Remote Work: Little Miss Sunshine or The Shining?

Authored Together with Yuri Kruman

So you’re working remotely, are you? Looks like you’ll be at it a while, like most of us not considered “essential” in a physical work location. So may your kids or housemates.

With an ambitious (if forced) social experiment underway for hundreds of millions of us working remotely around the world, it’s as good a time as any to ask, is this Brave New World all peaches and cream or a mixed bag? The answer is, like for most things, it depends.

For those of us used to working from home as entrepreneurs, freelancers, coders, salespeople or employees of progressive, remote-first companies, this is nothing new. On the one hand, there’s the nominal freedom to choose your hours, set up your day as you choose, save time and money on the commute, wake up late, Netflix and Chill later. But I digress.

On the other hand, there’s a dark side to working remotely. Unless you’re robotically disciplined or a productivity guru, have a perpetually sunny disposition or an introvert in an introvert’s perfect job, you will likely run into headwinds of procrastination, poor diet, too little movement, Brooklyn parking tickets (maybe that’s just one of us) -- and anxiety and loneliness.

Aside from progressive employers that bake remote work into their organization’s planning and performance management, before the COVID-19 crisis, most had only tangential exposure to the idea of remote work until last week. Some may have allowed an occasional work-from-home day for certain employees. Others may have even paid for a WeWork desk for their people. But most have viewed it suspiciously, as a fig leaf for all sorts of unproductive behavior.

Both sides have their points. We’ll let a thousand others sing the praises of remote work. But beyond the rah-rah-rah, what are the dangers lurking beneath the shiny surface of working from home, discounting kids out of school and an anxious spouse asking you to do the dishes?

The Collar Gap

Forgive the party spoiler, but remote work isn’t for everyone, especially not for service workers. And there’s the rub. The ugly, growing elephant in the room is the wage gap between full-time and remote workers. We are seeing an even wider gap develop between white collar and service workers since the latter simply can’t work from home. Aside from further increasing wage and wealth inequality, the economic impact of the COVID-19 crisis will likely open up pockets of social unrest, especially in over-priced urban areas where the service economy is already being hit from closures of restaurants, bars, museums, theaters and the like. Many service businesses will simply never recover or re-open, given lower risk appetites and decreased demand, meaning many service workers will have to retrain and upskill in order to find jobs in other industries.

Social Distancing or Mental Health

A friend said it best:

“I wish people would stop calling it "social" distancing. It's physical distancing we need to do. The social part cannot be eliminated and, in fact, is fundamentally essential for us all to carry on.”

As large chunks of the world economy are now working remotely, loneliness and mental health concerns are becoming magnified. With more companies forced to make work remote during the pandemic, employees’ mental wellbeing will become a top priority for companies to address. Inevitably, employers will seek to offer (inexpensive, easily configurable and monitored) technology to employees to increase connectedness, community, and social wellbeing, all critical to business continuity, employee retention, and productivity.

We(Won’t)Work

Doubts about the coworking business model were already red-hot with WeWork’s pre-IPO debacle just a few months ago, with SoftBank taking an 80% hit on the company’s valuation, with mounting losses. The COVID-19 crisis, with its new social distancing, cost-conscious norms, is already having Millennials make their own coffee and avocado toast at home, on a budget, hardly willing to splurge on hotdesks and (anyway closed) coffee shops. Plus, it’s a seamless transition to Netflix and Chill by evening, which can’t hurt. 

Now that remote work has become the new norm, it’s hard to imagine having to go back to leaving the house each morning, commuting on a crowded subway or bus to work, anxious about catching a deadly virus or serious bug. And if (when?) employers make it work well, why bother spending all that over-head on multi-year leases, utilities, coffee and stocked kitchens? 

Less Mobility

With the peak in layoffs still to come and the accelerated shift towards the gig economy now in progress, workers will need more varied skills to remain marketable.

The “flex,” digital economy will favor those “who are equipped with the skills and sensibilities to learn constantly, thrive in diverse workplaces, display emotional intelligence, communicate effectively, and lead inclusively. An education system that equips our rising generations for the future must be built to cultivate these attributes,” said Dan Porterfield, President and CEO of the Aspen Institute.

Higher education will need to pivot accordingly. Specifically, majoring in a select subject or skill set will not be enough and the need for a holistic liberal arts-style education will become necessary.

Once bitten, twice shy

As if COVID-19 itself weren’t enough, there are the long-term economic effects for which to plan. If, like many others, your company’s supply chain was disrupted first by the trade war with China, then by the virus, you will certainly think twice now about having your products made overseas. As such, it’s only logical to expect that for every supply chain disrupted by the lockdown of China, more investment will flow into developing industry and skills in workers at home (in the U.S.). Those U.S.-based multinationals hardest hit are already diversifying, bulking up their in-sourcing of production and talent over the coming years to minimize reliance on China.

Change is no longer just the only constant. It’s been thrust down the throats of both employers and employees in the most crudely evolutionary sense. The dance of language and psychology we’re used to in managing our work relationships will adjust to flow better through Zoom and Slack, phone and email. 

There won’t be any more water-cooler conversations with Gus from IT, no gossip-sharing with Susan down the hall. But then, did we really even enjoy that, in the first place? In our Brave New (Remote West?) World, we’ll likely all be judged by our personal and team metrics and KPIs collected by our AI/ML overlords watching our Slack channels, reading our Zoom transcripts and analyzing for mood changes, productivity per minute and billable seconds. 

But at least we’ll have our freedom to dance between the (indoor) rain drops without pants on, to be (or rather, dream about being) digital nomads, to find new ways of creating rapport across continents and time zones. 

And if we play nicely in our new digital playpen, we’ll fully deserve the future of work now suddenly upon us. That is, as long as we wash the dishes and feed the kids lunch.

Originally posted on Medium: https://medium.com/@lynn_3037/remote-work-little-miss-sunshine-or-the-shining-4c4f85a98c7