As a result of the pandemic, remote work is now more important than ever, suspending the king of productivity: the classic workplace environment. With the surge of remote working, we can observe that both employers and employees are observing a refreshed degree of productivity and overall health.
Despite the numerous benefits of remote work
, there are several challenges that arose from the transition. Statistics show virtually a split between the positive and negative aspects of a work from home set-up, and it is clear that there are still many skeptics to this day.
If we look into specific portions of society, Gen Z individuals, being born into a digital society, may find remote work to be an alluring career option. We also see an influx of opinions regarding the difficulty of working from home with family members present, potentially affecting women’s careers. We can even look into geography and analyze the effect of the pandemic on the workforce.
Is the key to an effective workforce a flexible and diverse one? Should the employer or business-owner focus on a work-life balance perspective and find ways to split the traditional and the remote? The pandemic has posed so many questions regarding the workplace and the standards we must uphold, and it is interesting to dive into how remote work plays a crucial role in keeping companies afloat.
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The Shift to Remote Work and Work from Home
In remote work, the advantage rests squarely with companies that are early adopters of technology and virtual connectivity. From organizing a remote team to hiring freelancers remotely to possessing the skills to enhance the remote workforce, the accelerated shift to the digital space is much more manageable if the right people and technology are in place.
For companies who are not fully capable of immediate transformation, it is important to maintain expectations and be practical in the transition.
For those who doubt the potential of remote work, here are a few reasons why the future of work is work from anywhere:
– Flexibility
– Mobility
– Asynchronous Communication
– Health and Safety
– Productivity
The Fundamentals of Remote Working
There are two things that employers must focus on in this pandemic: retention of employees by ensuring a happy, focused, and motivated workforce and acquiring digitally-inclined talent.
Here are a few strategies to ensure proper talent growth and maintenance:
– Establish a comfortable but competitive culture.
– Advertise in the right places.
– Promote autonomy-based working conditions.
For employees and supervisors, the focus should be on maintaining the proper balance between work (the outputs, colleagues, and subordinates) and the rest of life (friends, family, overall health and safety). Flexibility and organizing a good workspace at home are essential.
An article on boosting the productivity of a remote marketing team showed the fundamentals of a proper remote work scenario. To add to this, remote work is reported to be cost-efficient and effective in maintaining overall productivity.
Here are a few ways to effectively manage a remote team:
– Daily check-ins
– Communication
– Equip employees with tools and knowledge
– Use technology to your benefit
– Manage standards and expectations
Zoomshock: The geography and local labor market consequences of working from home
The Covid-19 health crisis has led to a substantial increase in work done from home, which shifts economic activity across geographic space. This shift is known as Zoomshock. The Zoomshock has implications for locally consumed services; much of the clientele of restaurants, coffee bars, pubs, hairstylists, health clubs, and the like located near workplaces is transferred to establishments located near where people live.
The study found three important empirical facts:
1. Zoomshock is large; many workers can work-from-home and live in a different neighborhood than they work.
2. Zoomshock is very heterogeneous; economic activity is decreasing in productive city centers and increasing residential suburbs.
3. Zoomshock moves workers away from neighborhoods with a large supply of locally consumed services to neighborhoods where the supply of these services is relatively scarce.
Read the implications for aggregate employment and local economic recovery following the Covid-19 health crisis in the UK HERE
The Future of Work: Remote Working
Is remote work overhyped or did it succeed as an experiment? I discussed the future of work with industry leaders Chris Herd and Jonathan Schultz over at YouTube. In this interview, we talked about several key topics, including:
– The different classifications of remote work
– The hype behind remote working
– Working at peak productivity from anywhere
If you want to take a look at how industry leaders perceive the future of the workplace to be, check out the full interview.
Where do you think the future of work is heading?
Join our discussion on our Discord server via the following link: https://discord.gg/gbJ9Ta78JG
