Remote Work

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Remote work is here to stay. Yes, that’s a statement that sounds like one from a 2020 presidential candidate or a new age guru—and you might think it’s hyperbolic. But in the wake of last year’s tech worker labor strike in Seattle, remote work offers some real opportunities to refresh our understanding of the office as we know it. In the past decade—a time when telecommuting exploded into what is typically referred to as “work from home” — Manhattan has come to be considered by some as an island where only people who work always and never do anything else are tolerated by employers.

It’s a model that is no longer viable if it ever was. It’s not just the tech companies. Across industries, talent has become more diverse and less likely to be limited to a single generation. There are myriad reasons, but they all lead back to the same conclusion: Today’s workers want the option of working remotely at times. In addition, many of them don’t see having a home office as incompatible with having a social life or family life. To them, both can be had simultaneously in ways they didn’t feel possible when both work and home were located in the same place—in most cases a city like Manhattan.

More than twice as many workers work remotely today than a decade ago, according to the Society for Human Resource Management, and the number of people who say they would prefer a more flexible office environment has risen significantly over the past few years. The idea that one day, perhaps in five years or 10, this shift will become dominant seems inevitable (Haag, 2021). More important is how remote work affects our workplaces and cities, making them more flexible and adaptable. The less restrictive our work arrangements are today—and the better able we are to make them so—the less we’ll need to rewire our office culture as we go forward.

A majority of Manhattan office workers are still working remotely even after the pandemic spread across the city. This may be because so many people have been employed by remote companies in the last few years that it is still normal for professionals to work from wherever they live. However, this trend is causing some problems for those who have not been trained to do so and are therefore not used to working remotely. One of these issues has been an increased demand for public transportation and changes in how businesses operate as well as how society functions on a day-to-day basis. Spotify is also working towards reducing the number of workers working at the physical office. It claims that its United States employees — 2,100 of whom had worked at the Manhattan office — that they could work from pretty much anywhere (Haag, 2021). Additionally, they could work from a coffee shop, an airport, or from home pretty much anytime. In January, Spotify announced that only 20 percent of its employees are currently in the office. This could be due to the fact that the company is looking ahead to future growth and chose to grow its workforce in a more efficient way. Instead of transporting employees from one place to another, Spotify is considering allowing some employees to work remotely. The company estimates that these workers would be at the office an average of 50 percent less each day than their “New York City-based” colleagues (Haag, 2021).

Just like Manhattan, other organizations such as JPMorgan Chase & Co., which has more than 20,000 office employees in New York City, are considering a rotational work model (Haag, 2021). This involves employees rotating between working remotely and in the office. According to this model, employees will have some flexibility in where to work. The goal of the company is to allow at least half of its employees to work remotely for a given period of time.

Manhattan has one of the highest concentrations of workers in companies located in New York City and throughout the United States. Many office workers spend their entire day commuting and working in an office creating a space that is only supposed to be their home away from home. However, remote work has become more common among many companies as they recognize that allowing workers to telecommute can be beneficial for both the employee and employer.

References

Haag, M. (2021). Remote work is here to stay. Manhattan may never be the same. The New York Times.