What is the future of remote work really?

Sooooo soooo many articles are coming out about the future of work. Most of them share insights into remote work and how this will play out in 2021 and beyond. If you clicked on this, you are likely interested in thinking about and considering what will come to pass over this next year and beyond, so here are a few other good articles on the topic to tap into:

1. Forbes: "What Will The Future of Work Look Like In 2021?"
2. LinkedIn: "The 'Future of Work' has arrived: 12 Predictions for HR in 2021"
3. Ladders: "5 predictions for the future of work in 2021"
4. McKinsey & Co: "Future of Work"
5. Gartner: "Prepare for the Future of Work"

Recently Upwork published the results of their "Future of Workforce Pulse Report" where they shared these details from having surveyed 1,000 hiring managers:

• Currently, nearly 57% of teams are working remotely at least part of the time and remote work is getting easier as time goes on (according to 68% of managers), as only 5% of respondents said it was getting worse. Nearly 42% of teams are working fully remote.
• By 2025, 36.2 million Americans will be working remotely, an 87% increase from pre-pandemic levels.
• Now that employers are more comfortable with remote work, they are more likely to tap freelancers to fill talent gaps.
• 1 in 4 Americans will be working remotely in 2021, so while individuals will gradually return to the office, a significant share will remain remote in the near future.
• The number of remote workers in the next five years is expected to be nearly double what it was before COVID-19.
• Increased productivity and flexibility continue to be key benefits of remote work.

An additional point raised in this Bloomberg article, was the issue of pay cuts. As people are allowed to move away from locations to work from somewhere else, many companies are looking at implementing "localized pay" models, where someone moving into a less expensive location would get a pay cut. If this is seen as a win-win situation for employees and companies and "the exodus to second cities and exurbs becomes permanent, it has the potential to improve corporate balance sheets, remake labor markets, and profoundly reshape the American landscape." Careers can continue, companies can save on salaries, bonuses and office space and the reverse of the urban boom continues on into 2021 and beyond.

Lastly, our friends at AIRINC produced a recent benchmark entitled, The Future of Remote Work and COVID-19's Impact on Mobility which shared that 86% of respondents anticipate that remote-work requests will increase in 2021, while only 34% of companies report currently having a remote-work policy. Read through their 5 reasons for why companies should consider adopting a formal policy. Having a policy, whether or not you want to actively promote remote working or not, will help to reduce the compliancy risk of getting into a number of situations that could have been avoided.