Technology and the Future of Remote Work

Remote work has become increasingly popular in recent years thanks to the rise of information technologies. With cloud-based tools, employees are no longer limited to physical contact with bosses and colleagues and it gives them the freedom to work from anywhere with just a portable device and an internet connection. This allows people to organize their lives around their jobs, whether traveling, taking care of the family or simply for the pleasure of working at home or from a heavenly beach or mountain. There's no doubt that remote working has become a popular option for many employees and business people alike, due to its flexibility and convenience.

With the COVID-19 pandemic, remote work experienced unprecedented growth, making it clear that it was possible for people to work from home and be even more productive. Companies had to adopt this work format almost overnight to keep their businesses running while complying with social distancing guidelines. In addition, they were able to test its effectiveness for nearly two years, which undoubtedly transformed the reality of face-to-face, hybrid and remote work in the world.

Even in the case of Mexico, government bodies, such as the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare (STPS), contemplated adjustments to the regulations, such as the case of NOM 037, which already considers the incorporation of legal mechanisms to carry out teleworking under conditions of safety and health. Companies are even expected to provide tools and infrastructure so that their employees can work from home.

According to estimates by the STPS, around 13 million people are able to work remotely, considering both benefits and risks for which the existence of appropriate regulations is important.  

At the same time people began to work remotely, many benefits were evident, such as increased flexibility and productivity or even higher employee satisfaction. However, in many cases the issue of productivity came under question, as some studies have shown that productivity decreases.

This is the case of a study conducted by The Economist, based on a survey of 10,000 employees of Asian companies, that found that their productivity dropped by up to 20%. Many of us would think that this is contradictory to what we are seeing, because being at home, during the pandemic, many people agree that they have worked longer, dedicating more hours to their tasks. However, as the title of the article in the London publication states, remote workers work longer, but not more efficiently, which does not contribute to the productivity formula as a result of the product generated between the human hours spent.  

Although this could be engraved on a tombstone, this is not necessarily the case  in all scenarios, and many people, especially the new generations, tend to have better results working at home, since the level of concentration is higher, without so much noise or distractions. It also varies greatly depending on the sector and the culture of the organizations. In areas such as technology consulting and systems development, remote or at least hybrid work is a reality that seems to have come to stay.  

The Transition

Remote work or hybrid work schemes, in which people divide time between the office and activities at home, will largely depend on cultural or social change, whose origins date back before the pandemic, although it is clear that the lockdown of 2020 and 2021 accelerated it significantly.

According to McKinsey, in the US only 25% of people worked at home before the pandemic, which rose to 62% during the lockdown and, despite the fact that after this period the percentage will fall again, it will not be the same as before. This is because it accelerated a transformation that we can see from several perspectives. 

One is the search for an optimal balance between personal life and work. The findings surrounding remote work indicate that people appreciate flexibility and autonomy, and it allows them to better optimize their workloads, while on the other hand, they attend to aspects that enrich their personal lives, such as taking their children to school, attending medical appointments and even doing sports activities at “commonly working” times, but which can be replaced by a more extended schedule of activities, in part thanks to the fact that a lot of travel time is usually saved. It is even better and cheaper to eat at home than to go to a cafeteria or restaurant.

At the same time, we were able to observe how remote work encourages the decentralization of large cities, allowing many people to return to their hometowns, or moving to locations with a higher quality of life (air quality, cost of services and supplies, access to larger spaces, among others).

Regarding talent acquisition, remote work has allowed access to the best professionals in their field regardless of their residence. Both domestically and internationally. This has allowed us to have people located in different cities of the country collaborating on projects based in Mexico City, or even in operations in other countries. Critics of remote work argue that if it were mandatory to return to the office again, people would return to big cities, which is partly true, but with the remote model, the best professionals from other large cities can be accessed without the geographical barrier. In addition to the fact that we are living in an interconnected world, there are countries, such as the US, where the demand for international professionals in offshoring and nearshoring models will continue to grow in the coming years, regardless of the local decisions of some organizations. For example, according to IDC, the export business of the information technology industry between Mexico and the US will grow by more than 20% over the next three years.

Another aspect that is driving the transformation is sustainability and care for the environment as companies reduce travel.  

Cost saving in real estate and work spaces and even some supplies needed by staff, such as water, coffee or dining services, also allow benefits at a macro level; not to mention that workspaces can be optimized to make them more efficient with, for example, shared areas or spaces designed for meetings to replace individual cubicles. This, in the productivity formula, is undoubtedly positive. 

In addition, these hybrid environments almost inherently encourage investment in process management, human resources and production platforms based on information technologies, which are triggers of productivity if properly implemented and used. Employees who work under these schemes tend to be more satisfied and, therefore, more committed to the organization.

To achieve this, it is vital to have well-defined objectives and indicators, to have clear labor policies (such as punctuality in meetings, open communication, availability and determination of working hours and their degree of flexibility), and a human resources strategy aimed at retaining talent.

Not So Distant Future
Data from the OECD shows that both workers and management groups believe that working from home will grow significantly in the coming years. “Business leaders also think that the ideal level of teleworking is between the levels registered before and during the pandemic, but closer to the latter: nearly 70% of workers in the knowledge-intensive services sector have this possibility,” the study reveals.

According to this document, manufacturing and construction workers would be less than 20% of workers in remote mode (something relatively logical due to anchors to physical assets or on-site activities), while in knowledge-related services, they would fluctuate by 40%.

It is believed that the evolution of telecommunications and cybernetics will facilitate this process of adapting to remote work. In fact, these tools allow managers to recognize and attract talent to the organization without geographical restrictions, even across borders.

This social and cultural disruption has created a new culture of digital nomads, a pre-pandemic term that made sense to many people, who refused to return to their workplaces, even sacrificing a higher salary.

An article published by the newspaper Milenio warns that these digital nomads are not necessarily young, as one might suppose, but that they are people whose “average age ranges from 35 to 40 years and a large number exceeds half a century. Male nomads are still the majority (69%), but every year the number of women increases. Just under a third of this group is American, followed by Portuguese, German and Brazilian people and a very diverse range of other nationalities.”

It also describes favorite destinations for these new nomads, such as the US, Thailand, Spain, the UK, Germany, France, Mexico, Italy, Indonesia, and the Netherlands, although these people are not looking for countries, but rather cities, such as Mexico City, followed by Guadalajara, Cancun, Monterrey, Oaxaca, Queretaro, Playa del Carmen, Merida, and La Paz, to mention the Mexican cities included on the nomadis.com site.

Remote Risks
Of course, other factors must be put in the balance that do not contribute to this trend. One of them is the idea that if people are not properly organized, they could enter into a sedentary lifestyle that causes physical and even mental health problems. Isolation can not only cause problems of anxiety, but also of lack of motivation and even depression.

The location can also be a problem. Not all people have adequate and adapted spaces to work efficiently. During the pandemic, some people had to work in the dining room or on a small table in a bedroom, without air conditioning, with outside or inside noise and, often, competing with their children's virtual classes.
At home, there are also many distractions that lead workers to rabbit holes, that is, leisure windows that lead them to consume a lot of time to the detriment of their productivity.

The OECD points out that 75% of managers fear that if they work too long from home, the degree of integration and collaboration with their work teams may be reduced, in addition to the fact that this can weaken corporate culture and, with it, lose loyalty to the organization.  

Another factor identified by the organization is that there is a belief that this lack of collaboration works against the company's capacity for innovation and continuous improvement, preventing its evolutionary process and its competitive capacities.

On the other hand, and even with e-learning and virtual reality tools, learning capacities will diminish with employees who are only trained remotely.

And one point that needs to be clarified, and has to do with the deployment of a greater and more robust technological infrastructure (and which was in fact identified as one of the next risk factors in the world during the World Economic Forum), is the greater exposure to cyberattacks.

However, beyond the risks inherent in any paradigm shift, there is no doubt that working remotely offers countless advantages and that the proliferation of hybrid environments is practically a reality. Information technology, at all levels, will play a fundamental role in this transition process. The pandemic proved to us that we are now ready for change. Although it is wise to go step by step, balancing the pros and cons between nomadism at work and closely monitoring business results.  

It is vital to understand that the post-pandemic world has changed. To maintain the competitiveness of our organizations and to attract and retain the best talent, no matter where they are, we will most likely require a work strategy that combines face-to-face, hybrid and remote schemes in accordance with each area and role in the company.

This is an international trend, with local and global competitors who will see remote work as a lever for productivity, profitability, and access to more talent. In turn, it is accompanied by a series of generational changes where flexibility and work-life balance are increasingly important. So being prepared to take advantage of the best of each scheme will allow us to keep them at the cutting edge and evolve with the ecosystem. If we don't allow remote and hybrid work, surely someone else will and we risk losing our talent.