Posted: WHRM (The Society for Human Resource Management), April 21st 2020
While remote work had been on the rise even before the COVID-19 outbreak, most employees taking advantage of the arrangement had some form of in-person relationship with their employer before they began to work from home.
It is still relatively rare for companies to hire employees to work remotely from day one. But is this changing, or is it likely to change, based on the current situation?
What Will Happen When Stay-at-Home Orders Are Lifted?
While there’s much talk about “getting back to normal,” some say that isn’t likely to happen. For many organizations, said Tobias Porserud, director of AppJobs Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, things will not return to what they were.
“We are on our way to a labor market where you stream work in a similar way as you currently stream entertainment via Netflix and Spotify,” he said. “Similar to the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, the COVID-19 crisis will probably catalyze the emerging gig economy, and thereby accelerate the opportunities and challenges that come with increased flexibility and reduced security in the labor market.”
As companies around the country and around the world learn how to make remote work work, the prospect of leveraging a much larger pool of candidates, especially for hard-to-fill positions, is likely to become increasingly attractive.