Remote Working on the Rise

Working from home has been a growing trend for the last few years with more companies allowing workers to telecommute in order to accommodate schedules, or even asking employees to work from home to alleviate office space needs and to accommodate remote workers.

“Regular telecommuting grew 140% in the past decade, more than 10 times faster than the rest of the workforce.”

-Global Workplace Analytics

Now with covid-19 acting as an external force to move all companies to a remote work model, the question is what will the future look like? Will more people than ever want to continue working from home? And can the infrastructure support a workforce that is entirely remote?  Why are home internet networks failing to keep up with the current surge in people working and streaming from home?  How are home and business internet networks different?

Remote Working isn’t just the future, it’s already here.

Remote working has grown over 140% in the last 10 years and there is no sign of this trend stopping.  More workers than ever believe that schedule flexibility is increasingly important as part of job benefits.  A Gallup poll on the State of the American Workplace found that “More than half of office workers (54%) say they would leave their job for one that offers flexible work time.”  Working remotely is on the rise across most industries as employees are cutting down on commutes enjoying flexible working hours.  More organizations than ever are offering the ability to work remotely and have flexible work time in order to attract and retain skilled employees.

Employees Working Remotely 43%

Employees Working Completely Remotely 20%

Organizations Offering Flextime 44%

Source: Business2Community

Remote work is also proving beneficial to the organizations, with remote workers having higher engagement and satisfaction with their jobs.  According to the Gallup poll “All employees who spend at least some (but not all) of their time working remotely have higher engagement than those who don’t ever work remotely. And the tipping point for optimal engagement has increased dramatically — from less than 20% of time to 60% to 80% of time working remotely.”

“All employees who spend at least some (but not all) of their time working remotely have higher engagement than those who don’t ever work remotely.”

US workers are demanding more work from home and flex time jobs saying they experience less stress, higher job satisfaction and increased productivity with remote work.  According to the 2018 Global State of Remote Work the two biggest reasons for working remote are to avoid a commute, and for enhanced productivity and focus.

Remote working has been steadily growing over the last decade and will only continue to do so in the future.  As quarantines and stay at home initiatives sweep the globe with the threat of Covid-19, we are being forced to embrace the remote working model.  Companies with systems in place to accept remote working are in a better place than those who have no model for remote employees in place.

For information on whether our infrastructure can handle an entirely remote workforce, and the consequences of Covid-19 quarantines on internet networks see parts two and three of this article.