us, many companies lacked adequate contingency plans to respond to an emergency. The option of remote and even hybrid work ensures that such a circumstance will not arise in the future.

Although progress between employers and employees has traditionally moved at a glacial pace, the pandemic has catalyzed a fundamental shift that is here to stay. Moving forward, workers will undoubtedly have the autonomy to choose between on-site and remote work or a hybrid of the two. As corporate accountability has shown us, companies should exercise greater responsibilities than simply returning profits to their shareholders. They must also be responsible for the well-being of their employees and the environment. The pandemic has shown us that these two ideals aren’t a zero-sum game, as companies recorded record profit margins throughout the pandemic. Once Gen Zers enter the workforce, remote work won’t be a privilege anymore. It will be a right.