COVID has Made it Impossible to Go Back to the Office Full-time

COVID has Made it Impossible to Go Back to the Office Full-time

The Coronavirus won't lead to remote work at scale

COVID-19 has made workers realize how much their quality of life increases when they no longer have to waste 2 hours a day commuting. Forcing travel to an office to work on a machine that can be used anywhere is dumb. That’s almost every office job at this point and it's causing workers to waste their life doing things that make no sense at all.

Workers will realize they don’t have to:

  • accept a lower quality of life
  • waste their life commuting
  • work from a fixed location

Having tested remote work, team members will realize:

⌛ Time

Having gained back commuting time and having had the ability to organize work around their lives rather than the other way around, workers will realize how much better their life is working remotely.

They will have the freedom to spend more time doing things they love, either on their own or the people they care about most.

Workers will find it incredibly difficult to go back to a 9-5 once they have lived the benefits of remote work

❤️ Life-Work Balance

Working in an office limits the opportunity you have to focus on improving your physical and mental health and wellbeing.

Working remotely I find time everyday to workout, eat with family and work on my personal development. This isn't just a nice to have it is a critical part of a higher quality of life.

Workers will find it incredibly difficult to sacrifice their health and well being once they have had the opportunity to improve them while working remotely

⚙️ Flexibility

Having the freedom to work when you are productive will bring massive benefits to workers currently expected to work to someone else's schedule.

Team members who have children or health conditions that require regular medical appointments will find the flexibility to do what they need to do transformational.

Workers will find it incredibly difficult to go back to productivity being measured by time and not output

Remote work benefits are impossible to replicate in the Office


💸 Companies won't see office-space as a good use of capital

One company I spoke to recently spends $3,000 per month, per worker to provide office space. Their 2,000 staff cost them $72,000,000 a year in real estate cost to house them.

The reason that is crazy?

They are all knowledge workers.

On average, they commute two hours every day to travel to a place to do work they could do from anywhere in the world. They do little in the form of collaboration but due to their position, an office is an expectation.

In the past, an office was a sign that a company had made it

Now they are a millstone around the neck of companies. An exorbitant cost with no rational explanation as to why companies should continue to pay for it. Soon, office space will lead to significant questions of economic sensibility.


📈Companies will see remote as a way to retain and attract great talent

In the current economy, companies live and die by their talent. Remote work will lead to the biggest disruption of the workforce in history. Great talent has more control than ever before to dictate terms of employment to their companies at the point they join a company and that will increasingly lead to them demanding to operate remotely.

The smartest people I know personally ALL plan to work remotely in the next decade

The remote workers I know would NEVER work for a company that wasn't remote again

The best companies I know personally ALL plan to hire remotely in the next decade

The remote companies I know would NEVER employ a worker than wasn't remote again

That's what non-remote companies are up against. The best, most exciting companies only offering remote work. Their costs will be significantly lower. Their average talent level will be significantly higher. That married to the fact almost every talented person on the planet wants more remote working opportunities means this is the perfect storm.

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Rick Knowles

Building something new with OdysseyAI | Experienced hands-on CTO & Technical Director

4y

Sorry, but anyone with small children knows the “work life balance is better for knowledge workers when working from home” argument is umm ... questionable

Ricky Smith

Online Business Mentor

4y

Great article Chris - definitely the way forward.

Jen Riley

Account Manager at Blink UX

4y

I’m hoping!!

Linda Lipovetsky, ChFC®, RICP®, CLTC®

Passionate Client Advocate ✅ Trusted Client Success Leader ✅ Financial Wellness Champion ✅

4y

Wonderfully said. I hope other employees take note that teams are working MORE and in some cases at REDUCED salaries during this time. I feel my team is more productive and effective now that our (exhausting/frustrating) commute is eliminated. #thetimestheyareachangin

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