No article. Just wondering and would like to know what your opinion is of the future of working remotely.
My nephew lives in the mountain west. Where the cost of living is quite high. His wife is a medical resident. She was matched at her 5th choice so it wasn’t that they really wanted to live there but it’s a great place for them to live.
My nephew just switched jobs. For double the salary of the job he had in Michigan that had been remote. It’s in the tech industry. Defense contractor to be specific.
The couple wants to come back so she can practice in Northern Michigan. We live here and it’s a great place to live but not exactly a tech haven. And a cheaper place to live.
My brother in law is convinced that my nephew can work his job remotely when they move. Which I don’t know, he may. I have no idea.
But I wonder what your opinion is? Does industry pivot and become responsive to remote work? Do they require that their workers live within a certain range? Has work changed forever?
My kids. One works as a project manager in industry so the job needs to be on site. The other in tech has to be in the office 2 days a week but they can be flexible. But they have been firm that their employees need to be able to come into the office.
I do not know how often my nephew is working in an office. So this is not specific about him but about remote work and maybe the two career couple. Because some professions can’t work remotely.
I know we have talked about this in the past. But wonder if the official end of the pandemic changes anything?
My opinion is that HYBRID will be the change that stays permanent for many positions. Hybrid to whatever degree. Obviously many positions can’t be WFH at all. And some positions were before COVID and will continue to be.
I think the question here is this. While many jobs certainly CAN be fully remote, are companies going to want to give that choice. And in the end, are employees going to want to endlessly work remote. My daughter’s BF is a data scientist with a successful tech start up. The last couple of years he has been probably at least 90% remote (there is an office in their town). But the last several months he has been going into the office 2-3 days a week. Mostly his choice. He’s a very independent worker but really started to feel the need to engage in person both work wise and socially with his co-workers especially as the company is growing. He loves the hybrid model. His company appreciates both methods.
At the university level I work at, WFH is definitely back to being the exception. It’s just an occasion. The university’s choice.
I believe companies will come to the conclusion that employees can come back to the office for work if they can get on airplanes, or eat in restaurants in their free time.
I’ve seen companies let their commercial real estate leases expire. It is expensive to pay for office space that is only utilized 2-3 days a week, reluctantly, by employees. Many companies seem to adopt a hotelling model, where diminished office space is available to anyone who wants to use it rather than dedicated personal offices.
No one on my daughter’s team works/lives within 500 miles of her. She too has no idea why she was assigned to her city, and is willling to come in 1-2 days per week for mostly social reasons but was equally productive at home.
I think for many tech jobs hybrid is going to be the way things shake out. My husband is an electrical engineer, at a company with a variety of types of engineers. For the first year or two of the pandemic they were fully remote, when they had been 0% remote before. It worked pretty well without too many drawbacks to being remote, but as time went on some cracks emerged. Now, it is clear that some people need to be in the office most of the time, everyone needs to be in the office some of the time.
The benefits to the employees, and through that to the company, of being able to work from home sometimes are huge, though. So I don’t think his company will ever go back to the requirement that everyone be in person 100% of the time.
My firm, and most in our industry, have decided to permanently adopt a hybrid model which combines some days of remote work and some in-office days each week.
In our opinion, this approach strikes a good balance between flexibility and in-person collaboration. We do not want a fully remote environment for multiple reasons, and work-in-office all 5 days is a thing of the past
I agree…hybrid is where it’s at. Many businesses here allow work from home part of the time but do require that folks be in the office a certain number of days a week. Work places have become more “flexible” with how they assign office space as well.
I think your nephew needs to ask about this. He maybe required to be in his office two or three days a week…depending on his need to be there. If that is the case…how will he do that if he moves to Michigan.
There are some downsides for fully remote work, especially for younger workers. Recent articles and info from friends suggest that it is harder to train employees remotely and to have them engage with each other.
I work hybrid (mostly 2 days WFH). At times there is little to no benefit to being in the office because what I am doing is fully independent. But other times it is easier to discuss something in person rather then try to do it via a video call.
I also worry about the epidemic of loneliness. Getting together with work friends after hours is a great benefit. Or even just having lunch or a quick chat is a human interaction that is different than doing it on the computer.
Agree that hybrid, with more in-office days, is likely the future.
While some very specialist workers may be able to stay remote (and this will continue to be the case for some roles like sales), the downturn in tech is likely to go on for several years, with repeated rounds of layoffs similar to the early 2000s. In that circumstance, the employees who don’t spend time in the office may be seen as more dispensable than those that do come in 3+ days per week.
Same as @thumper1 i think hybrid will be where lots of businesses land. But the one thing it has in common with back to office full time is that it’s harder to live a really long way away from office. Not to say it can’t be done especially if like one of my friends it’s come in one week out of the month (and cheap place to stay while there). They wouldn’t be able to fly in for that on their dime but it does make living with a slightly longer commute ok…But being on a completely different coast would be hard. I think as more people go back, and even with hybrid, there would be more expectation of employees being asked to come in on spur of moment if needed.
The options are good though for situation where a super long commute is fine for a day or two a week but you wouldn’t want it every day.
There are some funny Instagram reels showing how different generations respond to corporate policies.
Mostly at small firms and startups that can save on office space and amenities.
Big Tech firms like Amazon, Google, etc have started asking more employees to start coming into the office at least once or twice a week. With a large workforce, and many new(er) employees - it’s hard to develop a corporate culture if everyone is fully remote.
I think that hybrid and flexibility is the best of both world - for those types of jobs that can make it work. Obviously many of my co-workers wouldn’t do well at home. Hard to pick up the trash and construct things if you’re at home.
But older S (finance) was fully remote for ~18 months, then 1xweek for another 12-18 months. Recently, they’ve moved to 3xweek, but it’s T-W-H. He is not crazy about that at the moment. Most of his team is located around the world and so he zooms at the office, or zoom at home. Once/month they all meet in NYC. His GF (advertising) has been 2xweek for the last couple of years. She likes that well enough.
I’ve been in a position that COULD be WFH at least a few times a week, but the powers that be don’t believe in it. (The big boss doesn’t even believe in voice mail. He had it taken off their phones. And every admin email must be printed and posted for everyone to see.) It would have been SO nice while my kids were growing up to have the ability to WFH if they were sick, or I needed to attend to doctor’s appointments. Being able to work outside 8-5 when needed, would have been wonderful. It still would, but I admit that I don’t feel the need to be as productive here as I need those 3 months VA shut down and I had to be at home. I got so much done! Probably more done in those 3 months than in the last 3 years since…
A defense contractor may be a different situation. If special clearances are involved, some aspects of those projects may not be possible to do remotely. A neighbor is just such a person and he was in the office everyday throughout the entire pandemic. Nothing was permitted to be remote about his role.
I had a colleague 20 years ago who worked in the Bay Area and lived in Seattle. She flew down Mon-Thu almost every week (staying in a cheap hotel) and said there were plenty of people doing the same. I’ve known others who did Portland to SF and SF to Seattle each week. This was all before videoconferencing and WFH. It’s expensive, but not unaffordable in a well paid job.
As you referenced, it depends on the industry and job norms, not necessarily requirements.
My work is by nature 90% remote, 10% in-person, in that I am a sole proprietor and most of my work is done either on the computer or over the phone. I need to be within driving distance of a few locations with little notice for the in-person parts, so I have to live in a certain area in order to do my job even though it is mostly remote.
My partner’s work is entirely in-person. In fact, he was considered an essential worker during the pandemic and was never fully-remote, even in 2020. His job technically can be done completely remotely, but he works closely with others who have job responsibilities that require being on site. If he were to work remotely, it would negatively affect how those workers perceive his work, even if nothing else changed about what he did, because they don’t have expertise in his field. He has to be sensitive to the team’s needs, so that’s what he does.
He interfaces with attorneys often in his work and I do occasionally. The ones I work with have all switched to working remotely as much as possible or going to a client’s office if required. He works with attorneys in larger firms and they are all back to being in the office full time for corporate culture reasons.
At many firms, we are both seeing students out of college being offered remote positions to begin. If they show promise and move up, they are invited to an in-person role.
We are in similar industries but his is at a much larger scale than mine.
Most people I know are hybrid which is great for so many reasons. I’m someone who thinks in person, especially for younger workers, is very important- at least 2 or so days a week.
A friend’s daughter was fully in person for the last 2 years- her bf lives about 2 1/2 hours away in small town ( grew up there, well employed there, bought a house there)- she asked about working remote as she wants to move there and her company said yes. They like her work, she really likes her job and the caveat is if they need her to come in she can do so. Nice they were flexible- but it’s not like she’d need to get on a plane to go in.
Lower-level tech, maybe. If the economy improves, big tech is looking at building more office space for the upper level people who remain post-layoffs. It’s the only industry that is looking at increasing office space right now. Every other sector including federal is reducing square footage. Defense is reducing the least.
A national non-profit I work with that once had a “main office” now keeps a minimal “address” but nearly everyone works remotely and national staff are all around the country, being in one location is not required. If there are region based jobs, they may be in that region but there is not an office to report to- your home is your office. This has freed up a lot of $$$ of keeping brick and mortar offices. So what they do is bring together core staff maybe 2-4 x a year for a conference or retreat type situation. It’s cheaper to fly some staff and pay for a couple nights of lodging to be face to face a couple times a year.
There’s no work from home for him.