Last Updated on October 30, 2024 by Owen McGab Enaohwo
Working remotely was a trend even before the Big LockDown, but that pandemic event could have boosted the art of working from home. Many office employees could continue working from home thanks to fast internet connections, personally owned laptops, and a swiss-army knife of online working apps. In contrast, many other hand labor workers like drivers just had no job performance. Still, as of July 2021, in rapid decline, trends began to shift again when everyone was allowed out of their homes and back into their company offices.
Image Credit: financesonline.com
According to Hireahelper.com, remote working in May 2020 rose to 35% but then declined to previous levels of 13.4% by July 2021. Then it began to increase back very slightly as if retaking the old trend before the Pandemic. This renewed trend could have also been due to the fear of the worst Coronavirus variant at the time, the Delta variant.
Now, let’s take a look at 2022. In a year of international geopolitical conflict in Europe, worldwide inflation, international supply chain issues, and uncertain economic recovery are remote work growing or declining?
1. Remote Growing Slow With Hybrid Approach
The digital tech industry is the leading industry-leading to remote culture within companies. A January 2022 report from Bloomberg states that remote working has increased 18% in this industry compared to 2021. Roles that have embraced remoteness the most are engineering and product management. The expectation is that one-fourth of high-paying jobs will be remote in America. Even if the Pandemic ends ultimately, this won’t stop this trend.
Companies have already adapted their company culture to a remote ecosystem. Yes, some are doing part-time office work remotely from home, like Google announced it would begin applying in April 2022. They call it the hybrid week schedule. Work 3 days in the office and two days at home. Companies like Amazon, Apple, and Adobe have adopted a similar approach by allowing office staff to work from home two or three days a week. So hybrid is the new trend for big headquartered tech companies.
It makes sense for big companies that had previously invested heavily in their physical locations to keep employees working at the office. Still, newborn tech companies can fully embrace remote.
2. Small Tech Companies Are Fully Remote
These are smaller and office-free companies born in the remote connection era. Why even hassle with rent costs when everyone already has a comfortable home to work from? Just provide a home-office perk package and keep employees working on their flip-flops.
Leading tech companies that are now fully remote include Civis Analytics, a big data company that helps companies and governments understand and engage consumers.
Dropbox is not that new, but the company has remained small and remote while still designing apps to improve business workflow.
Happy Money is one of the new financial digital companies that focuses on helping clients manage their debt and investing smartly instead of drowning in debt all the time. The list of similar companies goes on and on. We begin at 13.4% by 2021, but the trend is expected to grow year by year.
3. Greater Employee Wellbeing
Remote work is great for many people, for example, people who have more than one job, women working during their pregnancy, and so on. Not only is it convenient but also saves time and money. But remote work does not come without its downsides, and loneliness is one of the biggest concerns, along with difficulty in communication and collaboration, receiving emails, calls, and tasks at odd hours, and distractions at home, among others, which makes employee wellbeing priority number one..
Companies’ fast solutions implement well-being and mental health apps, yoga classes, and meditation.
In a recent study by Pitchbook, Mental Health startups grew in investor funding from $1.6 billion to $1.37 billion in 2020.
4. Freelance Platforms Regain Interest
The keyword here is “regained interest” because while freelancing is proliferating, sites like Freelancer and Fiverr have declined in employer interest due to the amount of un-prepared professionals that flock into these platforms and perform poorly to tasks.
Regardless of this fact, thousands of people worldwide did rush to freelancing jobs when they lost their regular job during the pandemic. Upwork claims users in their platform grew from 53 million in 2014 to 59 million in 2020.
5. The Era of Video Communications Begins
The present generation has had a blast typing, messaging, and using emoticons. Well, say hi to micro video-messaging with tools like Tool making it easy to record and edit short videos to provide concise messages. This has been perfect for HR departments communicating company updates without employees wondering if the short emotionless words mean something terrible. Video can transmit your emotions and composure while providing suggestions to a shy worker. You can find and choose an online video platform to share the created video.
Then there is Zoom and video conferencing. Without Zoom, humanity wouldn’t have survived 2019-2020, not thanks to Skype and its old tech. In addition, cloud call center solutions have also emerged as essential tools for businesses to manage remote customer service teams effectively. In contrast, new ventures like Loop lurk in the back with new virtual spaces that combine the workspace of Slack with the video conferencing of Zoom. That only makes us wonder what Microsoft and Meta have to offer in the next few years by creating the VR Metaverse for the workspace.
About the Author
Lorena is an SEO Marketing Specialist and does Content Marketing at Porch. She is passionate about fitness, wellness, and caring for the animals and the environment. Her hobbies are listening to music and spending time with her family and her dogs.