Remote Work — This is The Future! Right?
Published: 2023-10-10 19:29:58

Remote work… What comes to your mind when you hear that word? For most people the first thought they have about working remotely is usually tech related. Most people imagine developers or designers working on a tech product from the comfort of their homes. Working remotely is however broader than its application in the tech industry.

This article will not try to define remote work nor will it list various remote opportunities. This article will only try to provide a broad view of remote work as well as the challenges one might anticipate as a remote staff within the tech ecosystem.

In the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, a lot of institutions and businesses collapsed. Most people lost their Jobs and those running their businesses ran out of a source of livelihood for a while during the lockdown. During this same period however, a lot of tech companies had a huge break-through. Some were doing crazy numbers in sales, others were launching a new product and some others were venturing into previously untapped markets — and they seem to be doing it at scale. Aside from the fact that the Coronavirus exposed deficiencies and market gaps in institutions which can be bridged by some tech, it helped to trigger a mindset shift in the way people work professionally. This shift in mindset helped a greater number of people conclude that work outside a professional office can be both possible and productive. This has been a “silent debate” that has gone on for a while.

People who have experienced the cruel effect of the coronavirus now see their peers in the tech industry “living the dream”. They have continued their work — and have done so from the comfort of their homes, they had better Job security, and most were earning good money when the entire world seem to be collapsing. “Obviously this is the future!” they must have thought. Are they wrong? No! Tech is definitely the future and will continue to undergo massive innovation in every aspect of global human development. In recent times we have had innovations in the Web3 and blockchain space (with major hikes and “all time highs” of most digital assets) — especially just after the lockdown. Also we are in a period some consider to be an “AI Boom”. So they are right! This is the future! Right? Well stick with me a little longer.

You see, while most people were able to keep their jobs in tech during the lockdown, not many kept it a lot longer afterwards. Most (if not all) major global tech companies drastically laid off their staff — even those that announced massive revenues during the peak of the virus. So if the tech companies are financially profitable and the staff seem to be productive why the layoffs? Are they just being greedy? Were they only delaying the layoffs until after COVID and it all seemed to happen at the same time? Are there some regulations and policies that made it difficult to end most employees’ contracts during the pandemic? Well, I’d like this to be discussed further as I would even love to hear your opinions. But one thing is for sure — these companies would not make a decision that would negatively impact the business. Whatever decision they made was to favor the business in one way or the other — either financially or in terms of productivity. Even if some companies might have made a bad decision out of greed or other negative factors, all these companies would not exactly be making the same decision based on those negative factors.

One “COVID-19 work culture exposé” was that some companies have more staff than they actually needed. With most people working remotely, It’s easy to now see those that are actually working and those that “hide behind their desk” while other people work. Some roles also became irrelevant, or the realization of their irrelevance became more evident. Take Twitter (now X) as an example. After Elon Musk took over the company, one of his major decisions was laying off thousands of staff. Some people thought it was a rash decision which resulted from the messy acquisition of the company, others thought him merely clueless. But he repeatedly mentioned that the decision was motivated by productivity and cost related reasons. Some people speculated the collapse of the social platform due to these “rash” decisions. This is a speculation that seems to have been dismissed by recent successes of the company though.

While it is obvious that the majority of companies would want their staff to work onsite, most staff prefer to work remotely (or so they often say). Some companies have opted for a hybrid work culture in order to balance the scale between an onsite work culture which the company prefers and a remote culture which the staff prefer. Here is a question: Do the majority of the staff actually prefer remote work, or that is what they just say? Why would company staff prefer remote work over onsite work? Is remote work truly the future of global work culture? As much as I would love these questions to be broadly discussed, I will also provide some insights here.

It probably would be insane to think that there is a global association of company staff that decided on choosing remote work over onsite work and thus sent a memo to all of its members to always choose remote work over onsite work whenever they are asked by their employers. Hence just like we previously concluded that most companies deciding to lay off their staff after the lockdown was acting in the interest of the business, we might also want to conclude that most of the staff preferring to work remotely are also acting in the interest of the business. A lot have argued that working remotely affords them a higher measure of work-life balance. They do not exactly have to “bring work home”. They can attend to the needs of the home and as well be productive. Free times they would have ordinarily used for some chit-chat in the office can now be converted into more productive personal or domestic affairs. Others have argued that they tend to be more productive within their comfort zone. Their home being part of their personal space provides them with all the comfort they need to properly deliver on their job requirements. Thus, they do not have to redecorate their office or workstation to look homely or comfortable, they got all the comfort they need in their home. These reasons are all very valid and if they are individually considered, one can quickly conclude that remote work should define the future work culture. But not so fast. Think again, if these claims are true, why would companies still prefer onsite work?

For one thing, we can claim that these corporations are “groomers”. They always preach about company culture, core values and a lot of those HR related jargon that people hardly pay attention to. So these companies want to keep their employees within their defined image, synchronizing the thoughts and actions of their employees. As a matter of fact, employees of an organization are known to use a similar set of words or jargon which eventually define their personalities. If this was the only reason why corporations would prefer onsite work, we could easily give a verdict vindicating remote work and proposing it to be the work culture of the future. But there is more!

You see, most companies’ decisions are data driven and when we analyze the data, the odds do not favor remote work in most organizations. Most companies report less productivity with remote work. Why is that so? Productivity is not just a measure of rate of turnover of work. It also measures quality of work, as well as turn-around time. An optimum productivity performance of an employee will depend on the employee’s ability to utilize all available tools and resources — both tangible and intangible in completing an official assignment promptly. So why is there a drop in productivity when some employees work remotely? Let’s consider some possible reasons.

**Limited Work Tools**: Some work tools required to complete some official tasks might not be readily available for all employees at the same time. If they were onsite, these tools could easily be shared amongst staff. But for remote work, extra effort will be put in place to acquire and use these tools when needed. The company cannot afford to provide all staff with all the tools they need for work individually at their homes. So the staff would have to make their own arrangements to use the required tools. This causes some delays sometimes.

**Distractions**: “I thought we already concluded that there are more distractions onsite than when working from home?” you must have thought. Well we did. But that does not mean that there are no distractions at home. While the distractions in the office are mostly limited to visual or auditory distractions from other employees, the distractions at home are rather personal. Personal, but not an emergency. These are matters that would have been ordinarily ignored if they happened while in the office, or it would have been taken care of by someone else or even postponed to the next availability. Because of the personal nature of these distractions, the employee becomes too invested that they either lose their motivation for work or even completely abandon work for the day.

**Decentralized Operating Expenses**: Ordinarily the employer shoulders all operating costs of a business. These operating costs include the cost of petty items such as stationeries, internet cost, power cost, e.t.c. This factor is not always considered because some employers take care of most of these costs while their employees work remotely, and in some cases, these costs are not always significant because it’s part of the basic amenities the employees enjoy irrespective of the employer’s provision. We are however considering this factor because while for some people in advanced regions these expenses are rather insignificant, or would not be hugely impacted whether or not they work from home, these expenses can be very costly for other remote staff in developing or underdeveloped regions. Let us take for example power. Power is a necessity which is made readily available for most people. Provided that the house is connected to a source of power, there is guarantee of constant power supply. The cost of keeping the power supply would not significantly change because someone in the house is working from home and would need to power a few electronic devices. For these people, there is only a little effect from the decentralized operating cost and they would gladly accept to take care of these small costs as an exchange for the cost of commuting to and from work. On the other hand, consider developing regions such as Africa. In order to maintain power, some African home will need to produce their own power source — either through backup generators or some other alternative power source. The cost of running these generators are mostly the responsibility of the employee in question. If the employee is not home or is not doing something really important, they would rather not have these generators running to produce their own power. They would rather save that cost. But now, they have to work and they have to power their device — they have to shoulder the huge operating cost of working from home. Overtime, these costs burdens the employee to the extent that they might want to alter their work schedule to favor when they are more likely to spend less on power or other huge cost factors. This alteration in schedule thus affects productivity as they may be working within undesirable hours of the day.

Generally for a remote staff to be highly productive, strict discipline is required. This discipline must be self imposed. At home, you do not have a supervisor or manager breathing down your shoulder. You will take that responsibility to hold yourself accountable to deliver on your tasks with the best quality possible. You will also take the responsibility of depriving yourself of the desired “homely comfort” that your house ordinarily provides, possibly shutting yourself out of the entire house, behind closed doors in small rooms or makeshift offices. Not everyone can boast of such discipline, hence we can see why most companies are requesting for staff to return to office so that the company can continue to manage staff productivity in the best way possible.

In recent times, some staff that prefer to work remotely are having a change of mind — not because of productivity or because of business considerations itself but for personal reasons. The office, despite being a place of business and professional conduct, is also a place of physical and social interactions. The dialog between team members, the silent competition between employees, the petty gossips, those boring training and HR organized events, all form part of an employee’s social development and interpersonal skills. These interactions keep the mind sharp and give you a reason to pull through the entire day on days you don’t feel much of yourself. If you are home, working remotely, all by yourself, you mostly find yourself accompanied by your furniture and your devices, and when your computer goes to sleep after a while of idleness, you stare at the screen and see a reflection of yourself — gloomy, withdrawn, tired, and your furniture wouldn’t even cheer you up!