Most of the corporate world is entering the eighth month of pandemic-driven remote work and by this point, a long list of companies have taken the plunge and announced that employees can work from home permanently. Companies embracing this shift include tech giants like Facebook, Twitter, and Slack, along with a host of non-tech enterprises like Nationwide. Most companies however are taking a shorter-term approach to remote work, notifying employees to standby; they should expect to return to offices at some point in time with target dates for reopening ranging from next spring to summer.
So why aren’t more companies making remote work permanent? Most people would probably assume the biggest concern for leadership is employee productivity. In truth, the answer is far more complex. There are a number of barriers preventing permanent remote work. By taking a look at a few we can see why 2020 has been a complicated year for executives trying to balance business goals with long-term strategic planning.
Existing real-estate commitments
If we could launch new companies today, there’s a good chance we’d make our teams fully remote. But as the social sharing app Pinterest demonstrated when it made news in September for paying nearly $90 million to exit its lease agreement in San Francisco, existing companies have a lot of costs to think about when choosing to go remote.
Commercial lease agreements are typically long in duration, so it’s not unusual that companies must agree to a three to ten-year term for office space. If you can imagine being one year into a five-year lease when COVID-19 struck in March, you can see why some companies are unable to buy themselves out of that agreement. Now imagine eating that cost not just in one location but across several offices in different cities and you’ll start to understand why some leaders are reluctant to walk away from their offices.
Still, it’s unlikely that CEOs are sitting around and waiting for life to return to normal. Many companies like Microsoft MSFT -0.1% have announced Hybrid work from home plans for the future, while other organizations are looking at models where existing offices serve as collaboration hubs, or essentially permanent WeWork-like office spaces where employees may meet to collaborate as needed. Both of these models can put existing office space to use while also accommodating the flexibility of work from home that employees have become accustomed to during the last several months.
The hardest thing to replicate from an office setting isn’t employee productivity. Thanks to collaboration platforms in the cloud, there’s never been more options for employees to communicate and work together from anywhere. Unfortunately, the same isn’t true of the social aspects of work. There’s not a virtual way to sit with a stranger at lunch and spark a new relationship or to swing by a new employee’s desk to introduce yourself. There are attempts - Zoom lunches, virtual happy hours, or ‘watercooler’ chat rooms, but nothing can replicate the true spontaneity or depth of connection of a physical workspace.
These connections are valuable for a lot of reasons. Workplace friendships are important to employee happiness and engagement. They can also unlock new ideas, develop cultural brokers who will share knowledge across teams, and keep employees committed to the company during challenging times. Unfortunately, it will be time before we can tell if we’re getting to know our colleagues remotely, or just remotely getting to know them.
Not all employees prefer remote work
In a recent Gallup poll - the majority (about 60%) of employees said they hope to continue working remotely once the pandemic is over. While it’s a majority, it still leaves 40% of people who would like to resume office work.
If we were to zoom in to the lives of those who would prefer to work in the office, what would we find? We might find some who live in small homes and can’t sacrifice the valuable space for a workstation. We may find some who live alone and rely on the workplace for socialization. And we may find some who, for any number of reasons pertaining to neurodiversity, simply feel they work better in an office setting. While there are upsides to remote work, there’s no doubt that shuttering offices and becoming a virtual enterprise would not be the best fit for all employees. For these employees, Hybrid models may be a good option following the pandemic.
It’s not all downside
For all the reasons I’ve outlined, there are of course others that support making remote work permanent. There’s a potential for improved work-life balance and the ability to spend more time with family. Lately, I’ve found the environmental benefits of remote work especially appealing. Between being evacuated from fires and returning home to a red-skied Silicon Valley from ash and smoke in the atmosphere, taking tens of millions of cars off the roads is more appealing to me than ever before.
Whatever the future holds for remote work, one thing is certain: the technology that enables it is bound to continue to improve and unlock new opportunities for productive and social collaboration. But it’s important that business leaders look beyond productivity when making the decision to make their companies fully remote.
This article originally appeared on MarketWatch.
