Will the Market Save Remote Work?

Setting aside the propriety of the Covid "lockdowns," a major silver lining in my view was that countless people who might not have tried or gotten to try working remotely did so.

Based on a recent Business Insider story, it would seem that the experiment was a resounding success, at least for a significant number of knowledge workers:

Image by Chris Montgomery, via Unsplash, license.

Forcing workers back to the office is slowly backfiring for employers as the tightening labor market increasingly values remote work as a key benefit.

While major companies such as Amazon, Disney, JPMorgan, and even the video conferencing platform Zoom require their workers to return to the office at least part-time after the coronavirus pandemic prompted widespread adoption of work-from-home policies, employees are none too pleased. [links omitted]

The story elaborates on some of the ways this is backfiring, and cites anecdotes and studies to the effect that remote workers are generally more productive.

Regardless of what one makes of the productivity claims, the real boss, the market, is definitely speaking:

Employers that insist upon bringing employees back to in-person work are seeing slower hiring rates, The Wall Street Journal reported -- with companies that have full-time remote work seeing a 5% increase in their staffing levels over the last year, compared to just 2.6% for full-time in-person offices. [link omitted]

What's most impressive about this is that the experiment started with a handicap: Many were having to juggle their paid employment with their conscriptions as unpaid substitute teachers' assistants.

People were still able to get their jobs done. And now, without those duties, they are enjoying things such as: time not wasted on long commutes; the ability to use break time to, say, start a load of wash instead of staring out of a window; or being able to work undisturbed by inconsiderate co-workers.

This is good news for anyone with the discipline to work productively at home. My fear after the pandemic was that the challenges of using the new technology might kill the momentum: It's easier (or seems easier), for example to monitor people who are physically present than remote workers; and we've all heard about those poor souls who discovered that they were in Zoom meetings all day, and couldn't get any actual work done.

The technology around remote work, like any other tool, can be used effectively or not. Evaluating remote work based on just that kind of evidence would be like judging the value of the automobile based on the fact that traffic jams exist, or that sometimes, people get hurt or die in accidents.

After seeing that the most valuable employees are voting with their feet, though, I feel cautious optimism that workplace flexibility can survive, continue evolving, and eventually become normal.

I think it's about a decade overdue, but I'll take late over never anytime.

-- CAV