https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/07/business/workplace-teleco…
“Kate Lister, president of Global Workplace Analytics, expects more than 25 percent of employees to continue working from home multiple days a week, up from fewer than 4 percent who did so before the pandemic.”
That is a significant increase!!
We’re still early, but my guess is we’re seeing a fundamental change in how people work. We are all stuck at home now. But many of us will never go back to the office, at least to a permanent desk. Not because we’ve been laid off (although sadly, that will impact some of us, as well), but because companies are restructuring how they do business to enable much more remote work. The benefits are just too great, if it can be managed.
It rarely made sense to have every employee wake up early, get dressed and then drive 30 minutes to the office, just to sit in a cubicle and do work in front of a computer. Especially with the rise of SaaS, and other tools that aid remote collaboration. 1-2 hours of lost time each day, just to physically be at the office.
I don’t think the model is all or nothing. I think we’ll see team meetings that require face to face interaction, but these will be limited to 1 or 2 days per week. Something like casual Fridays. But in this case, more like Face to Face Fridays (or Mondays, or whatever)… Otherwise, people will work from home, or the coffee shop, or wherever they’d like.
No, this won’t apply to every single employee, for various reasons. But I think 25% of the workforce is a good number to start, and then we’ll see this accelerate further. Long story short: workplaces will never be the same again.