7 Facts About the Hybrid Workforce You (Probably) Didn’t Know

A doubling in remote growth

In a pre-COVID survey by Upwork, 13.2% of respondents were working entirely remote,ly and hiring managers expected to increase this to 17.2% over the next five years. After COVID, hiring managers are planning for 21.8% of their workforce to be entirely remote in five years. This means the expected growth rate of full-time remote work over the next five years has more than doubled, from 30% to 65%. (Upwork)

Employees are willing (even to sacrifice)

Are employees on board with hybrid workforce arrangements? It seems that way, with 23% of full-time employees saying that they are willing to take a pay cut of over 10% to work from home at least some of the time. (Owl Labs)

Nearly everyone would try remote work

If they could, 98% of people surveyed would opt to work remotely, at least part-time, for the remainder of their careers. (Buffer)

A lot of them now expect the option

In fact, according to “State of Remote Work 2020 – Covid Edition” by Owl Labs, an amazing one in two people just won’t return to jobs that don’t offer remote work after the COVID-19 pandemic. (Owl Labs)

A new face on office space?

Accordingly, 66% of leaders say their companies are considering redesigning office space for the new hybrid workplace. (Microsoft) Dealing with this goes beyond just moving furniture around: there are going to be security, policy and procedure implications you’ll have to address, too.

“Zoom boom”? “Slack attack”? “Teams tide”?

Just in case anyone hasn’t noticed it, 32% of organizations across the board have introduced new tools to hold virtual meetings. (RingCentral)  There are already cybersecurity issues involved in the use of these platforms, and other policy management considerations to contend with as the hybrid workforce continues to utilize these tools, but now in more varied ways.

Skyrocketing results for collaboration solutions

According to Statista, the global unified communications and collaboration market grew by more than 29% in 2020 compared to 2019, reaching $47.2 billion. (Statista)  That’s only going to continue to grow, now that there’s evidence of increased productivity from remote and hybrid workforce configurations.

The pressures to adopt hybrid workforce models

What does this laundry list of statics really mean? It means your organization needs to offer a hybrid workforce model, or risk losing out on employees. Whether through attrition or by being unable to attract new hires, companies that don’t have a hybrid workforce option may find themselves strapped for quality staff.

As priorities have shifted and workers and companies alike have realized that working remotely is both productive and enjoyable, more collaboration tools have been added to tech stacks around the world to support the new, flexible hybrid workforce.

The question arises: Is your organization ready to incorporate new tools that benefit your employees and your bottom line? Workflow automation is one key technology to support a hybrid workforce, among others.   No matter what the future holds, your tech stack and the collaboration and risk management solutions it incorporates will be crucial to ensure business continuity and happy employees, wherever they are.

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