In today’s rapidly changing business environment, the vast majority of companies have adopted remote working. It has become a part of business, not just a mere trend that was accelerated due to the COVID-19 pandemic forcing a quick adaptation to new methods of working, leading to reshape the future of employment in profound ways.
Benefits and Challenges: A Two-Sided Coin
In the remarkable time of the pandemic business experts raised the advantages of remote work for both employees and employers. Sure enough, employees loved the increased flexibility, the work-life balance, and the reduced commuting time. Employers also gain from lower office space costs, more productivity, and the opportunity to hire people worldwide.
However, WFH employees face new challenges, such as feelings of isolation, distractions, and concerns about career advancement opportunities.
Employers face the challenges of the effectiveness of new working methods, communication hardness between teams, and monitoring & tracking performances. These advantages and challenges are just a small part of what organizations and WFH employees relationship as there are other aspects to consider.
Momuntment due Covid-19
A report from U.S. News1 notes that the pandemic forced companies to rethink and evaluate their work structures which led to finding new and more efficient ways to work. This transition challenged existing ideas and unlocked the potential for new operational strategies and employee engagement.
The Statistics Behind Remote Work
The American Shift to Remote Work Key Insights
The statistics surrounding remote work reported by Upwork2 that by 2025, it is projected that approximately 32.6 million Americans will be working remotely, accounting for about 22% of the workforce3
Additionally, USA Today4 reported that over 20% of American workers shifted fully or partially to remote setups during the crisis. Similarly, one of the latest Forbes surveys reveals that 98%5 of workers indicated a desire to work remotely at least part of the time, underscoring affinity for autonomy, work-life balance, and cost-efficiencies remote options afford
Furthermore, a Pew Research Center6 survey found that about a third of U.S. workers who can work from home now do so all the time as of March 30, 2023.
Shifting towards flexibility
The transition positively impacted many workers’ productivity and well-being. The University Of Chicago, in one of its studies surveyed 30,000 in waves in 2021 they expected that more than 20 percent of full workdays would be supplied from home after the pandemic ends and we see that these expectations were correct7. As per latest survey from different resources shows a positive feedbacks from employees. Forbes indicated in one of its studies that 71% of remote employees experienced improved work-life balance through greater schedule flexibility.8 Moreover, U.S. News also reported that nearly 60% of remote workers felt their productivity had improved while working from home.9
These statistics paint a clear picture: remote work is no longer just an alternative; as mentioned before by the economist Nicholas Bloom the “working-from-home economy.”.10
Furthermore, data collected during and after the pandemic reveals that the shift towards remote work is not temporary but a lasting change in how we work. For instance, the USA Today survey found that 54% of employees would consider leaving their jobs if their ability to work remotely was revoked.11
Strategies for Effective Remote Work Management
To ensure the success of remote work arrangements, managers must adopt a proactive approach to leadership and management. Here are 5 recommendations for organization managers to increase remote worker productivity according to Harvard studies:12“
1) Start at the highest level possible.
It is very difficult to expect managers to act differently than their own leaders. The managers who struggled with leading remote teams had low job autonomy and excessively controlling and low-trust bosses. This result suggests that organizations much create change at the highest level possible.
2) Provide practical and moral support for remote working within the organization.
Organizations need to move beyond rhetoric about supporting flexible working and actually enact this support by, for example, ensuring workers have the equipment needed, providing resources to support staff wellbeing, allowing extra leave for workers if needed, and giving training to support flexible working. These changes will not only help workers who are operating from home, but will help managers because they give a strong signal about the company’s genuine commitment to this work practice.
3) Educate managers about the potential benefits of remote working — when it is designed well.
Existing research on teleworking shows that it can be more productive than office working, but the benefits arise largely because of the greater autonomy afforded to remote workers. If autonomy is low and micromanagement high because of managerial mistrust, benefits of remote work are unlikely to arise. Managers need to understand the work designs that need to be put in place to facilitate effective remote working.
4) Train managers in how to devolve job autonomy, and to check in rather than check up on.
Simply telling managers to trust their employees is unlikely to be sufficient. Rather, they need to learn new skills of delegation and empowerment to provide their workers with greater autonomy over their work methods and the timing of their work, which in turn will promote worker motivation, health, and performance. Sometimes managers confuse autonomy with abdication or abandonment of employees. Managers need to learn that autonomy doesn’t mean less communication with employees. Frequent and regular communication are even more important when employees have autonomy. But rather than checking up on people as a way to micromanage them, managers need to check in with people and provide them the information, guidance, and support to work autonomously. Our study suggests that those supervising others, yet who do not define themselves as managers or professionals, need such training most.
5) Train managers in how to manage by results.
Managing by results goes hand-in-hand with job autonomy. When you give people the discretion to decide for themselves how and when they will work, it is important to assess whether they are delivering the results. Hence, managers need to put more focus on the outputs of the work than the inputs. An extreme version of managing by results is a Results Only Work Environment (or ROWE) in which you take little or no notice of when or where or even how people do their work, so long as they deliver the results. ROWE was first shown to be effective for performance in Best Buy, and subsequently shown to have success in other companies. Managers of people working from home during the pandemic might not need to be quite as extreme as those in ROWE environments — but they do need to untether their workers and trust them to do their work without constant checking.”
Companies shifted to remote work
1. Allstate company
Allstate, a large insurance provider with roughly 57,000 workers, was once at a turning point in its history. In a Time magazine case study about the company’s risky move to shift to remote work from 20% to 82% of its employees in the United States already work remotely. In order to save hundreds of millions of dollars every year, they sold their large headquarters in Illinois and cut their office space in half.13
The absence of an in-office presence irritated many executives, but Tom Wilson, the CEO of Allstate, had a different perspective. He talked about their journey during a session at the Aspen Ideas Festival. “We decided to jump into the water and see where it goes,” he stated. “Our employees wanted this change, and we’re making it work.”
Wilson described how, prior to the pandemic, Allstate had roughly 20% of its employees working remotely full-time; today, 82% do so. First, they determined which departments, such as their investment department, should be merged. However, working remotely was a good option for a lot of people.
95% of workers chose to work remotely when given the option. Despite pressure from the Chicago mayor, Allstate even chose not to declare a headquarters. Wilson remarked, “A headquarters used to be the center of power,” “But we don’t have one of those anymore.”
Allstate concentrated on the full work experience in order to make remote work meaningful. Wilson now conducts Zoom calls with 20,000 to 30,000 employees rather than traveling for town hall meetings, which saves time and facilitates participation for all. Employees enthusiastically participated after they even invited Arthur Brooks to speak about happiness.
Ultimately, Allstate managed to make remote work fulfilling, demonstrating that a business can succeed outside of the conventional office setting with the correct strategy.
2. GitHub
GitHub is a platform where people can store and share their code. It helps teams work together on software projects, keep track of changes, and collaborate from anywhere in the world.
GitHub has become a fully remote company with 2500 employees, allowing its employees to work from anywhere in the world. This approach aligns with their mission to build a global community of developers and make software development more accessible and collaborative.14
3. Automattic
Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, operates fully remotely with around 1,700 employees from 95 countries. This remote model allows them to hire talented individuals globally, fostering a diverse and inclusive work environment while emphasizing flexibility and work-life balance.15
References
- Gilligan, Chris. 2023. “How the COVID Pandemic Impacted Working From Home | Healthiest Communities Health News | U.S. News.” USNews.com. https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2023-05-18/how-the-covid-pandemic-impacted-working-from-home. ↩︎
- “Upwork Study Finds 22% of American Workforce Will Be Remote by 2025.” 2020. Upwork
https://www.upwork.com/press/releases/upwork-study-finds-22-of-american-workforce-will-be-remote-by-2025.. ↩︎ - Haan, Katherine, and Lauren Holznienkemper. 2023. “Remote Work Statistics & Trends In (2024) – Forbes Advisor.” Forbes https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/remote-work-statistics/.. ↩︎
- “Remote Work Statistics and Trends in 2024.” n.d. USA Today. https://www.usatoday.com/money/blueprint/business/hr-payroll/remote-work-statistics/ ↩︎
- Haan, Kathy. 2024. “Remote Work Statistics And Trends In 2024 – Forbes Advisor INDIA.” Forbes
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/in/business/remote-work-statistics/. ↩︎ - Parker, Kim. 2023. “About a third of U.S. workers who can work from home now do so all the time.” Pew Research Center.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/03/30/about-a-third-of-us-workers-who-can-work-from-home-do-so-all-the-time/. ↩︎ - Durlauf, Steven, Rasmus Landersø, and Salvador Navarro. n.d. “Why Working From Home Will Stick | BFI.” Becker Friedman Institute https://bfi.uchicago.edu/working-paper/why-working-from-home-will-stick/. ↩︎
- Haan, Kathy. 2024. “Remote Work Statistics And Trends In 2024 – Forbes Advisor INDIA.” Forbes
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/in/business/remote-work-statistics/. ↩︎ - Gilligan, Chris. 2023. “How the COVID Pandemic Impacted Working From Home | Healthiest Communities Health News | U.S. News.” USNews.com. https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2023-05-18/how-the-covid-pandemic-impacted-working-from-home ↩︎
- A snapshot of a new working-from-home economy.” 2020. Stanford Report. https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2020/06/snapshot-new-working-home-economy. ↩︎
- “Remote Work Statistics and Trends in 2024.” n.d. USA Today https://www.usatoday.com/money/blueprint/business/hr-payroll/remote-work-statistics/ ↩︎
- “Remote Managers Are Having Trust Issues.” 2020. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2020/07/remote-managers-are-having-trust-issues. ↩︎
- Delaney, Kevin J. 2023. “A Case Study in Making Remote Work Succeed at Scale.” Time.https://time.com/charter/6296813/a-case-study-in-making-remote-work-succeed-at-scale/. ↩︎
- handbook/Employment Policies/Working Remotely.md at master · clef/handbook.” n.d. GitHub https://github.com/clef/handbook/blob/master/Employment%20Policies/Working%20Remotely.md. ↩︎
- Morrison, Chris. 2021. “How doing everything wrong turned Automattic into a multibillion dollar media powerhouse.” TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/19/automattic-tc1-origin/ ↩︎