Coronavirus | Will remote working be the norm?

In decades past, the concept of remote working simply wasn’t feasible.

Without the technological capabilities to conduct face-to-face meetings over Skype, or to stay in constant communication and share documents seamlessly through platforms such as Slack, or keep up to date with your teams’ project silos in Trello, it simply didn’t make sense to allow people to attempt to function completely without physically being in an office environment. Yet this meant in times of crisis, be it internally due to technical issues, natural disasters, global pandemics etc, businesses would be plunged into uncertainty as work halted for unknown periods of time.

With the help of modern technologies like those mentioned above, this issue has been completely averted as with the addition of a company laptop, professionals can essentially work from anywhere with an internet connection. As a result, Global Workplace Analytics claims that since 2005, remote working has globally risen by as much as 159%. As of 2020, 61% of global companies now allow their staff to operate some form of remote working policy – this is three times higher than in 2016 alone.

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Why such a big shift? Essentially, it works for everyone. Flexjobs data revealed that among performance-based remote work statistics, 85% of businesses confirm that productivity has increased in their company because of greater flexibility. Additionally, 90% of employees said that allowing for more flexible work arrangements and schedules would increase employee morale, while 77% added allowing employees to work remotely may lead to lower operating costs. Amerisleep’s study of 1,001 remote workers found that they are 57% more likely than the average American to be satisfied with their job. Plus, nearly 80% of respondents described their typical stress level during the workweek as either ‘not stressed’ or only ‘moderately stressed’.