I’ve been an advocate of remote work from well before it became popular and widespread. I’d always been aware of the lucky, tiny, minority who could work from home but it wasn’t until I read Mike Elgan’s 2007 article on the New Bedouins that I began to see it as an achievable goal for more than a small segment of workers.
The idea has always been controversial and remains so today but the idea clearly has a lot of momentum and is gaining traction, especially among tech workers. The naive view is that companies are crazy to resist remote work. After all, they save on renting and maintaining an office—a considerable expense—and their employees are happier and more productive. Of course, when you look deeper the situation is a bit more subtle. Not everyone likes working at home. Some people—as the micromanagers fret—really will goof off, and some business just don’t lend themselves to work-from-home. And, of course, the IT security problems that companies face are exacerbated by supporting remote workers.
Now, sadly, we’re in the middle of a large work-from-home experiment. Companies no longer have a choice. Workers no longer have a choice. A significant number of us are working form home. So how’s it working out? Zippia surveyed over 500 people on their experience with the experiment.
The results are mostly what you’d expect. Half of the respondents said they’d like to continue working from home even after the COVID-19 crisis is over but most of them thought their companies wouldn’t allow it. Forty four per cent of the respondents felt that they were more productive while working from home. One of the results that surprised me is that baby boomers were much more in favor of remote work. Three quarters of the older workers wanted to continue working from home and felt significantly were more productive doing so.
Take a look at the Zippia article for more of the details. They don’t show the cross tabs but they do breakdown some of the results by age groups. It’s an interesting survey and it will be interesting to see what happens in the long term.