The Pros of Remote Work – the New Normal?

These certainly are extraordinary times, and while today’s technologies change quickly, it’s a far cry from how quickly the world has changed with Coronavirus. We all hope for the best, and most of us have never lived through a pandemic where so much has changed so quickly. There’s no easy fix, and we just have to keep trying what seems to make sense, and adapt as we go. While remote work has been a growing trend for some time, the rationale has never been stronger than now, and businesses need to ramp up their efforts here quickly.

Going forward, most businesses now fall into two camps – those already supporting remote workers, and will now do more, or those who have not supported it – for a variety of reasons – but now have to find ways to make it work. There is, of course, a rather large third camp, but it’s a bit far removed from the audience these posts are for. That would be businesses where most workers don’t have the option of working from home, such as retail, transportation, hospitality, health care or public safety. For IT decision-makers, the other two camps are the most relevant, as many of these workers are based on office environments.

While offices have a lot of inherent appeal, the imperative of social distancing dictates that employers have as many workers as possible based from home, at least for now. Public policy simply requires it during times of crisis, and while this could pass in a few short weeks, there’s a case to be made for this being the new normal. If businesses can sustain reasonable levels of productivity working this way, they’ll be inclined to make it the status quo. On the other hand, productivity may drop off, and the business will just have to muddle through until they can get workers back to the office.

To a large extent, this fork in the road will be determined by the tools the business provides to help workers be productive from home. As such, collaboration technologies have a central role to play in making remote work effective, so IT decision-makers need to view this as more than a short-term band-aid solution to a very serious public health challenge. To help frame that view, the pros and cons of remote working need to be considered. I’ll outline the pros here, and will cover the cons in my next post.

Pro #1: Health and safety

At the moment, this is the primary driver for remote working, as it provides the social distance to keep workers safe, but also the means to keep working and maintain their employment. Given that health and safety are paramount – at least in most businesses – remote working is far more attractive than laying off staff because the office has become a no-go zone. In that regard, the business might need to accept some falloff in productivity since not everyone can adapt fully to remote working, and that’s a better scenario than having a skeleton staff to keep things going until they burn out.

There is, however, a bigger health and safety angle to consider, especially where workers have long commutes, and/or must contend with difficult weather at times. In these cases, remote work holds great appeal on this front. Safety benefits in terms of having to spend less time on the roads, or even flying for work at branch sites or customer locations. Reducing the need to commute is plus for a different form of health – mental health. Remote working takes the stress of commuting away, along with related stresses for those struggling to cover both work and personal obligations in a time-crunched daily grind. In this context, an ongoing strategy to support remote working starts to make more sense.

Pro #2: It’s on-trend

This benefit warrants several posts, but the main idea is how a growing portion of the workforce prefers working this way, especially among digital natives. Flexibility in how they work and live is a core value, so for them, remote working would be a welcome development. This fully aligns with their always-on, user-centric world, where they can pick and choose everything for what goes on around them. The structured 9-5 model of office work doesn’t bring out the best in them, but if they can be fully productive working outside that box in a remote setting, then the business should find ways to support them.

Again, the current climate will impose this on some businesses, and you might be surprised to see how well it works for certain employees. To be fair, not everyone can work well in this mode, so there will be some trial and error along the way. Given how the workforce is trending younger, this could help the business by learning which employees will thrive working remotely. The sooner you figure out the best approach to support them, the better you’ll be able to attract top talent from the growing pool of digital natives.

Pro #3: Reduced overhead

Businesses are always looking to reduce costs, and this is a textbook reason to embrace remote working. While this is a pro in terms of bottom line, it should not be positioned as the main reason for remote working, especially at this time. Some businesses will genuinely need to reduce overhead to remain viable – and in some cases, the economic impact of Coronavirus will exacerbate that – but the real pro is that remote working allows the business to shrink its physical footprint without reducing staffing levels.

This goes against conventional thinking that a business cannot properly function without a strong operational presence. For both home and work, our environments are becoming increasingly virtual, and many businesses have adapted successfully to this new model. In time, Coronavirus will pass, and some businesses will revert to form and bring remote workers back to the office, and carry on as before.

Others, however, will recognize the benefits beyond the cost savings, and choose to continue operating this way. Without having this sudden change imposed on them, they may not have otherwise gone down this road, and thanks to unintended consequences, they have discovered that the ROI on remote working is more than just reducing occupancy costs.