I think the big picture is that all working arrangements, including blended arrangements, create winners and losers. This was true before the COVID, it will be true after.
I have a hunch that there might have been a trend towards remote work even before the COVID, but it was happening gradually under the radar, people had a choice based on their choice of job, and could arrange their lifestyles and workstyles (making up a term) to be more or less compatible. Of course companies that paid more, could also demand more of their workers, including inconveniences of commuting and office life.
I think the deal with the pandemic was how sudden it was. My work group agreed to clear out of the office, and we were gone that day. Managers didn't know what hit them, and had to re-imagine their own jobs.
It strikes me that we are still coming out of the phase where the situation was forced on us, but we haven't figured out long term who the winners and losers are going to be in the future. It will be interesting to watch certain people: The ones who are strongly motivated to advance their own careers, and see what workstyles they choose for themselves.
As a data point to the above, GitHub was almost fully remote as early as 2012.
Plus, "telework" has been effective since the late 2000's. People might say "yeah but there was no video conferencing back then" to which I reply that I worked at a large bank in that timeframe and 99% of all interactions with people not physically in our location were over the phone.
Pre-covid, my wife and I were musing that my job would likely be fully remote within a decade. This has certainly pushed the timeline closer.
Recently changed jobs to a company that is adamantly opposed to remote working. However the compensation was too amazing to give up, and aside from the anti-WFH bit, is otherwise my dream job. Goal is to get into a fully remote company within the next five years, even if the compensation is lower.
Indeed. I find it funny how we see a big push to return to office these days. I've been in 'hybrid mode' for years before the pandemic. Sometimes fully remote and sometimes with irregular visits to the office if there was an actual purpose.
I have a hunch that there might have been a trend towards remote work even before the COVID, but it was happening gradually under the radar, people had a choice based on their choice of job, and could arrange their lifestyles and workstyles (making up a term) to be more or less compatible. Of course companies that paid more, could also demand more of their workers, including inconveniences of commuting and office life.
I think the deal with the pandemic was how sudden it was. My work group agreed to clear out of the office, and we were gone that day. Managers didn't know what hit them, and had to re-imagine their own jobs.
It strikes me that we are still coming out of the phase where the situation was forced on us, but we haven't figured out long term who the winners and losers are going to be in the future. It will be interesting to watch certain people: The ones who are strongly motivated to advance their own careers, and see what workstyles they choose for themselves.