During the pandemic, for many companies -- especially those which develop software -- remote work has become the norm. But that is during the pandemic. I am thinking about the period after the pandemic.
I am quite certain that companies that have switched from the pre-pandemic configuration of a large office building full of analysts, programmers, testers, and system administrators to the pandemic configuration of a large empty office building with analysts, programmers, testers, and system administrators working at home have noticed that their large office building is ... empty. I am also certain that someone in those companies has "done the math" and calculated the savings in keeping those employees working from home and moving the necessary employees to a much smaller office building.
(I am also certain that most office buildings are leased, and the owners of said buildings have looked at the possibility that their clients will want to move to smaller quarters. But back to the client companies.)
It is clear that after the pandemic, at least some companies will switch to a permanent "work from home" strategy. Twitter and a few other notable companies have made such announcements. But will all companies do so?
The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic may bring about a change to corporate culture. The pre-pandemic mode of thought (employees work in the office except for a few favored individuals) could switch to a new mode of thought, namely "employees work from home except for a few favored individuals".
It is possible, although unlikely, that all companies will change to this new mindset of remote work as the norm. It is more likely that some companies will change and some companies will stay with the original idea of remote work as a perk.
And it is quite possible that some of the former will adopt a second mindset of "office work as a perk". That is, the mirror reflection of what we had prior to the pandemic. Instead of remote work considered a perk, granted to a few individuals, some companies may consider office work the perk, granted to a few individuals.
What's more, the job market may be fractured between companies that want remote workers and companies that want in-office workers. This may lead to additional details in job postings ("remote only", "remote but in same time zone", and "in-office only", or "in-office at least three days per week"). The one standard arrangement of working in an office five days a week may no longer apply.
In the long run, I think the "remote as norm" strategy will dominate. The advantages of "work in the office" seem to be informal conversations and better communication through body language, neither of which can be expressed in dollars. The advantages of remote work can, in contrast, be calculated in dollars (the cost of not leasing the office building with its desks and chairs, minus the cost of securing communications to remote office workers).
Looking at past performance, hard factors (dollars) win over soft factors (non-dollars). We can look to past labor movements and labor laws. Child labor was prevalent -- until outlawed. Work was 10-hour days and six days per week, until the forty-hour work-week was enforced (or at least strongly encouraged) by labor law. Discrimination by age, gender, and race were the practice, until outlawed.
Before anti-discrimination laws, one may have argued that it made sense to hire the person with the best qualifications regardless of race or gender, but companies somehow hired mostly white males for the better jobs. Practices that just "make sense" weren't -- and aren't -- necessarily adopted.
Work in the office may "make sense" for some things, but the economics are clear. I expect companies to take advantage of the economics, and switch workers to remote work. I also expect that remote work will be assigned by a person's position in the corporate hierarchy, with executives and managers working in offices and "worker bee" employees working from home.
Some companies may even offer work in the office as a perk for certain positions.
1 comment:
Interesting perspective, John, similar to the way horse riding became an elite and expensive privilege instead of the norm after cars were available to the masses.
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