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In a warehouse environment, remote work is limited to office tasks. Obviously freight handling requires workers to be present. During the covid pandemic, we discovered that many office tasks could be performed on a remote computer. As a result, some office employees realized that they could work from home most of the time, and sometimes even all of the time.
While remote work may have been a shock to older employees, the younger folks have taken it in stride. In financial jobs like public accounting and banking, some workers routinely report to the office only one or two days a week. Empty downtown parking lots provide visible evidence that workers are not in the workplace. One company designed a new corporate office with no dedicated work spaces. Even the chief executive works from a temporary table rather than a private office.
Business analysts debate whether the remote work transformation is harmful or healthy. Is the lack of teamwork and information sharing a blessing or a curse? The debate can continue, but there is no sign that remote work is disappearing even as many businesses move toward bringing workers back to a central location. Those executives who tried to force the entire staff to report to work every day can’t really get away with this behavior in our current talent starved environment.
Like it or not, remote work is likely to remain part of the corporate culture.
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