Over the course of the last few months, in light of the pandemic, there has been a move by many companies to switch their operations to an online format. With employees working from home, the question has to be asked: how long is this going to last?
As of now, many companies have either set the calendar end of 2020 or mid-year 2021 as their end dates for working from home. However, according to CNN, tech giants such as Twitter and Facebook are reportedly allowing some employees to stay home permanently now or in the near future. For the most part, remote work hasn’t been a horrible experience, and some of the benefits have left companies wondering if they should allow their employees to remain at home permanently. Here are a few of those key benefits.
Less Overhead and More Flexibility
One major annoyance smaller sized tech companies and startups have to deal with are large overhead costs. Technology is developmental and often requires expensive laboratories and buildings to keep the company up and running. However, what if the actual corporate building wasn’t necessary?
That’s what a large number of tech companies are seeing now. Restrictions have loosened up across the country over the last few weeks and some engineering-based roles have been allowed to operate normally. Jobs such as finance managers and accountants are still remote, but tech developers are back in their labs.
If companies can continue to cut down on the overhead cost by only operating one building (the labs) instead of two, then they may choose to stay remote.
Shifting Towards a Tech Revolution
As a whole, technology is leading to another revolutionary period. Artificial intelligence and machine learning are changing everything about the world faster than anyone expected. A number of jobs that existed before the pandemic may not even be around in the coming years. As covered on Career Karma, many employees are taking up trade schools to develop new skills in tech as it’s the direction the workforce seems to be heading.
Most of these up-and-coming tech jobs can, truthfully, be done without a person sitting in an office. The number of people vying to become web developers has been on the rise and web development bootcamps have emerged as a result. This shift is directly due to the fact that the workforce and industries around the world are rapidly changing in what they need and do.
There’s no way to predict every single change that will occur, but this pandemic may just be the first stage of disruption the workforce is going to experience. With traditional jobs on a decline in favor of tech jobs, it wouldn’t come as a surprise to any company if a large number of jobs simply stayed remote.
Diversified Workforce
A major benefit to companies working remotely is the new access to talented individuals from all across the world. When working in one area, companies were previously limited to a pool of applicants around their headquarters, with minor exceptions for those who relocated. Now, however, companies can source talent from all across the globe.
This is a new lifestyle for potential employees and those who have worked this way in the past, such as myself, Marco De Groen, could have a competitive edge considering this prior experience. Fields such as freelancing have begun to skyrocket over the last few months as more and more people are realizing they can work anywhere in the world from the comfort of their homes.
Conclusion
Working from home is becoming far more normal than ever before. In the grand scheme of things, remote work will probably not permanently stick for all employees of tech companies. Administrative jobs and more traditional roles, however, may see a permanent switch to remote work. Many positions at tech companies are engineering-based and require employees on-site, but if there is no need for an employee to be there, then they could certainly continue working from home. Companies such as Workday and Oracle have streamlined systems for inter-business communications, so it’s not out of the question. As always, the future remains to be seen.
