The adoption of remote work was already growing at a very incredible pace in the last few years. The Covid-19 pandemic and the restrictions imposed worldwide ended up increasing the speed at which companies adopted work at home policies.
Companies and industries started to not only adopt their new remote work reality but also did so in record time. They have also realized that their teams and businesses benefitted a lot from the new remote set up. Companies started to see this not as a short term restriction but as a long term opportunity in an expanding digital world.
As a result of this, the world saw most companies such as Twitter, Shopify, and Dropbox announce that they will remain remote or they will become more accommodating in their view of working from a specific location after the pandemic.
2020: The year of remote work
From March 2020, when most countries in the world started to introduce restrictions, there was a corresponding increase in search of work from home questions in Google in the united states.
March 2020 not only saw an increase in the number of searches related to remote work but also an increase in the number of articles and blogs that were published concerning remote work, meaning that there was an increase in the demand for information on this topic and there was a corresponding increase in articles resources and guides that were published about remote work.
Remote jobs
Many companies and industries made remote hiring their default way of acquiring new workers; this is evident in both remote job searches and published remote jobs data.
Up to the start of October 2020, the top jobs that have been considered remote by most people included software development, business and management, marketing, SEO, and project management. The majority of these jobs were full time while a small number being part-time and project-based.
Transition experience
The transition to remote work by most companies has been, to the most part, restrictive compared to the flexible nature that remote work offers. Most of the companies did not have the communication and collaboration policies that are needed to have productive remote work.
Regardless, these companies were able to overcome these initial challenges. Most organizations expect to use remote work or a hybrid version because of the opportunity they saw in this shift.
The switch vs. what you expected
According to most people, the switch was better than expected and most of the challenges that have been witnessed can be attributed to the restrictions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and not due to working from home.
