Similarly, social workplace activities and water cooler chats are finding their online version through employee-driven group chats and virtual happy hours. In fact, BCG’s recent Workplace of the Future employer survey found that companies expect about 40% of their employees to follow a remote-working model in the future. Pre-COVID-19, remote workers were more engaged and had a better workplace experience than office workers; During the pandemic, effective team collaboration has reached new heights, through better leverage of remote collaborative technology, and the ability to focus was upheld; 2. He was asked about the future of the P&C workplace in a post-COVID world. Looking at the broader picture, Covid-19 may prove to be a major tipping point for the digital transformation of the workplace. Investing in remote working will have far-reaching consequences on the way we work after the crisis. In the near future, some organisations will adopt a hybrid-work model, with certain days in the office and others remote, and might align employees’ in-office and remote schedules to create equity. The difference in the pre-COVID remote work numbers and post-COVID plans – and the large number of businesses who moved some or all their workforce to remote during the crisis itself – tells us that COVID-19 not only is a significant catalyst in shifting to remote, but also heavily impacts future plans around remote work. For many industries, work will change drastically within the next five years. This attitude shift suggests that we will see many more software robots in the workforce after the current crisis subsides. From the 1840s to the 1950s, the length of the average American workweek (for manufacturing workers and nonsupervisory personnel) dropped from 70 hours to 40.5 hours. The message was clear: the future of work is not pre-determined, it is up to us to shape it. The remote work wave: An estimated 16 million U.S. knowledge workers started working remotely due to Covid-19 as of March 27; that number is likely much higher now. Letâs explore three common predictions. The concept of work as being something primarily done within the four walls of a company’s office will be regarded as outdated. In fact, a survey conducted by globally research company Gartner with 317 CFOs and business finance leaders found that 74% plan to move their previously on-site workforce to permanently remote positions post-COVID-19. A recent Gartner poll showed that 48% of employees will likely work remotely at least part of the time after COVID-19 versus 30% before the pandemic. Peter Thompson sent a memo to the government outlining a plan for a remote-work visa. By 2016, that figure had risen to 43%. However, that future has arrived sooner than anticipated as many countries, companies and workers shifted to remote working in order to contain the transmission of COVID-19, dramatically changing how we work. Expect remote work to continue. Acceleration of digital, tech, and analytics. ... (74%) of companies plan to shift employees to remote work permanently after the COVID-19 crisis ends. Among this group, the biggest factor driving this permanent change was the cost-saving benefits of working from home â a factor that they have gotten clear insight on during this current outbreak. The coronavirus is forcing enterprises to rethink the way they do business and dust off … Inspiring technologies that can transform your business For individual business executives and teams who are looking to gain a deeper understanding of the latest innovative technologies. In the meantime, here is our current work-from-home forecast: Prediction 1: Remote work is here to stay Many believe that this move towards work from home will be a more permanent change, rather than a temporary one. As the COVID-19 pandemic drives profound societal and organizational shifts, leaders have the opportunity to return to work by designing the future of work, building on the lessons and practices their organizations executed during the … On the negative side, some managers are struggling to maintain high performance from workers who are no longer in close proximity. In fact, among high-paid US white-collar workers, the trend toward 50-plus-hour workweeks has gained momentum since the 1970s. de Bellerive 23 P.O. Because of the pandemic, millions more workers are discovering the joys (and hassles) that accompany working from home. On the plus side, there is more freedom, more flexible hours and more streamlined morning commutes. Ltd South Beach Tower 38 Beach Road #17-11 Singapore 189767, IMD Chemin de Bellerive 23 PO Box 915 CH-1001 Lausanne Switzerland Tel: +41 21 618 01 11 [email protected] www.imd.org, Copyright © 2006-2021 IMD - International Institute for Management Development. On the minus side, there are possibly more distractions and disruptions, and the lack of physical interaction with colleagues could lead to anxiety, grief and even depression. Although the technology to facilitate remote work has been around for over a decade, COVID-19 has forced hundreds of millions of employers and employees worldwide to engage in a sudden, massive, real-time experiment with remote work arrangements. The just released World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report found that more than 80% of employers expect to make wider use of remote work and to digitize working processes. All rights, including copyright, pertaining to the content of this website/publication/document are owned or controlled for these purposes by IMD, except when expressly stated otherwise. The new normal telecommuting may be a bit more permanent than realized, as 74% of CFOs say they expect to move previously on-site employees remote post-COVID-19, … In addition to reducing the number of employees in the office to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, many organizations will incorporate work-from-home aspects into their future frameworks. For many companies, this is the first time where teams are having to collaborate, operate and communicate virtually through the power of technology. The big question is to what degree they will survive the crisis. Also known as “digital workers”, AI-enabled software programs will be “hired” in greater numbers to assist human employees (and sometimes replace them) by taking over certain administrative tasks, as well as “virus-friendly” customer-service interactions. Sixty percent of businesses surveyed by McKinsey in early April said that their new remote sales models were proving as much (29 percent) or more effective (31 percent) than traditional channels. Predicting the future of work is hard when you’re still in the midst of the catastrophe. 1. These assessments, of course, assume that tomorrow’s reality will look like a modified version of today’s which is almost impossible to say. Outside the US, a big victory occurred in 2018, when Europe’s largest industrial labor union, IG Metall, negotiated the right to work as few as 28 hours per week for German metal workers.