How difficult really is it to get more employees working from home? TeamViewer offers an answer in a thought leadership post.
Around the world businesses and consumers alike are bracing for further coronavirus contingency measures – but can most people really work remotely and maintain that level of productivity?
TeamViewer’s CMO Gautam Goswami takes a look at the issue in a blog post for ExecuNet.
“Working from home has been a growing trend; with COVID-19, it may become a requirement,” Goswami explains. “Unlike prior episodes [of contagion], which occurred in mostly predigital work environments, the outbreak of COVID-19 is happening in today’s highly digitised world.”
Working from home throughout the forecast incubation period (scientists suggest this could be up to 14 days at the time of writing) can help delay the spread of the novel virus, which first emerged in China in late 2019.
This time, he suggests, it’s more than possible for a great many workers – if not everyone – to work remotely, even at home, and thereby avoid not only the spread of coronavirus but problems caused by school closures, suspended transit schedules, closed work facilities and lockdowns of any location where people might gather and infect one another.
In addition, it comes in the wake of long-term changes in the work environment that are facilitating or even encouraging remote working, such as the expansion of part-time or gig economy working where “unconventional workspace arrangements” are standard.
“For more than a decade, the practice of supporting remote workers — particularly including those working from home — has grown among US employers. More than 4.7 million Americans either worked remotely or telecommuted at least half-time by 2018 — more than twice the number who had done so just ten years earlier,” Goswami said.
“Moreover, a study by Owl Labs conducted last (autumn) projected that by 2025, half the American workforce would be working remotely for at least part of their week. As a result, some analysts have projected that by the end of 2020, 19% of the workforce will consist of contingent workers.”
