New studies show that the average American worker is showing continued interest in working remotely and rollouts of in-office mandates are finally slowing down in response. The huge push for remote work started with the COVID-19 lockdowns, but lingered when many workers found that they preferred to work from home. A study shows most private workplaces have now opted for a hybridization of the workweek. This marks an important shift from our remote work coverage from March and October of last year, as it seems that the demands of the worker and the demands of the workplace have reached a sort of equilibrium. Large companies like IBM are still cracking down on employees and mandating in-office work, but the craziness of the pandemic seems to be subsiding. The average in-office attendance mandate for companies now sits at 3.1 days per week, and a stabilizing remote work market shows that companies are hiring fully remote workers at a rate just under 9% for all roles, twice as high as pre-pandemic numbers.
Fully remote work – from anywhere – remains desirable for 75% of professional employees and some are willing to give up a lot in return, according to a new survey conducted by FlexJobs. About 50% of the 4,000 professionals included in the survey said they would take a pay cut for the remote work package: 26% said they would take a 5% pay cut, and 24% said they would be willing to accept a whopping 10%-15% pay reduction if it meant they could work from anywhere. About 20% would be willing to increase their work hours and 15% would give up some vacation days.
On the other end of things, studies showed that a vast majority of CEOs asked were willing to heavily incentivize returning to in-office work: a push and pull that demonstrates how return-to-office strategies are not one-size-fits-all in the current landscape. For instance, about 38% of employees with graduate degrees reported partial remote work, a number that falls to 7.2% for workers with only high school diplomas. But it seems many high-paying jobs, with salaries over $200,000, are facing mounting pressure from companies to return to the office. Jobs in this pay bracket were working remotely 36.7% of the time during the height of the pandemic but have taken a steep decline down to just 12.2%. These percentages are roughly indicative of the overall share of remote jobs in the market as the large swings and shifts from the pandemic are finally starting to settle back into place.
LMA Newsletter of 3-25-24
