Will the trend of remote working continue after the Pandemic?
After the outbreak of covid-19, “social distancing” became a common term in our life. Besides social distancing, many employees can even achieve work distancing to protect their health by choosing jobs supporting remote working. A significant change occurs in the work form: people can work at home in the ideal future! Unfortunately, many critics held a negative attitude toward this idea. They argued that the temporary increase in labor demand became a great asset for many employees to quit their original jobs and pursue better ones with remote working. They claimed that companies would not continue offering the choice of remote working because the supply of labor would increase to the original level after the Pandemic: remote working is just a temporary trend. However, I believe that the trend of remote working won’t change long term. It will, instead, become a norm for most jobs because it makes employees enjoy more about their jobs with higher productivity and helps companies promote their employees’ loyalty.
The trend of remote working is a natural result of the popularization of the internet and globalization. In many information companies, employers and employees embraced and adopted this working mode due to its convenience, efficiency, and flexibility before the Pandemic. In other words, the trend of remote working would be inevitable even if the Pandemic did not outbreak in 2019; hence, it would continue after the Pandemic. Under the premise of the highly developed internet ecosystem, new technology tools, such as Google Docs, GitHub, and Zoom, eliminate the limit of space and connect people from all over the world to work together. Today information workers from all over the work can draft a copy together by editing a Google document. Programmers can collaborate their codes and complete a grand application project at home by GitHub. More and more employees have started working on online teamwork platforms, skipping the traditional documents handover process and improving work efficiency.
What’s more, more and more international trades were made through zooms. A negotiation between a company in Beijing and a company in London can quickly be done by zoom with simply two computers and maybe a translation pen. The employees don’t need to book flights and hotels way ahead of time, apply for visas, and spend days traveling anymore. On the other hand, the employers can not only save the expenses on commuting costs, accommodation, and food but also keep on track of the negotiation process and prevent bribery and embezzlement. According to the world bank, “30.5 percent of Asian companies experienced at least one bribe payment request” (IBRD), and the average bribery incidence of all countries is 16.3 percent. This data shows that due to the lack of transparency in trade deals, bribery and embezzlement are serious but common issues in today’s commercial ecosystem, especially in certain regions like Asia. As a result, conducting and recording all commercial activities and negotiations through remote meetings can help save time for the employees and money for the companies and prevent them from being blackmailed.
The Pandemic is the catalyst that speeds up the popularization of remote working. During the Pandemic, to prevent infections of covid, remote working became mainstream for most information workers; those workers soon found that they enjoy remote working and want to continue this working mode even when social distancing is unnecessary. In “What employees are saying about the future of remote work,” journalist Andrea Alexander states that at the beginning of the pandemic time. At the same time, companies were forced to adopt remote working, and many employees could not adapt to this change at first. In fact, “some even complained that the feelings of working have changed.” (Alexander, Mckinsey) However, “most of them adapt to this new form of working soon and started enjoying it .”In the interview, data analyst Ana said that remote working relieved her anxiety and saved transportation time to work, enabling her to pay more attention to her daily life. There is no need to get up early with sleepy eyes, rush to take breakfast, spend half an hour on the subway, or take an expensive taxi to get to the company on time. Working online remotely, Employees can calmly wake up, have a hot water shower, make a healthy breakfast, and turn on their computer whenever they are ready to work. They can even work on the bed! The flexibility provided by remote working makes many employees focus on their lives and families. In the past, people work to live, but now many choose to enjoy work.
With the experiences of remote working during the covid, many people realize that working in person is unnecessary. Take astronomers as an example. “Astronomy has traditionally required a fair amount of traveling by researchers, as observatories are located around the world.” (University of Turku) However, the researchers at the University of Turku established an online supernova database with the astrophysics data system and other universities, enabling astronomers to analyze these data and discover the mysteries above the sky at home. This project went on successfully, and those astronomers found that they worked more efficiently while working remotely. Professor Liu claimed:” With the help of the database, I don’t need to spend time traveling and have more time focusing on my research.” During the Pandemic, most academic conferences were canceled or held online. Attending the meetings remotely at home, researchers no longer need to worry about the tiredness of long-time travel and maladjustment to new environments. As a result, they can have more time for their research and personal lives. Over 89 percent of the astronomers from the University of Turku agreed that they spent more time with their families after the outbreak of the Pandemic. Working remotely helps them enhance work-life balance and become happier with their jobs, resulting in higher working efficiency. Also, the government and academic institutions can save travel and conferences expenses and use them to improve the welfare of researchers or update the labs with the latest scientific devices.
Many may say that the companies will no longer offer remote working options after the Pandemic since more people would return to work after the Great Resignation. During the Great Resignation, 2.9% of the national workforce left their jobs, creating a massive demand in the labor force market. (Whitaker, CBS News) They argued that this temporary demand became a great asset for many employees to quit their original jobs and pursue better ones with remote working. They claimed that companies would not continue offering the choice of remote working because the supply of labor would increase to the original level after the Pandemic: remote working is just a temporary trend.
For this argument, I must point out that companies don’t need to make difficulties to their employees when it has proven that remote working is as efficient as working in person, or even more efficient in some cases, as mentioned in the paragraphs above. Also, according to the article “Surprising working from home productivity statistics (2022)”, a study by Stanford found that “productivity while working remotely from home is better than working in an office setting” (Apollo). The companies will be glad to see that their employees can have better productivity while saving the expenses of the office rent and electricity. In fact, “on average, those who work from home spend 10 minutes less a day being unproductive, work one more day a week, and are 47% more productive.” It is unreasonable to expect that the companies will stop offering remote working jobs, which will help them gain higher productivity and decrease expenses.
What’s more, more and more companies started paying attention to the happiness of their employees, promoting the employees’ loyalty to them. During the Great Resignation, many employees quit their jobs for better ones, influencing many companies. Although hiring new employees is more accessible than before due to platforms like LinkedIn, it still hurts the companies’ interests. Employers must spend time and money advertising their companies, interviewing the candidates, and training new employees. Hiring is especially hard for small companies when there are plenty of openings in the job market for the job seekers to pick after the Great Resignation. Also, specialists and experienced employees are valuable in today’s job market; they contribute to the company way more than their salaries. Losing an experienced employee is always a significant loss to a company, especially the leaders of major projects or experts in the fields. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, “The median number of years that wage and salary workers had been with their current employer was 4.1 years in January 2020” (Bureau of Labor Statistics), which is a lot shorter than that of employees from the last generation. As a result, more and more companies are trying to promote their employees’ loyalty to save billions of the cost of hiring and training new employees. Providing remote working options is a great attraction to the young generation. The survey conducted in the US has shown that many people quit their original jobs to pursue the ones that offer remote working, and they are willing to stay at those companies longer than those who don’t (QR Library). As a result, companies will continue providing remote working options after the Pandemic for better productivity and promoting their employees’ loyalty.
The trend of remote working is inevitable. More and more people choose to work remotely to manage their time freely, spend more time on things that give them meaning, and enjoy their jobs. On the other hand, employers are glad to see that remote working can help promote the employees’ productivity and loyalty to the companies. I believe that most people will work at home in the future not far away.
References and sources:
https://www.enterprisesurveys.org/en/data/exploretopics/corruption
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/
https://www.utu.fi/en/news/news/universe-on-the-computer-screen-astronomers-can-also-work-remotely
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/great-resignation-60-minutes-2022-01-10/
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/tenure.pdf
https://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/document.php?id=cqresrre2021091701
