Laura Billings - Flickr - Creative Commons
The current global pandemic will impact remote work.
The consensus seems to be that it will have a mostly positive effect, and it will accelerate our transition from working in an office to working remotely. I am a little skeptical of this optimistic view. While I do believe that remote work is the future, I think the virus will do more harm than good for the remote-work movement and could potentially slow our transition to a remote-first world by up to a decade.
Remote work has tremendous advantages:
Reduced commute time
Ability to be online whenever/wherever
Ability to access global maxima talent pool rather than just local
Reduced office expenses
Potentially happier workforce
Lots of flexibility
The virus has undoubtedly led to a considerable bump for remote work in the short run. It is a mechanism by which we hope to minimize the spread of the virus while remaining productive; we are all making a sacrifice to stay inside and flatten the curve. However, given the sudden and shocking manner in which remote work is being deployed and scaled across companies, I fear companies that were previously nibbling their way to full remote work are currently being forced to wolf down the whole enchilada. And that may be a recipe for lots of indigestion. Metaphors aside, remote work is going to suffer from a considerable drop in its NPS (Net Promoter Score) as a result of coronavirus.
The following are some of the reasons I have identified:
1) Employees will be frustrated as a result of being thrust into a remote-first world with little to no support or expectations around performance and management expectations
2) Many managers are not sure how they will measure the performance of direct reports and how they can set adequate benchmarks
3) There is a danger that employees will associate their remote work experience with their coronavirus experience because both are happening at the same time for many new remote-first employees
4) Also, let us think about the bandwidth challenges with remote work tools given the enormous volume of users at once. I have already experienced latency issues with Slack, Zoom, Google Hangouts, and even consumer product likes Whats App and Messenger
5) Most people have not optimized their home for the remote-first world. This may especially be true for younger workers in large cities where they are often living with roommates in relatively confined spaces.
6) Remote work supplies are running out because everyone is trying to optimize for remote work at the same time. I was trying to buy a webcam the other day on Amazon, and it was not going to arrive until May! And I have heard of people struggling to ship monitors and other supplies as well.
Those are just a few reasons why I believe companies will be hesitant to expand on their existing remote work population. Many companies may be left with a bad taste in their mouth because of this forced experiment. That unfortunate first impression may have a lasting and chilling effect on the movement overall.
I think the "flatten the curve" concept can be applied to the remote work movement as well; particularly if we consider it on a company by company basis. Currently, most companies are designed to support a certain percentage of their employees working remotely for some of the time. There are a few companies (mostly startups) that have built a remote-first workplace from day one, but this is not the default for the largest and most influential companies in the world (think Fortune 500). Therefore, their workflows, tooling, management, and internal processes will be overwhelmed when the entire company is working remotely for an undefined period of time.
No company prepared for an event like a pandemic. Furthermore, expecting companies to pivot on a dime to something as operationally rigorous as running remotely is a tall order to ask. Productivity will no doubt suffer in many instances, and even if employees like the added flexibility of working from home, I fear that companies will be reluctant to take it up at scale.