As COVID-19 continues to spread through communities around the world, we have seen a significant shift of software companies moving remote – everything from normal work to candidate interviewing and conferences. Companies that enable remote work like Zoom are jumping on the opportunity to hook employers on using their tools to facilitate this new working paradigm.
But is this just a phase? Or something with lasting effect?
Allow me to guess what the post-pandemic employer landscape will look like:
I suspect that most competitive software companies will embrace “remote-first” policies and processes, enabling employees to work remotely if they wish while offering office space when particularly helpful. “Asynchronous” will become part of a regular vernacular. Daily accessibility of offices will become less of a necessity for employees, shifting employee residences away from urban areas (decreasing, but not eliminating, the urbanization growth rate). Suburban communities, in particular, that serve residents who work from home (housing and transportation accessibility, top-notch public utilities including highspeed internet, and a vibrant commercial and coworking community) will thrive.
At Joy Labs, we may be a little ahead of this curve, already having a 100% distributed workforce. This has enabled our members to live around the world and has given our organization the ability to access talent others are not able to. Managing a distributed culture certainly takes effort, but instead of thinking of this work as “more difficult,” it is perhaps best to think of it as “different.”
The future of work is quickly becoming a reality. My advice to software companies, young and old? Don’t get left behind.
