July 2022 //
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound effect on the world. Businesses have compressed into months digitization plans that they had envisioned would take years. Employees who had been tied to one location can now work from anywhere (WFA), and that trend will persist for the foreseeable future. Results from the ZK Research 2022 Work-from-Anywhere Study show that while only 22% of employees regularly worked remotely before the pandemic, 51% will work from home two to three days per week, and another 14% will do so one day per week (Exhibit 1). This indicates that the future of work is hybrid.
In addition, many companies don’t expect to have employees back in the office full time ever again. Salesforce’s president and chief people officer, Brent Hyder, told MarketWatch that the company will revamp its offices to eliminate a “sea of desks” and expects that 65% of its 54,000 employees will come into the office only one to three days per week (up from 40% pre-pandemic). Other companies, such as Microsoft and Google, are also embracing the hybrid work trend.