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RWS and the RWS logo are trademarks of Beka Business Media When the world first came to a grinding halt, the ability to work outside the walls of corporate offices instantly became a mission-critical necessity. Everyone suddenly had to accept that everyone was doing their best. But as concerns over catching COVID in the office have diminished, the impetuses behind working remotely have flipped, suggest recent findings from Pew Research Center, and the ability to work from home has become an important part of hiring and employee retention efforts. “For those who do have access to their workplaces but are opting to work mainly from home, their reasons for doing so have changed since fall 2020,” said Pew researchers. Back in October of 2020, for instance, 64 percent of employees who were working from home said they did so because their workplace was closed or otherwise unavailable. By January of 2022, that number fell to 38 percent, with 61 percent of teleworkers now saying they “choose not to work from the workplace,” up from the 36 percent who made that choice back in October 2020. In Pew’s 2022 survey, a full three-quarters of remote and hybrid workers who indicate that their workplace is available to them say a major reason why they are currently teleworking all or most of the time is because they “prefer working from home.” An additional 17 percent say this is a minor reason why they are working from home, while just 7 percent say this is not a reason. “The share citing this as a major reason is up significantly from 60 percent in 2020,” said Pew. Concerns about being exposed to the coronavirus was as a major reason for working from home all or most of the time for just less than six in 10 respondents in 2020. That fell to just more than four in 10 by the start of 2022. “There’s also been a significant increase since 2020 (from 9 percent to 17 percent) in the share saying the fact that they’ve relocated away from the area where they work is a major reason why they’re currently teleworking,” continued the Pew study. All the while, a recent survey from hiring software company Greenhouse, which looked at the job-hunting experience of 1,500 people globally, found that 84 percent of respondents are looking or are open to a new job in the next six month, and more than 50 percent claim a position not offering hybrid or remote flexibility was a deal breaker. Lots of those answers likely change when that question is asked in real life, but it’s hard to deny the appeal of remote and hybrid arrangements to the postpandemic workforce. Pew’s recent findings even suggest that appeal is growing. Among those with jobs that can be done from home, 60 percent say when the coronavirus outbreak is over, if given the choice, they’d like to work from home all or most of the time. This is up from the 54 percent who said the same in 2020. Among those who are currently working from home all or most of the time, a whopping 78 percent say they’d like to continue to do so after the pandemic, up from 64 percent in 2020. College graduates and upper-income employees are most likely to prefer working outside the office environment. And make no mistake, Pew’s respondents, as they consider future employment scenarios, resoundingly believe teleworking is working. More than eight in 10 said remote/hybrid work made it easier or the same for them to balance work and life; 90 percent said teleworking made it easier or the same to get their work done and meet deadlines; 86 percent said it was the same or easier to advance in jobs. At a time when job openings outnumber job seekers, organizations have been forced to consider and develop all manner of initiatives, perks and “experiences” that attract and retain employees. For the significant subset of workers who can execute their roles in a remote or hybrid situation and have felt the personal cost savings and flexibility the situation affords, it seems clear that flexible working arrangements often will appear near the top of the list of their perk priorities. Remote for Retention 6 REMOTE WORK SOLUTIONS rwsmagazine.com
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