Is Remote Working Here to Stay?
Nobody could’ve predicted what the twentieth year of the twenty-first century would bring to us humans, and still fewer expected it to last till the twenty-second year.
Enough has been written about the viral outbreak, but something unexpected came along with the pandemic. Something that tested every tenet companies had laid down for their employees. Something that cracked the stone tablets of business commandments. Something that stretched the very fabric (pun unintended) of corporate reality itself - people actually getting work done from home without managers or pants.
Companies determined to keep themselves afloat while being hit with barrages of blockades by governments did the unthinkable - they trusted their employees to get the job done without managers looking over their shoulders. It took us a better part of a millennium, but now as an employee, you are free from prying eyes on your screen, free from snide remarks about when you take your lunch, and most importantly - free from pants.
The Great Pants Exodus
One of the most decisive moments in my professional life was during this pandemic when we were working from home, pants didn’t matter. Like some sort of divine deliverance, we were led across the sea and to the land with no pants. For the first time, people could log in to work without having a battle royale every morning with other people on their way to work. People could keep to their corporate-up-top and party-below style during meetings.
But now, two years later, our corporate overlords want us back on our hamster wheels inside cubicles at the office. So, is this happening? Will we be shepherded back into the corporate ranch?
Factors Influencing the No-Pants Movement
While it has been in the interest of some corporations to get people back into offices, many people (and their PJs) aren’t going to take it lying down. A huge number of people just don’t want to get back in a monkey suit. And when I say many of them, I mean enough to call it the Great Resignation or the less impressive version, Kevin Malone version, The Big Quit.
Many experts say that the Great Resignation will lead to the Great Reshuffle. No, I’m not making this up. Like anyone will tell you, churn is good. A good ol’ reshuffling is good for the system because it breaks established pecking orders and gets the gunk of lazy people out of the system.
Back to the issue at hand, people don’t want to get back into office. To me, this makes sense because my function as a writer and manager is not impaired by being remote. I can get just as much done or, sometimes, more (no office small talk and other HR-related shenanigans). And I’m glad to see through mass resignations that people aren’t backing down.
Remote Working Is Here to Stay
Industry experts and gurus have predicted that remote working is here to stay for many years to come. For companies, the message is simple - get used to the new normal of having people working at home, at least with a hybrid setup if not fully remote, or lose their employees.
Corporations banking on the Hail Mary of a “Return to a pre-2020 Normal” will end up disappointed at best, bankrupt at worst, or likely both. ― Me
Like me, I bet you’ve seen hundreds of CEOs smugly throwing around words like “evolve,” “adapt or die,” and the famous “oh, I took a 5% cut to my zillion dollars as a bonus while the company stock tanked.” Well, time to pull up those corporate pants of yours and put your money where your LinkedIn quote was.
Here are a few positive signs for our no-pants legion -
Big names like Goldman Sachs and Chase have relented and announced flexible work-from-home policies for their employees.
Forbes is predicting that remote work will increase into 2023. I'm keen to believe them because they've got more stuff right than wrong.
More than 64% of employees in our neck of the woods (yes, the rigid Indian job market!) have reported that they're working from home several days during the week.
Even Elon Musk, when he took over Twitter, said he would end all working from home in due course. Good ol’ Muskie, who’s used to getting what he wants, had to throw in his Tesla-branded towel when it came to canceling remote working. This isn’t hating on Elon - I love what he’s done and doing for us by pushing the envelope of technology. But something about the proletariat coming together to show the one-percenters their true place on the food chain gives me good chills.
The tl;dr is that companies are slowly changing their view about employees working from home. Forcing employees to report to the office is slowly but surely becoming an "old way of doing things," according to Global Upside CEO Ragu Bhargava.
All this spells good news for the people like me who are looking for a more mobile workplace and want to be associated with a brand rather than freelancing. Remote working (and pants in our wardrobes) are staying where they are for the foreseeable future, at least for some of us.
Here's wishing everyone a Happy New Year and also a pants-free twenty-three!
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