With the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the need arose for many companies to allocate their employees at home office, with the aim of maintaining activities, while preserving the health of professionals. However, a lot is asked if when vaccination prevails, employees will feel safe to return to the business environment again. Will it be a trend for companies to discard remote work and return to traditional methods?
Apparently, this is not the future envisioned by experts who study professional trends. Research indicates that the workplace, as we knew it, will no longer exist in most companies. Not just because employees don't feel safe, but also because the pandemic has challenged conventional thinking about work routines.
One of the surveys was released by the recruitment consultancy Robert Half, which shows that for 95% of the executives interviewed, the rotation between home office and office, seen as hybrid work, is seen as permanent in the employment scenario from now on. The survey also showed that, compared to the period before COVID-19, there has been a significant growth in the number of companies that offer remote work option. From April to December 2020, 80% of jobs managed by Robert Half sought positions 75% to 100% from home. In 2019, only 5% of the vacancies managed by them met this characteristic.
Now the challenge for business leaders is to create a world of work that will keep employees productive. Working remotely has traditionally got a bad rap, this is because many employers believed their work team would be easily distracted at home, where their managers couldn't keep an eye on their direct reports. Remote work was very rare a decade ago. Normally, working from home was only available as a special arrangement to accommodate families in specific cases, but the use of telecommuting technology has advanced to the point where some companies are thriving with fully remote teams.
The pandemic has also shown that remote work can help prevent the spread of disease, helping companies avoid lost productivity and protecting public health. In fact, it was not uncommon for companies to allow their employees to work from home once or twice a week, but today more and more companies are adopting full-time work-from-home policies. One of the most useful and used technologies for remote work is video conferencing. Video meetings help out-of-office employees see and talk to each other in real time from anywhere. This technology has advanced so quickly that many companies have even eliminated traditional offices and instead run their businesses from coworking spaces to accommodate their largely remote workforce.
But there is a long way to go, even with the pandemic many companies have still resisted this work trend for various reasons. Some leaders still fear their employees' lack of commitment and productivity, while others haven't invested in technology to support remote workers. However, studies predict that remote work software, such as mobile work tools and virtual reality conferencing, will become the preferred form of communication. AI will likely also play an important role in remote team management. These advances tend to make companies more comfortable. The transition to managing a remote workforce can be daunting, but with the right technology and dedicated employees, it can be an ongoing and beneficial process. Instead of resisting change, organizations will tend to look for solutions to improve their remote work policies and capabilities.
This is because, according to Robert Half, “global changes in relation to remote and hybrid work, as well as the generation of revenue from e-commerce, are influencing hiring priorities in Brazil. Adopting more data-driven planning and operational processes, coupled with transformative strategies for accelerating talent tracking, designed to build more resilient, flexible and agile workforces, remain imperative as we navigate the pandemic.”
Many factors still on the rise contribute to shaping the future of remote work, but rather than resisting change, it is advisable that organizations seek to improve their policies and resources, identifying the best moments to carry out activities, defining new work routines that will help to maintain the results and even creating key performance indicators to monitor the expectations and results of employees.
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