Remote Work is Going To Keep Increasing, Study Says (upwork.com) 108
Freelancing website Upwork has published its annual Future Workforce Report, which explores hiring behaviors of over 1,000 U.S. managers. It finds: As companies struggle to fill the skills gap, they're embracing agile, remote teams to get work done. Nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of companies today have remote workers, yet a majority lack remote work policies.
Companies have the resources, but lack the policies to support remote work: While companies feel confident they have the resources in place to support remote work, many lack a formal policy. Sixty-four percent of hiring managers feel that their company has the resources and processes in place to support a remote workforce, yet the majority (57 percent) lack a remote work policy.
Companies with work-from-home policies have become more lenient & inclusive: As companies increasingly embrace remote work, they're evolving their work-from-home policies. Nearly half (45%) of hiring managers said their company's work-from-home policy has changed in the past five years, with 60 percent saying it has become more lenient and inclusive. This increased inclusivity is making it easier for companies to find the talent they need. Over half (52%) of hiring managers that work at companies with work-from-home policies believe hiring has become easier in the past year.
Findings indicate remote work is likely to become the new normal: Over half (55%) of hiring managers agree that remote work has become more commonplace as compared to three years ago. Five times as many hiring managers expect more of their team to work remotely in the next ten years than expect less.
Companies have the resources, but lack the policies to support remote work: While companies feel confident they have the resources in place to support remote work, many lack a formal policy. Sixty-four percent of hiring managers feel that their company has the resources and processes in place to support a remote workforce, yet the majority (57 percent) lack a remote work policy.
Companies with work-from-home policies have become more lenient & inclusive: As companies increasingly embrace remote work, they're evolving their work-from-home policies. Nearly half (45%) of hiring managers said their company's work-from-home policy has changed in the past five years, with 60 percent saying it has become more lenient and inclusive. This increased inclusivity is making it easier for companies to find the talent they need. Over half (52%) of hiring managers that work at companies with work-from-home policies believe hiring has become easier in the past year.
Findings indicate remote work is likely to become the new normal: Over half (55%) of hiring managers agree that remote work has become more commonplace as compared to three years ago. Five times as many hiring managers expect more of their team to work remotely in the next ten years than expect less.
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In a global economy it turns out that people get paid closer to what they're worth. For our meat grinder 'warm bodies' work I'd rather hire a voctech student at $15/hr that I can have a plain English conversation with over some outsourced team.
And the ones that actually can cut it, aren't working for $15/hr.
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Re:VERY Remote work. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's because businesses have lobbied hard to ensure that employees are a global market, but that commodities are not. That's what trade tariffs are for, that's what IP laws that guarantee monopolies on certain ideas are for, that's what region coding and anti-circumvention laws are for, that's what intentionally non-uniform safety standards are for.
As a multi-national corporation you can feel free to make your products in whatever country you chose, have your employees in whatever other countries you chose, and pay your taxes is a completely different country of your choice.
As a consumer though you must buy many items only from sanctioned groups in specific countries.
e.g. A company can make my car in Mexico, but I can't buy a car from Mexico, that would be illegal as only vehicles sold in my own country are certified to pass our safety standards, and we don't care about the safety standards of any other country. A company can film a video in India, but if I buy a copy of it sold there it won't play on my DVD player, and it would be illegal to bypass that restriction. The list goes on, and on, and on.
Best laws money can buy.
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'worth'.
I doubt that word means what you think it means.
Re: VERY Remote work. (Score:2)
'citing kind of'
As in, not really.
Whoosh.
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Too bad prices
Don't "remote" work from San Francisco. Without ever leaving the US there are a lot of cheap communities, some with community broadband.
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There are so many industries, I'm probably not in yours. Last position was at $65/hr. Is that up or down for you?
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if your employer expects you to get things done, and you actually get done the things they want, what difference does anything else make.
If your employer doesn't have a good way of measuring your work product , then they have a different management issue that exists if you are in the office or not.
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Says the person posting to slashdot during work hours.
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False. And true...
It really depends upon the individual. It actually takes more effort to be productive from home I think. If the person was a trouble in the office for not communicating effectively, it will usually become a disaster if that person works remotely. You often need to specify clear goals, sharply constrained tasks, and solid deadlines for remote workers. The company also has a responsibility to let the worker know clearly they they are or are not meeting expectations.
For instance, a contra
Re: remote work is a euphemism for slacker (Score:2)
Found the PHB!
Not going back. (Score:3)
I've worked remote since ~2010. I still go to the office occasionally, usually one week a month for all of the stuff I can't do remotely.
I can't imagine trying to shoehorn my life back into the terrible 9-5 mold. The first thing I ask recruiters when they try to poach is if remote is possible and if not shoo them away.
Our house is paid for, I like where we live, my wife likes her job. I'm not playing the "lets drag the family across the country for breadcrumbs and hope I don't get laid off from this new position" game.
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I'm in nearly the same boat as you. I worked from home 90% of the year and travel out of state to random client sites the rest of the time.
I've had job offers from companies, usually for more pay, but none of them let me work from home. So I end up turning them down. It's really hard to beat a 30 second commute from bed to office. Fresh, well made coffee, and a comfortably setup office to my tastes. Best of all is, when I'm done for the day, I have a 30 second commute to home.
really? (Score:3)
With news story after news story about companies cancelling their work from home programs, it this really true?
Don't get me wrong, I think that remote work SHOULD increase, I see no reason to deal with a commute just to be less productive in the office than I could be at home. all while costing the company more money in real-estate and equivalent.
But as long as managers are lazy and prefer to manage by time-clock rather than by worker performance, I'm not sure we can expect to see large strides in this area.
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you can't remote-work a fast-food restaurant.
Unless you're at a McDonald's drive-through speaker [nytimes.com].
Re:really? (Score:4, Insightful)
Most senior managers want to be able to make it happen. The biggest bottleneck is mid-level or junior managers being unable to manage [their reports if they can't see them]. Training of junior staff also becomes harder. An office where everybody but the junior staff works remotely is non-functional.
I want to redefine my role as remote, but getting around the face-to-face culture within our office is hard.
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I've been managing remote teams for a decade and a half. My direct reports are in Mexico, India, and the East and West Coasts of the USA. Frankly it's very straightforward. I talk in real-time to each direct every day, via webconf or phone. People are available in chat or pick up a quick webconf at any reasonable hour in their local timezone. Sure, as a manager I wind up having some calls at 6AM and others at 9PM, but I'm OK with that, especially since I can usually WfH as well. Not spending the time drivin
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How do/did you deal with training?
I have introverted engineers that think writing down a question is a sign of weakness, and are deathly afraid of asking a question over the phone! The only way I can help them is (I kid you not) watching for them to wander near my office and asking if they need any help. (My physically walking around the office has mixed results.). When we establish that they have a question, I end up needing to look at their two (or three) monitors and tell them to bring up different dat
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Except it's not about that. At all.
The reason companies cancel their Work From Home jobs and remove the cubes and o
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You're not making any sense. You say they cancel work from home positions so that they can shrink their real-estate footprint, but people working at home don't require ANY real estate footprint.
As for pissing off people so they'll quit, I suppose that's possible.
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That part reduces your footprint significantly.....even including the folks who come in from home. Typically it's
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I think it's true where I work. I've been there for 6 years now and when I started, telework was something we were technically equipped to support. We had some proprietary Cisco VPN software we loaded on all of the Windows laptops for it, etc. But it was still viewed as something only a "select few" people were approved to do. (Typically, it would be someone like a graphics artist or producer who they knew would probably just quit and go freelance if they weren't given the option to work from home most of t
who did they survey. (Score:2)
I mean , there are 'alot' of positions that will never be romote.
Remote waiter? Remote real estate agent? factory worker? Home builder, gardener, cook.
I mean, not that they can't have a 'remote office', but there is just a lot of work that actually requires a persons hands be in the same location as the work they are doing.
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Remote real estate agent?
Quadcopter - remote agent
Maybe just set up a screens around the house... [youtube.com]
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There was a bitter labour dispute where I worked a while back. The union went on strike, but forgot to tell the employees, they claimed it was a lockout so they didn't need to hold a strike vote (even though everyone could still go to work) Anyway, long story short, the vast majority of the workers crossed the picket line, while a small but very vocal minority picketed.
This was at a telecom company. I remember an incident where I was hooking up a phone line at the top of a telephone pole while a picketer be
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Neither is calling a strike without asking your members.
When, despite the negative stigma, the vast majority of your members cross your picket line, maybe you should re-evaluate your choices in calling the strike in the first place. Never mind that management had to tell the employees that the strike was even happening because the union hadn't bothered communicating it to anyone!
Remember this ... (Score:2)
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Also remember that just because you go to the office doesn't mean your job can only be done from there.
People who are smug enough to think that their mere presence in an office building make them safe from having their job sent overseas are delusional, there's no reason to think you're any safer. You might as well enjoy working from home while waiting for your job to be sent overseas instead of commuting to the office each day while awaiting the exact same fate.
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unless of coarse, you job is security related and requires U.S Citezen ship. I guess Vijay
'could' be a U.S. citizen living in India, I understand that is common enough for IBM employees to be offered the 'opportunity' to move.
In general though there are advantages to being in the same time zone , and or legal jurisdiction as your company head quarters.
Pendulum action (Score:2)
Wake me up whenever this movement settles, please.
Shockingly Wrong (Score:2)
We'll, not getting the posts right this time either. Big companies are demanding more control and restricting remote workers. sorry:
https://www.nbcnews.com/busine... [nbcnews.com]
no network neutrality = ISP can rip people off (Score:2)
no network neutrality = ISP can rip people off You want you VPN to have good QOS then pay for our teleworker add on
Remote work website commissions study... (Score:2)
and finds that remote work will keep increasing. That's big news. It's not like surveys are so easily manipulated by the questions asked that not manipulating them is the really hard part.
Surveys performed at the request of people or organizations with a stake in the results are rarely brokered by a third party to hide the customer and are thus rarely worth the paper they are written on. Yes, I know this is electronic.
Not until H1B and H4 Visas go away (Score:1)
Companies stopped doing W@H since hiring Indians was a cheaper alternative and they figured "remote is remote" as if there is no difference between one tech worker and another. So what if they don't know your language, aren't awake when you need to talk to them, or have shit-standard skills. Bean counting business suit weasels don't care. They'll just pound the table to get "less with more" from the folks left behind.
Moderation is the key (Score:2)
Problems with remote work:
1. If a company goes 100% work from home, they could outsource to India.
2. When a company decides remote work is not working, they make everyone come in full time, massively disrupting everyone's lives.
These issues can both be avoided with a combination of the two - where I am allows for up to 5 days work from home every 2 weeks. This is quite flexible, since you can do 1 week on-1 week off, or alternate days, or any other pattern employee and supervisor agree on. The above probl
India [Re:Moderation is the key] (Score:1)
It's mostly the same here: you get what you pay for, but about a 15% difference. You have to pay roughly 70k in the US for competence. (I know, plenty of exceptio
bad company (Score:2)
So why do we need companies ?
We only need collaboration to achieve big things.
Management is best done by computers and the workers take all the profit.
Once workers accumulate wealth, they won't need shareholders skimming the cream.
Third Wave (Score:1)