55% of American workers want to work from home three days or more per week, while 87% of American executives are reconsidering their real estate strategies.
The writing is on the wall for teleworking, and for increased flexibility in work scheduling. Nine states are positioning themselves as remote worker hubs by offering economic incentives for people in high-skilled jobs to move there. Ford is now allowing 16% of its workforce to work from home permenantly.
Rather than raising wages and benefits for their workforce, Amazon is investing massive amounts of capital in new robotics, in theory to make the workplace 'safer.'
Businesses have to adapt to the new reality, and they are using capital and virtual technology to solve for geography, and for labor shortages.
It will be interesting to see this play out over the next few years - how, for instance, will a company based in Oregon handle taxes for teleworkers based in Maine? Or based in Indonesia? What will happen to wages? Will they still differ by geographic area, or will they level out as employers hire a more geographically diverse labor force? Will teleworking policies, such as the one in my company, call ony for remote workers to live within the state? And how will the emergent digital twin technology change things?
How will the legal system handle Worker's Comp? And what about Unemployment Insurance?
On a more personal level, how will office etiquette change? Will thoughtless people STILL schedule virtual meetings back to back, or will we come to expect a half hour between virtual meetings, so we don't get Zoom exhaustion? Will we still get to collaborate in person sometimes with colleagues? And what about meetings? Virtual? In-person? Hybrid?
Will conventions stay virtual or hybrid? And if so, what will happen to convention centers?
How will we repurpose all of the increasingly empty office space?
Lots of moving parts here, folks!
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