Remote work with Dr. Chen Wang

What does your research indicate about remote work and emerging trends?

Remote work has long been discussed as a family-friendly benefit offered to employees to balance their work and non-work lives, even before the pandemic. Therefore, it has been considered, for a long time, as something that benefits employees but incurs costs for organizations. Employers are especially worried about the potential reduced productivity and performance of employees who work remotely. 

Research that I am conducting with a team, however, suggests that there is a very compelling business case for remote work. Remote workers often feel more autonomy, control, flexibility and decision-making latitude over their work. They tend to be more satisfied with their jobs and have better job performance. Remote workers also experience lower levels of burnout and are less likely to quit. Overall, remote work is generally effective with no major downsides when relevant data is considered.

What are employee expectations regarding remote or hybrid work?

Employees generally expect greater flexibility with their work, including when, where and how to complete their work. The flexibility gives employees a sense of autonomy over their work and actually allows them to be more productive and efficient. At the same time, remote employees will not want to be micromanaged. 

Employees also expect appropriate support and resources to complete their work. Working remotely means that employees may not be able to simply turn around and ask for help from their coworkers. They may also feel isolated and out of the loop of information. It is important for leaders and organizations to establish effective communication channels to keep everyone in sync. 

Employees will expect equitable treatment. Just because they do not work in the office (on some days), they should not be treated differently compared to colleagues who work in the office, especially when it comes to work-related opportunities, such as promotions or being assigned important projects. 

How are employers responding to remote work and a “new normal” in terms of employee expectations post-pandemic?

Employers are definitely seeking out work arrangements that make sense in today’s environment. 

Managers are typically tasked with ensuring that their teams achieve specific goals, and the traditional way of maintaining quality and quantity of work is for managers to be more hands on. Managers may feel that they need to see their employees working most of the time, and find it difficult to relinquish control. Some organizations have come up with strategies like monitoring their employees through video cameras or using online check-in systems, but these methods significantly counter one of the biggest benefits of remote work—giving employees a sense of autonomy. Employers will have to think about more appropriate and effective ways to assess employee performance. Perhaps the goal is not simply to see how many hours employees have worked, but to focus on the quantity and quality of work accomplished. 

Another very interesting finding from our research is that remote workers tend to feel isolated and lonely. This is not at all surprising. When employees work from home, they no longer have water-cooler chats or coffee breaks with coworkers, and these informal social interactions can really help build relationships. Lean communication media (text, email and phone) is common for remote employees and does not contain all the information—70% of communication happens outside of just words through body language, facial expressions and tone of voice. Even with the use of video calls, which is the closest approximation of a face-to-face interaction, we tend to jump straight to the point of the meeting and avoid “wasting” others’ time with informal conversations. Organizations are exploring different ways to strengthen the feeling of connection between employees and their supervisors, coworkers and subordinates and will continue to do so. 

As we come back to a “new normal,” organizations also need to make more effort to understand employees’ needs and preferences. One of the potential happy mediums could be hybrid work, but it is very broadly defined—it could range from coming to the office a few times a month to several days a week. Some organizations aim to bring all employees to work on the same day/s so that they have face-to-face interactions, while others intend to bring employees in separately so that they share a work desk and come to the office on different days. The former may create high overhead costs especially considering the days that no one actually comes to the office; the latter helps with reducing overhead costs, but it may thwart the purpose of having social interactions at work.

Some organizations try to seek employees’ input by sending out surveys asking employees about their preferences regarding the plan to return to the office and the form of hybrid work they would prefer, while others leave the decision to teams and supervisors to decide how and when employees will work in the office vs. at home. This is reasonable to some extent, but it can create equity and fairness issues. Some employees who prefer to work from home may feel compelled to come in the office because they do not want to be “out of sight, out of mind” with their leaders. Ambiguities and uncertainties remain in the process of adapting to a new normal, and a one-size-fits-all solution does not seem to exist.

In your opinion, do you think remote work will be a long-term shift in work environments for employees?

Remote work had already been widely adopted even before the pandemic started, but the pandemic definitely accelerated the speed of adoption. More and more organizations recognized that remote work can help organizations save millions of dollars in daily operating expenses and overhead costs. It also provides huge advantages to both employers and employees by removing the location boundary; employers that had limited labor pools can now acquire talent from other geographical areas, and employees can also choose a location that they prefer to live in. 

A recent survey from Apollo Technical showed:

• 92% of participants surveyed expect to work from home at least one day per week and 80% expected to work from home at least three days per week. 

• 81% of those surveyed believe their employer will continue to support remote work after COVID-19.

• 59% of respondents said they would be more likely to choose an employer who offered remote work compared to those who did not.

• 23% of those surveyed would take a 10% pay cut to work from home permanently.

Upwork’s Future Workforce Report from 2021 suggests:

• 36.2 million U.S. workers will be working remotely by the year 2025. This is an 87% increase from pre-pandemic levels.

• 61.9% of companies are planning more remote work now and in the future due to being pushed into remote work during the pandemic. 

These are compelling statistics that indicate remote work is going to be popular and even expected by many employees in the future. 

What does data tell us about productivity of remote teams?

One of the benefits of remote work is that it saves time on a commute. We all have limited physical and cognitive resources that we use every day. By saving time on commuting, many employees are able to redeploy the time to getting work done, which could help improve their productivity. Others might choose to dedicate the saved time to personal well-being—whether working out, meditating or simply sleeping better—which gives them more physical and emotional energy to use on their work. Working remotely also means that there are fewer interruptions, which allows many employees to better focus on their core tasks. 

Leaders also play a very important role in managing remote teams, especially teams that are dispersed across geographical locations and time zones. Leaders are the main facilitators of information exchange among team members, and they also need to make sure to keep everyone involved when making critical decisions. Research suggests that when leaders build strong relationships with team members and communicate with team members more frequently, those employees are more likely to exert influence on decision making, which ultimately helps team innovation. 

What do trends in remote work tell us about today’s work environment in general?

Numerous employees probably never anticipated that they would work from home—or enjoy working from home—but now that they have done it, they realize that it is doable and offers many benefits. The trends that we see from recent surveys and statistics suggest that a large proportion of employees do expect or prefer remote work, or at least hybrid work. Many indicate that this helps them cater to their family life, reduce stress and burnout, save time on commuting and even avoid unwanted interruptions. Remote work also helps bring jobs to employees who may have challenges working in a central office, such as employees with disabilities or chronic conditions. 

Many organizations struggle to retain talent, or are experiencing low levels of engagement, loyalty and commitment among employees. To a certain extent, the trend of remote work also shows that more and more employees do not think of work as the most important aspect of their lives. Many employees, by working remotely, realize how much they have missed out on spending time with family, watching their kids grow up, or tending to their own physical and mental health, and pursuing their passions outside of the workplace. 

How do you incorporate current news regarding the labor market into the classroom?

I enjoy starting classes with a short discussion about current trends in the workforce and how they relate to the topics we discuss in class. I like presenting students with recent industry reports and survey data and discussing the implications of them. I find it particularly important to present opposite viewpoints on any topic and encourage them to see both sides of the coin, and I encourage them to always think critically and not take any viewpoint for granted. Oftentimes, students share opinions based on their own experience and observations—they are so insightful, and this helps everyone in the classroom, including me, learn.