It didn’t take more than a few months in COVID-19 lockdown for a good number of workers to realize they could adequately perform their jobs without having to set foot in their office ever again.
Working remotely has helped people envision an attractive new reality of relocating to a new town, city, or country, all while retaining their current livelihood.
Rather than fighting the rapidly changing tide, Silicon Valley mainstays embraced the new business reality. Facebook recently offered its employees the opportunity to work from home on a permanent basis. Twitter announced it won’t reopen its offices until September 2020 at the earliest, and gave employees a choice on whether they come back in once offices open.
Amid the Pandora’s box of challenges the coronavirus pandemic has unleashed, the prospect of working full-time remotely is no longer fanciful or challenging. It’s potentially a new normal. And it’s going to reshape how we look at employment in the post-pandemic world.
To get a better idea of how employee attitudes are changing about the workplace, especially in light of the pandemic, our company conducted a survey of more than a thousand remote workers. The respondents varied by age and job level, and they were from throughout the country.
We found new perceptions emerging about office work. We were surprised, for example, that 42% speculated working remotely will eventually replace working in physical offices.
Employees are concerned about returning to offices
As businesses start to reopen, there is general concern about how safe life in the open-layout workplace will be.