There’s a 90% chance that you are currently reading these words from home if you’re in the U.S. As of today, Business Insider is reporting that 90% of America’s population, or about 297 million people, are under some form of shelter in place or quarantine. And on a global scale, a March Gartner survey revealed that 88% of global organizations have now adopted remote work policies.
It’s worth noting that the world was already making a shift to remote work prior to the COVID-19 crisis. A study by Global Workforce Analytics, a research firm focused on remote work, revealed that from 2016 to 2017, remote work grew 7.9%. Over the last five years it grew 44% and over the previous 10 years it grew 91%. But still – despite those growth numbers – Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) reports that only 5.3% of U.S. workers, or about 8.2 million, worked full-time at home in 2018 (per the U.S. Census Bureau).
But now that there are hundreds of millions of people working from home, one of the biggest questions people are asking is: Is this increase in remote work only temporary, or will working from home become the new normal?
Kate Lister, president of consulting firm Global Workplace Analytics, firmly believes that – even for those who were new to remote work until the pandemic – there will be a significant uptick in adoption of working from home once the crisis is over.
“My best estimate is that we will see 25% to 30% of the workforce working at home on a multiple-days-a-week basis within the next two years,” Lister told IBD.
Larry Dignan of ZDNet is also convinced that COVID-19 has accelerated what will surely become the future of work:
“The coronavirus scare may just accelerate changes in work already in play. Collaboration has relied more on video. Travel bans may retool sales and marketing practices as companies realize maybe those cross-country flights for drinks and dinner don’t deliver economic returns. And if most of the workforce can work from home without productivity loss, it’s going to be hard to justify commercial real estate costs,” Dignan writes.
“Simply put, the coronavirus scare may just show us a better way to work. How enterprises navigate the coronavirus and changes to work will be telling. One thing is certain: The coronavirus is likely to mean the definition of business, as usual, will change.”
Here at Cameyo, we agree that a significant percentage of the people currently forced to work from home will continue to do so once this crisis is over – IF their organizations have the tools in place that enable them to continue to be just as productive from home. If people can access all of the business-critical applications and tools that they need to do their jobs from home, then we believe that a certain percentage of businesses – even those previously opposed to remote work – will adopt policies that allow people to work from home on an ongoing basis.
But there is that big IF looming. If your organization needs help getting all of your people access to the business-critical applications they need from home, we’re here to help. And if you’re one of the thousands of companies that need a solution yesterday, and are worried about how long it takes to roll out old-school products like VDI and DaaS (weeks at best, months usually), fear not. Cameyo can have you up and running within hours – just like we did for this company.
You can start a free trial here and have your first application published within minutes. And if you’re looking for more information about how Cameyo can help enable remote work at scale for your organization, take a look at some of our previous posts: