With the unprecedented changes brought by the 2020 pandemic, it seems like remote work has been the one of the few saving graces for online learning and working during the pandemic. Even with the reintroduction of in-person events, remote and hybrid work could become a permanent fixture for some companies. For younger generations, specifically Generation Z, who have begun entering higher education and the workforce in droves, this transition into various forms of work has occurred in the beginning of their careers and will probably shape the needs and expectations of both employers and employees going forward. There are concerns about how sustainable or profitable remote and hybrid work can be, especially because many have not had a choice in the matter due to the pandemic. However, it seems to be the right time for more flexible work options to be tested on a large scale and mark a permanent change in how a 21st century workplace operates.
Working in a Pandemic
We may never know what the world would look like outside of the COVID-19 pandemic, but as always, there is a way found to adapt to any circumstances. After March 2020, people attending school and in the workforce found themselves heavily relying on online services to maintain their careers and studies while in quarantine. One of the most popular options, if not the most popular, is online video conferencing such as Zoom, which quickly became the top competitor in its field. And as many would expect, Zoom quickly had to adapt with a skyrocketing number of new users as virtually all Americans began relying fully on virtual formats for almost all safe social interactions outside of the people in their households. According to Wired, all video conferencing tools saw millions of new users: “In April, Microsoft reported that Teams had reached 200 million daily meeting participants and Google said Meet had more than 100 million, compared with Zoom’s 300 million.” [1]. Users didn’t have much of a choice in the major switch to a virtual format, but then again, many people in the beginning of the United States’ lockdowns assumed that the change would be a temporary fix for a few weeks. As months passed, even with some people returning to offices in a new kind of “hybrid” work, the option of remote work seemed too crucial to consider phasing out. It was only confirmed further with the various waves and variants of the coronavirus that in a world where a pandemic can’t be fully predicted, remote work seems to be a permanent option in people’s minds.
Now almost two years later, having a social event, meeting, or class in an online format is commonplace, even if the forced transition since 2020 and its current use have people torn between loving or hating that virtual meeting rooms are a part of a new normal. However, the use of video conferencing platforms like Zoom is far from being a new idea. Zoom itself was founded in 2011 by Eric Yuan who had previously worked on the web conferencing company Webex for 14 years [1]. Webex, adopted by Cisco in 2007, was just a startup when Yuan joined it in the 90s, and it focused on selling its video conferencing products to enterprises that dealt with international calls. It still is a competitor in its niche, but now there are countless alternatives for every need imaginable including but not limited to Microsoft Teams, Google Meet/Hangouts, Skype, GoToMeeting, BlueJeans, and Zoom, of course [1]. Despite the differences and interactivity this exhaustive list of products claim to offer, what remains the same is that working or studying remotely from home will always be innately different from a pre-pandemic lifestyle. Now in a world where video conferencing has become a valid option for both the workforce and for academics, can a fully remote lifestyle be sufficient and is the option appealing?
Work + Life
Gen Z seems to have an upper hand on adapting to the speed of technological advances and the ever-changing social media use trends. Something that comes in hand with growing up with social media is the learned experience of existing and working online. Remote work makes employees and students more connected than ever, but the idea of work being a fully virtual experience may not be what most workers and students want from their work experiences, despite this generation being as “online” as ever.
Slack Technologies, the software company known for Slack, its instant messaging platform made for workplaces, surveyed workers in their November 2021 Future Forum. When survey respondents were asked about their preferences for work flexibility in terms of location and schedules, they found that “Seventy-eight percent of all survey respondents say they want location flexibility (up from 76% last quarter), while 95% want schedule flexibility (up from 93%)” [4]. A large majority of respondents agreed that the location flexibility that is key to remote work was something that they would find appealing in their work life, but a huge majority in comparison values flexibility in their schedules. Remote work can offer both things, depending on the company’s standards and rules defining remote work. But this doesn’t mean that remote work is the only solution. The Future Forum boldly states that “the ‘remote versus office’ debate is over; the future of work is hybrid,” and for good reason, since they report that 68% of the knowledge workers that they surveyed say that they prefer hybrid work [4]. For the category of specialized workers that the forum classifies as “knowledge workers,” their tasks are usually independent, which transfers well to a hybrid setting that allows for both remote independent work and in-person collaboration as needed.
Unfortunately when it comes to education, the same numbers of interest for remote and hybrid work might not carry over. Alexander McCormick, director of the National Survey of Student Engagement says that in higher education, the “dramatic uptick” in fully remote online learning after the pandemic wasn’t surprising, but that he was worried about “the consequences of the pandemic for students’ mental wellness, especially among women” [5]. In fact, some members of the National Council for Online Education (NCOE) believe that this may be exasperated by the kind of remote learning being offered in colleges. In the February 2022 article “Emergency Remote Instruction Is Not Quality Online Learning,” they argue that there is a widespread misconception that current remote learning options that are being used in schools now are, and should be, for emergency use only. Yet this doesn’t immediately rule out having some form of online learning at colleges, according to the NCOE, created after the pandemic created a shift to online instruction. The writers from the council say, with the right amount of experience and time to create courses purposefully designed for students to learn in online settings, “online courses can be as effective as face-to-face ones” [3]. A number of NCOE members agree that it is alarming that some online learning offered at high prices in higher education in the last two years have not been sufficient. But there is hope that remote and hybrid learning can be developed for the populations that need and/or prefer it going forward, especially as professors begin to adjust their curricula to suit the needs of their student body. The council’s quick creation itself is a telling sign that there is a drive to form new conversations and standards about online education policy with their choice in established partner organizations founded in the 90s (OLC and Quality Matters), 80s (WCET), and even going as far back as 1915 (UPCEA).
Economic Changes
The flexibility of remote work gives workers the freedom to work from home, but an interesting phenomenon for fully remote employees is the idea that someone could work from virtually anywhere. Many people that would have needed to rely on living in a big city for their work life can now choose where to live with relatively the same salary, creating the trend of moving away from cities in the US as well as in other countries around the world. The BBC UK reports that small cities and towns are rapidly gaining population which could boost their economies and make big cities less crowded, but this can also distort the housing market in places unprepared for the increase of so many higher-earning workers [2]. An example of the drawbacks, they say, is in the United States’ Intermountain West, “which is home to the three states with the highest growth percentages between 2020 and 2021: Idaho, Utah and Montana” [2]. This growth directly follows the increase of fully remote job positions in the past year as companies have embraced remote work due to high demand and less spending on office spaces as a result. Danya Rumore is a researcher at the University of Utah, founder of the Gateway and Natural Amenity Region Initiative, and is a resident of Salt Lake City — one of the small cities experiencing this phenomenon. As a witness to this increase of remote workers relocating to the Utah city in real time, she says that “this transition can play out in one of two ways. In the more idealistic scenario, the new arrivals plug into the community, while their wealth and resources lift everyone up.” In the scenario she worries may be more common, however, the new arrivals extract from the community, they drive up prices and their purchasing power overwhelms those whose jobs are tied to local companies [2]. As beneficial as remote work can be for some employees, large changes in the workforce like this can have lasting consequences on communities based on where “home” is when working from home. Unfortunately, only time will tell whether the spread of remote workers to less populated cities and towns will continue, especially with hybrid work’s growing popularity. The nature of remote work has always been, in the back of most people’s minds, provisional. Even with all of the benefits the option seems to offer, both companies and workers alike will have to get used to this period of uncertainty before they know whether remote and hybrid work will stick in the years to come.
The Future
Going into the next year of the pandemic, online work is definitely becoming a permanent fixture for some companies and schools, but it is obvious that being fully remote is still not the right choice for everyone and for every purpose. Especially for younger generations with the experience of growing up with constant social media presences, a more connected workplace and school environment is bound to be a part of their futures. However in the last two years, the apparent scramble to reintroduce in-person collaborative work has shown that fully remote work and instruction has missed the mark on what the public actually wants and needs in their future work experiences. The promise of a hybrid workplace seems to be a better compromise for the growing want for flexibility and choice for education and work alike. It will be interesting to see in the coming years how companies and schools aim to adopt hybrid workplaces and how they will integrate accordingly in the economy, but it is clear that this is the right time for a permanent shift in the workplace.
Sources
[1] C. Nast, “Zoom took over the world. This is what will happen next,” Wired UK. Feb. 03, 2022: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/future-of-zoom (accessed Feb. 03, 2022).
[2] M. Johanson, “The small cities and towns booming from remote work,” BBC. https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20220125-the-small-cities-and-towns-booming-from-remote-work (accessed Feb. 03, 2022).
[3] M. of the N. C. for O. Education, “Emergency Remote Instruction Is Not Quality Online Learning,” Inside Higher Ed, Feb. 03, 2022. https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2022/02/03/remote-instruction-and-online-learning-arent-same-thing-opinion (accessed Feb. 05, 2022).
[4] “Pulse survey,” Future Forum. https://futureforum.com/pulse-survey/ (accessed Feb. 03, 2022).
[5] S. Weissman, “A Massive Disruption, a Range of Student Reactions,” Inside Higher Ed, Feb. 02, 2022. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/02/02/how-pandemic-affected-student-engagement (accessed Feb. 03, 2022).
