However, that may not be necessary, as remote workers make an average of $19,000 more than their in-office counterparts. Offering hybrid and remote work options may benefit companies that want to retain top talent. Gallup found that employers benefit from a larger talent pool, better employee value proposition, and less turnover.

Those shifts are larger than what Gallup has measured for U.S. adults as a whole. Perceptions of remote worker productivity have shifted slightly since Gallup first asked about it in 1995. U.S. adults are more likely now to think remote workers are less productive than on-site workers, while fewer believe remote workers are more productive. Still, the largest share of U.S. adults, and a higher share than in 1995, believe remote workers are just as productive as on-site office workers. Employers should be aware that different groups perceive and experience remote work differently and consider how flexible working fits with their diversity, equity, and inclusion strategies. Remote work gives people more options for where they live, reducing the necessity to live near large metropolitan city centers to maximize career potential.

Employees See Many Advantages to Remote Work

They basically moved to Mexican surf towns and just did everything remote for a year and learned to surf or run a DJ business. “I know I’m never going to make enough money to live off it, so I’m still coding in the day on Java.” So, you know, there are other places, like Thailand, Mexico, etcetera. It’s not going to work in aggregate.” As we’ve seen, post-2020, it’s turned out to be much better than pretty much anyone thought, including me. I mean, if I wasn’t positive on it, it’s hard to think who was positive enough. But very few people—a few insightful companies like Automattic or Upwork etcetera that were fully remote even prepandemic. If you watch a football match on TV, there’s like ten, 15 cameras in a stadium, and they rotate between them to get a great view.

global remote work statistics 2020

However, it should be noted that 53% of remote employees reported that they were working more hours than when they were in the office. According to a Remote co survey of 200 full-time remote workers, 40% of respondents believe unplugging after work hours is the biggest challenge remote workers face. That is a difference remote work statistics of $440 per month or $5,280 for a year. It has also been reported that businesses lose about $600 billion per year to workplace distractions, an additional cost that could be avoided by adopting remote work and guaranteeing employees’ productivity at home. I don’t think it’s so negative in the bigger sweep of history.

Key remote work statistics

Other advanced economies are not far behind; their workforces could dedicate 28 to 30 percent of the time to working remotely without losing productivity. Your business now has a remote workforce with different
needs, and companies that will ultimately succeed will
embrace and benefit from it. It’s time to rethink the way
you work, and rethink the products, tools and strategies
currently in place, or need to employ to better support
remote work and hybrid teams. We
know that remote work can be as, if not more,
productive than being in-office. And we know that
employers need to pay attention in order to maintain
employee productivity, and to continue to retain and
recruit top talent. During COVID-19, workers are navigating the transition
from the office to the home, all while discovering the
benefits and challenges of remote work.

Professional sectors will be most affected, as the greatest share of their jobs have seen extended remote work already. And these employees expect to retain options to work from home at least some of the time. As has been noted, remote work is not an option for most in goods-producing sectors, as well as many in-person service sectors. However, even in these occupations, there has been some remote work during the pandemic and although it will be from a smaller base, we expect a little bit of that flexibility to be retained as well. Shares of remote workers by occupation are shown in Figure 2. About one-third of those in management, business, and financial occupations or professional occupations did work from home on a typical day, compared to 15% of those in service occupations.

Remote Work Persisting and Trending Permanent

— Forty-five percent of full-time U.S. employees worked from home either all (25%) or part of the time (20%) in Gallup’s September update of its monthly employment trends. These figures are unchanged from remote working rates in July and August, signaling that U.S. companies’ return-to-office plans remain on hold. Remote work almost certainly will not fall back to pre-pandemic levels. Pre-pandemic estimates found that about one-third of work can be done remotely without major losses in efficiency, close to the same number of workers who moved home during COVID-19. Many workers and employers have had to learn how to implement remote work this past year.

And it’s true for minorities across multiple dimensions. And what it tells you is, if you get tough and force folks in five days a week, you can imagine who’s most likely to quit, and https://remotemode.net/ that’s costly for DEI. I won’t spend too long on it, but if you look at who’s most keen to work from home at least one, two days a week, it tends to be minorities in the workplace.