Current State of Remote Work 2023: The Evolution of the Work from Home Model

“As of 2023, 12.7% of full-time employees work from home, while 28.2% work a hybrid model” …. It’s also estimates that, “by 2025, 32.6 million Americans will work remotely.” (Forbes). I think it’s safe to say that the pandemic changed the workforce as we know it but what do management teams think and where is it headed? Certain CEO’s like Bob Iger are announcing that employees are expected to return into office at least four days a week soon and Drum recently reported that companies who “put up with [remote work] for a long time are finally getting sick of it.” Although some report being more productive at home, the data that companies are getting is proving otherwise. Here are there reasonings:

1.     Remote work is hard for new hires: the onboarding experience seems to take hold better in person than virtual they say.

2.     People work less: everyone says that they work more but some data sets are showing otherwise. People tend to work 3.5 hours less per week when working from home. However, the remote workers argue that they have a better work-life balance and are more focused when at home. Quality of work is much higher.

3.     Productivity is very low on days when everyone works remotely: certain CEO’s believe that when their whole team is remote, they are less productive overall. While we can’t speak for an entire group of people, most are just the same if not more productive.

It seems that higher ups are trying to remove remote work from the equation but we think that their efforts won’t pan out. People say that if they aren’t offered the option of at least hybrid work they’ll find a job that will. If bosses want their employees back in the office full-time they’ll have to make a stronger argument. We just don’t think that the “data” they have is feasible enough to require full-time in office employment with all the remote work benefits. Not only is it mentally better for employees, it is better for our planet. We love our remote business structure at Locomotive and we won’t be changing it any time soon.

Creativity & Working from Home

We read an interesting article in Adage yesterday about how remote work may be hurting creativity in the workplace so we decided to delve into this idea a little deeper. Creative collaboration can push projects to the next level, but does it matter if these collaborations are in person or digital? Some say that those stating creativity is suffering from at home work is just a cop out for the uncreatively bad work they’ve produced, but could it actually be true? Well, a study was done on this and the results are very convincing. According to this article from CNN, results showed that digital meetings can actually drain creativity and that it is actually easier to come up with creative ideas in person. This is how it was determined. The college study used 602 participants and divided them into pairs. They were given every day things and asked to come up with new and creative ways to execute them. Some of the groups were virtual and some were in person. Performance was measured on how many ideas they came up with, the novelty of those ideas and value of the ideas, which was ranked by other students. Eye tracking software was also used and they found that the virtual groups spent more time looking directly at their partner on the screen. Those that were in person gazed around the room more. Also, the virtual pairs remembered less about their surroundings when asked about it later. This suggests that the virtual space narrows cognition and narrows focus that can inherently hurt creative formulations.

It’s not surprising that remote work could hinder creativity since part of creative inspiration comes from in-person collaboration. 68% of employees say that they have found communication with colleagues more difficult while working remotely (CROOW). Less in person engagements at the office equals weaker relationships between employees. One could see why less collaboration happens with at home work. The need for collaboration IRL is key for creativity. It promotes things, such as brainstorming, story-telling, open-mindedness and active listening all hone in on the creative mind. It also allows for a more open-ended focus that is necessary to get in the creative head space. At Locomotive we love remote work and encourage it. That being said, our team already knew each other and had many in person interactions before they went fully remote, so their employee bonds were already awesome. The concept of remote work is fairly new since the pandemic and we think there are benefits to both. However, we believe that there should be some in-person meetings every week in order to promote relationships and collaborations between employees, especially if the field is creative in nature and the employees are still getting to know one another.  

Work Schedule Flexibility

 The pandemic literally changed how we all view work. It increased the work-life balance by 43% of people surveyed by Qualtrics. We all know that the old-school mentality bosses are terrified that people will take advantage of this flexibility. However, there is this cool little thing called gift exchange theory that is responsible for 55% of people working more hours remotely than at the office. This is where people feel grateful for the gift of flexibility, so they feel obligated to work longer and harder for receiving it. They also want to keep their work schedule this way since they like it, so they work harder to prove that they can still get the same job done at home, maybe even better, then being at the office. We thought this little tid bit was useful and interesting. It seems like all sunshine and rainbows, right? Well, no, it’s not that simple. There are pros and cons to every situation and this one is no different. Let’s first talk about the pros for employees and employers.

Advantages for Employees:

1. Better work-life balance

   1. Self-care is easier (mental and physical)

   2. Pursue passions outside of work

2. Reduced commute/lowered carbon footprint

3. More control over schedule

   1. Work in the hours where you feel most productive

4. Child care isn’t a problem

5. Autonomy

Advantages for Employers:

1. Boosts employee morale

2. Build trust through employee autonomy

3. Lower turnover

   1. Recruit and retains better talent

   2. Positive brand image

   3. Employees will take fewer sick days

Disadvantages for employees:

1.     Work life and personal life boundaries are blurred

2.     Difficult to bond with other employees

3.     Disconnect between at home employees and in office staff

4.     Less structure

Disadvantages for employers:

1.     Some employees are not self-motivated without supervision

2.     Compressed work schedules decrease client availability

3.     Difficult to create a work culture

4.     Harder to arrange meetings

While there is no right or wrong way to approach flexible work scheduling, we believe that there are more positive results that come of it. Locomotive is a fully remote team that gets it done in many parts of the world. Our employees are happy, able to work on other things and they make sure that every job gets their maximum effort! This may not work for every company and we understand that so we hope that this list can help you decide if that style of business is right for you! 

Hybrid Work & the Freedom of Choice

We recently did a poll on LinkedIn to see how many people would prefer to be back in the office. Did they feel more productive there or working from home? The results showed that out of the 21 people that voted, 90% said that they prefer to work from home and feel they get more done. This is a hot topic right now since a lot of businesses are demanding that employees come back into the office full-time. What’s interesting is that the pandemic shifted employee mindset vastly into what social scientists are calling “The Great Reshuffle.” Workers now have a new “worth it” equation and 53% of employees are more likely to prioritize health and wellbeing over work than they were before the pandemic (Work Trend Index Report 2022). What is also interesting to note is that most of Gen Z and Millennials that entered the work force during the pandemic right out of college haven’t even been inside of an office yet and it seems they prefer it that way. 58% are considering a shift to hybrid work in the year ahead and 56% are considering to shift to fully remote (Work Trend Index Report 2022). As expected, management everywhere is under pressure to make the choice to either A.) lose employees if they require full-time in person employment. Or, B.) offer hybrid work options to entice people to stay. Josh Bersin, business analyst and adviser specializing in talent management and HR issues stated that, “Generally speaking, what most companies tell me is that working together comes easily and people really enjoyed being back together, as long as they don’t feel forced to show up when there’s no real reason to be present” (ADAGE). So, what it really boils down to is employees seem to not want to feel like their being (work) forced into coming to the office. Now, there are some benefits and draw backs of hybrid work systems. Let’s discuss the benefits first. Hybrid work allows employees to feel more power in their roles. This gives them the choice to decide when and why to come into the office. It also allows for more employee overall work-life balance and wellbeing. Being that Locomotive is a fully-remote agency, we understand the importance of both. Now, let’s talk about some drawbacks. Remote employees have fewer work friends and feel less included. The work cultures have taken a hit with fully remote work. Another draw back from remote and hybrid work is digital overload due to lack of structured hours and increased number of online meetings that would typically be done in person. With these few things in mind, there are solutions that can be determined in order to keep hybrid work environments thriving without suffering the disadvantages. Managers will have to take strong roles in creating new norms for the office. They will have to establish guidelines to see what works best for everyone. Here are some of our tips to making hybrid work, work. 

1.     For what reasons it will be important to come in?

2.     Create relationship building events for employees.

3.     Create quiet spaces at the location to promote productivity when employees are at the office.

4.     Reduce the time spent in meetings.

Managers and CEO’s must realize that employees have lives of their own. It’s easy to want to micromanage when they work from home but giving them the space, they need to do the work will give them the freedom to give it their best on their terms.