Verified by 
COVID-19 has certainly foisted the idea of remote work into the mainstream—at least temporarily. However, for a lot of workers, it has created, to borrow a line from John Cleese, a hovercraft full of eels. By this, I mean our hovercrafts (lives) are now full of all sorts of eels (demands) that weren’t there before.
Prior to the recent outbreak, it seemed everybody and their brother conducted a survey on the state of remote work. If you don’t believe me, see here, here, here, and here. One thing they all pointed out was that remote workers generally love working remotely. There are some challenges, of course, but most remote workers are pretty happy with their work-life interface.
As of March 2020, you may be able to throw all those statistics out the window and start over. The COVID-19 outbreak has caused many companies and educational institutions that didn’t embrace remote work to implement such a work arrangement under duress. They may have had some tools in place that permitted off-hours connection to the office or school, but many have had to create a patchwork system to allow for most or all employees to work entirely from home.
I have no doubt that many organizations have done an admirable job, but I also have no doubt that many employees have encountered significant challenges from the abrupt change to their work environment. Added to all this is that a lot of those who might now be classified as remote workers (either temporarily or permanently) also have the added demands that come from managing the remote learning of their children (I suspect many of those who were already working remotely never expected how many more demands this might place on them).
I’ve heard anecdotally that some people who’ve been forced into this new world of remote work absolutely love it—fewer meetings, more productivity, and no commuting stress. I’ve also heard anecdotally from others that things have not gone as well (e.g., no home office to separate work from non-work time, not enough internet bandwidth for everyone in the home, not used to being so isolated from co-workers).
Many claim the changes we’ve been forced to undergo will result in a “new normal,” and I’ve heard some predict this new normal will bring remote work more universally into the mainstream. There are, however, reasons to be skeptical of this conclusion.
First, many companies that didn’t offer remote work options for employees had to make quick decisions to identify and select tools they didn’t currently support so that this new work arrangement could function well enough. I suspect that companies that did an effective job in this transition will become more accepting of remote work, but those companies that struggled mightily may actually end up becoming less accepting of it.
Second, employees who have been forced into a remote work situation have had to do so under less than optimal conditions. Rather than being able to plan for how to make remote work feasible, these employees had little time to put in place a routine that works for them. Many of them also had the additional challenge of a spouse and children having to adapt to the same sort of work/learning environment. Some have likely done an excellent job of managing this transition, but some have likely struggled quite a bit.
Lastly, systems tend to snap back into place like a rubber band. Unless the current remote work situation continues long enough to cultivate changes to the way organizations accomplish work (as opposed to simply the ad hoc revisions to policies and procedures we see occurring in many workplaces), then it is likely that when the lockdowns end, most organizations will simply revert back to their traditional way of doing things.
So, will the coronavirus produce a net gain or a net loss for remote work? It’s probably too early to know for sure, but I suspect we will see some positive movement toward greater acceptance of remote working, but not as much as most remote work advocates would hope to see. Only time will tell, though.
If you’ve been forced into a remote work situation, what has been your experience? What have you learned? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
