A time when staying at a physical office 40 hours a week or even longer to impress the boss seems even hard to imagine now. Staying in an office chair just to look dedicated, no matter how unproductive is a problematic long known. It can cost the economy a lot of money when sick people drag themselves into the office and infect others, it creates toxic environments that lead to overwork, people putting in long hours puts pressure on other to do the same. However, it is productivity that matters, not being at the desk as long as possible.
Covid-19 has been declared a pandemic and many people have lost their jobs and worked from home and it is very uncertain how the future work life will look like. The pandemic has normalized remote work and many organizations might switch to remote work permanently. A July Gartner study has shown that nearly half of the organizations of the study intend to allow their employees to work remotely full time going forward. Remote work at this scale was never a choice, but it has mostly worked sustainably.
Accenture research has shown that three quarters of the global workforce would like to work remotely for the most of their work time. Global Workplace Analytics further showed that a typical employer can save $11k per year for every person that works remotely for 50% of their time. Employers also get access to a larger pool of talent and may see an increased productivity. Employees get more flexibility, less travel time and are often more satisfied. There are however individual preferences that differ also when it comes to working from home. The office experience culture that is created by whiteboard sessions and coffee breaks and lunch table get togethers disappears with remote working. Since there are no guidelines on how to make it work, effects on physical and mental health have emerged. More than half of the employees interviewed by Accenture say that it is hard to switch off completely after a day of work. People are actually working longer than ever now, responding to emails and messages at all hours of the day to show how engaged they are. Technology hardware was ranked as the most important area of support that would make remote working easier.
There are some topics you need to think about when thinking about making remote working a permanent option. Talk to your employees: what has worked for them and what hasn’t? Define your remote working operating model and don’t just let things happen. Then align key processes and policies to support your model. You can design a working from home in a box solution to make it easier for your employees. This change process needs to be treated like any other change in the company, it improves over time. Let the culture and experience evolve in remote working.
