So, You Say You Want to be Permanent Remote?

Over a full year ago, many of us were sent home to work remote by our employers because of a paradigm shifting disease, COVID-19, that began sweeping across the nation. The transition to working from home was fast and furious and many people had not contemplated it as a possibility until the reality of the COVID-19 situation was at our doorstep (along with all of our work from home gear).

While some people and organizations didn’t skip a beat and adapted with no issues; others struggled with complications ranging from a lack of team connectivity, technical issues and a work-life balance that was thrown out of whack. One thing we have learned though, is that there is no one size fits all approach that works across the board for every company or every individual.

Some have relished this opportunity to work from home with our pets seamlessly substituting for office mates. Others can’t wait to return to the normal office setting with in person meetings in their familiar corner seat and their favorite cubicle mate just 10 feet away, ready to go on the usual 11 AM Starbucks run.

Many companies now find themselves in a bit of a limbo state, ultimately deciding if they will be full time remote, full time on site, or a hybrid combination that many large companies are adopting. Tech giants such as Amazon, Google & Microsoft have all recently announced tentative plans to get back to the office.

In fact, Microsoft began rolling employees back to Headquarters in a limited capacity on March 29th and they plan to keep a more hybrid approach to their workplace moving forward. The company anticipates part time work from home to be a standard for all office employees moving forward.

Google recently announced their timetable to return to the office as well. All employees who prefer to work remotely can do so until September 2021. From there, employees who still wish to work from home would have to apply to do so. The announcement appears to send a straightforward message that although some employees can still expect a more flexible work environment than before, most will be back in the office.

Apple just announced a $1B campus in North Carolina that will hold 3,000 employees. Why would Apple be making such a monumental investment in infrastructure if they planned on having employees working remotely long-term?

Another tech super-giant, Amazon announced that they will “return to an office centric culture as our baseline.” There is no set-in stone date for the return, but they anticipate Fall as the target timeframe to wrap up the back to the office transition as employees begin trickling in this month. While a handful of large companies cut office space during the pandemic, Amazon signed leases for millions of additional square feet to beef up their office space.

The feelings are mixed for Amazon employees as some have even gone to social media to express their displeasure with this decision to go back to the office. On the flip side, the business owners of Seattle area welcome this news with open arms as this could bring back many of 60,000 employees based out of Seattle offices.

According to a study by Indeed, in which 616 IT Professionals based out of the U.S in the tech sector were interviewed, a whopping 95% would continue to work from home if their company allowed it. Increased flexibility, lack of commute and a better ability to meet home and family responsibilities were cited as the main driving factors in this overwhelming preference to have the ability to work from home.

The same study by Indeed stated that 60% of the surveyed IT professionals planned to look for a new job within 6 months of the interview. Among the individuals who did not plan to look for a new job, 45% of them stated that they wanted to see how their employer emerges following the pandemic outbreak.

While most of the tech super-giants have announced their tentative plans to return to the office, Spotify appears to have the most flexible approach as of now. This summer they will launch “My Work Mode”, which will allow employees the option to work remote, in the office, or a combination of the two.

The Spotify approach runs contrary to some hybrid or full-time in-office theorists that believe this long-term approach could lead to issues with future career trajectory, a lack of team collaboration and even potential unforeseen hurdles with integrating new hires.

One of the core beliefs to Spotify’s approach is that “giving our people more flexibility will support better work-life balance and help tap into new talent pools while keeping our existing band members.” They also state that “having a flexible approach is a great advantage and a jewel in our talent attraction.”

As the tech workplace modality continues to evolve, it will be interesting to see if companies will be forced to adopt this same remote work method to compete for top tech talent. Or will things return to the hybrid or full-time in-office style setting? Many questions still linger, but like many others, I’m extremely curious to see how companies and employees continue to adapt to the ongoing changes in the workplace.