Is The Digital Nomad Lifestyle Over, Or Will Remote Worker Power Triumph?
The future of work and a career path away from the norm will come down to personal choices and priorities. Still, it seems that many who have tasted freedom are unwilling to be chained to a desk again and will be either limiting their work options, either becoming freelance or seeking to join a more enlightened, flexible employer. US Jobsite Flexjobs has published a list of the top 100 companies offering flexible remote working with Computer/I.T., healthcare, marketing, and creative financial services industries heading the list for growing remote job opportunities.
The Covid pandemic black clouds of lockdowns and emptying offices and struggling businesses have, for many who became home-workers overnight when their offices were closed, had a silver lining. The sudden colossal change of being instructed to work remotely proved to be an eye-opener, not only demonstrating how well people could still do their job without the daily commute or being managed in an office environment, but how much their quality of life and well-being improved.
Technologies like Zoom, Skype, Facetime, and MS teams came into their own and proved critical in enabling remote collaborative working, keeping some businesses alive.
With no need to attend a workplace, many employees, rather than simply holing up in their apartments, sought permission from their company to relocate to more attractive rural surroundings or even travel and work remotely, just as many freelancers do. Provided their time zone and broadband access enabled them to perform their duties effectively, many employers agreed.
And like those who opted to work from home, the so-called digital nomads also proved perfectly capable of performing their duties effectively — even in some cases even more productively. But there were issues.
However joyous the thought of freedom to travel and be welcomed in countries across the globe may seem, what is OK for freelancers, is not quite so simple for company employees when it comes to the inevitable tax or domicile issues.
Both employers and workers need to consider the risks. Minaho Shiraishi, head of global mobility services at consultancy KPMG, noted that the tax implications of taking a laptop and heading for a country your employer has no presence in can be huge, both for employers and staff.
But it depends on their post-pandemic policy, and the signs are that many corporations, notably the finance sector, have made it clear that remote working is not a long term option, and they expect staff to return to regular office working practices; employers in the financial-services industry expect 61% of staff to be back by the end of September, up from 50% in March, according to a survey by the Partnership for New York City.
Indeed, JP Morgan Chase & Co., the first major U.S. bank to mandate a return to offices for its entire US workforce by mid-July, are even requiring law firms and others handling their business to follow suit.
“The law firms have no choice,” noted Wendy Schoen, who runs her own New York-based legal recruitment firm. “They have to cave to the client because the client is paying the bills. But they’re going to have to figure out something to do with their lawyers; otherwise, they will have a mass exodus.”
It seems that workers in many sectors unwilling to give up their newfound freedoms have threatened to quit unless their working conditions are improved, the so-called great resignation. A Microsoft survey of more than 30,000 global workers showed that 41% of workers are considering quitting or changing professions this year. However, some corporate skepticism about the idea that people will leave jobs and risk unemployment, a view endorsed by HR firm Tinypulse in their US-focused survey of 770 companies conducted May 10 to May 24 this year, showing a quarter believe no one will leave. However, as Monster found in their recent survey, not everyone agrees, finding that 95% of workers surveyed are currently actively considering changing jobs.
Some corporations claim to have derived productivity benefits from a more results-based remote culture versus an expectation of bums on seats. As a result, they now see offering the freedom to work remotely as a potential benefit that will help them attract the best talent compared to competitors insisting on returning to office-based working.
A two-year study carried out by A Great Place to Work found that employees could get more done with daily commuting and long face-to-face meetings eliminated. However, remote work is influenced by the same critical factors as office-based: leadership and healthy, supportive company culture. Workplaces that are strong in both have high employee productivity regardless of where they work.
The future of work and a career path away from the norm will come down to personal choices and priorities, but it seems that many who have tasted freedom are unwilling to be chained to a desk again and will be either limiting their work options either becoming freelance or through seeking to join a more enlightened, flexible employer. US Jobsite Flexjobs has published a list of the top 100 companies offering flexible remote working with Computer/I.T., healthcare, marketing, and creative financial services industries heading the list for growing remote job opportunities.
And, while making remote working a priority will shorten their list of desirable potential employers and color their choices, this is changing rapidly. Some prominent corporations are lining up either side of the divide of a long-term remote working option with Amazon, Google, and others claiming to be pursuing a hybrid working model, part office-based, part remote this model does not lend itself to the digital nomad lifestyle.
Other corporations embrace flexible working, including The Ford Motor Company, Capital One, Spotify, American Express, Atlassian, HubSpot, Nationwide Insurance, and Microsoft.
So, is the digital Nomad dream over?
No, I think far from it. I believe the pandemic has created an inflection point, and it will take time to settle down and evolve. However, I think the age of Digital Nomads far from being over is still gathering pace. For corporations considering a long-term remote working model, it will be how they approach creating a controlled and effective remote working environment to attract the best talent that will be crucial. Importantly it will include defining the options, including what they mean by remote working? For example, working from a single registered base, e.g., at home in the country of domicile, or whether people can travel? For some, like Spotify, remote working may well be defined as any location within a country where they have an entity, addressing the domicile issue in the simplest way possible.
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Originally published at Upstack.co on Aug 23, 2021, by Symon Blomfield.
